After watching this clip from the 1973 documentary about Jimi Hendrix (appropriately titled Jimi Hendrix), I simply have to say that Little Richard may very well be the single greatest individual ever. Don’t believe me? Well, then watch the above clip, sucker!
Special thanks to Sid Hillman, Greg Vincent, and Thom Arredondo for showing me this clip back in the awesome days at UCLA’s Audio Visual Services (AVS). It has been stuck in my mind for a solid 15 years.
Forget Frost/Nixon. This is the best interview ever. And I’m not even sure that anyone was there asking questions.
Have you seen “Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll!”? Run, don’t walk to see it. Little Richard is unbelievable in that film. As is Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, Keith Richards, and of course Chuck himself.
Little Richard, all rootie!
Luke,
Now there is a performer of the highest order….”cocaine, piece a grass, some herowan….
Gardner,
Is that the documentary where you told me the story with Bruce Springsteen and the East Street band playing as the pickup band for Chuck Berry, and when they asked him what they are going to play, he says in response “We’re gonna play some Chuck Berry songs!” If so, I quote that story all the time, and love it, and I am an imposter because I do need to see the movie so I can stop leeaching off your genius 🙂
Hail Hail Rock n’ Roll is a great doc. I’m with Gardner. Little Richard is badass — no question. He is one of the very few musicians of the late 1950s to stay on the scene through the 70s and even on to the 1980s. He wasn’t producing new material, just being around — staying relevant at least in that way.
Ya I ahve always loved Little Richard in the Jimi documentary. Rock on Little Richard!
Little Richard is so pretty! And he feels pretty.
That’s the one, Jim. Believe me. Believe Mikhail. Believe Bruce. Believe Chuck.
Believe Little Richard.
The scenes with Richard and Bo and Chuck are beyond description and beyond praise. They’re such champions. And there are some extraordinary moments of surreality in this film, from the bit with Springsteen to a scene with Jerry Lee Lewis recounting how his mother told him that “you and Elvis, you’re all right, but you’re no Chuck Berry.”
Must see! Then we can quote bits to each other and howl.
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I don’t mind looking freaky, either. Seems I’m in excellent company. And I’m surely going to track down Hail Hail Rock n’ Roll.