Hell yeah, I’m in! Anything more cringe than Pat motherfucking Boone singing “Tutti Frutti?”
Produced by Bungalow Media + Entertainment for CNN Films and HBO Max, in association with Rolling Stone Films, director Lisa Cortés’ Sundance opening night documentary LITTLE RICHARD: I AM EVERYTHING tells the story of the Black queer origins of rock n’ roll, exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. Through a wealth of archive and performance that brings us into Richard’s complicated inner world, the film unspools the icon’s life story with all its switchbacks and contradictions. In interviews with family, musicians, and cutting-edge Black and queer scholars, the film reveals how Richard created an art form for ultimate self-expression, yet what he gave to the world he was never able to give to himself. Throughout his life, Richard careened like a shiny cracked pinball between God, sex and rock n’ roll. The world tried to put him in a box, but Richard was an omni being who contained multitudes – he was unabashedly everything. Directed by Lisa Cortés, LITTLE RICHARD: I AM EVERYTHING is produced by Robert Friedman, Cortés, Liz Yale Marsh and Caryn Capotosto and Executive Produced by Dee Rees.
Best appreciated in its full whiteness.
Which Steve Martin must have watched before writing The Jerk.
Kathy Griffin relates what it was like working with Little Richard and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog on Hollywood Squares (about 16:25 – 19:00). Phenomenal.
WHOOO DAT DAWG
I’d pay $500 to hear Boone perfectly annunciate, “Tutti Frutti, good booty,” “if it’s too tight, don’t force it,” and “you can grease it, make it easy.”
PB’s cover is even more sanitized than I thought. He changes “she rocks to the east/she rocks to the west” to “I’ve been to the east/I’ve been to the west.” Jesus.