Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock n Roll - Stream the documentary now | American Masters

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American Masters: Little Richard
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[Episode begins. A camera pans down a microphone in a studio. Photos of a young mustached Little Richard is seen in a studio. More studio footage is shown.]

Voice: Ready?

Richard: ♪ Well, it — ♪
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. It’s me. One, two. Jesus! I messed up. Oh, Lord, take care of me.

Voice: Do you want to rest a while, Rich?

Richard: I’ll do it this time. I got it. I’ll feel my way.

Voice: Take two.

Richard: Ready!

Voice: Okay. Let’s go.

[Footage of a younger Little Richard performing in front of a red curtain.]

Richard: ♪ Wop bop a loo bop, a lop bom bom ♪
♪ Tutti frutti, oh, rootie ♪
♪ Tutti frutti, oh, rootie ♪
♪ Tutti frutti, oh, rootie ♪

Ringo Starr: You can’t help but move. [He dances.]

Richard: ♪ Tutti frutti, oh, rootie ♪

Ringo: Back in the ’50s, we’d never seen anything like that.

Richard: ♪ A- wop bop a loo bop, a lop bom bom ♪

Ringo: Like, the Beatles — you know, he was a huge influence on us.

Keith Richards: Fantastic. The beat, man, and the feel. Richard was creating something new.

[Black and white stills of Little Richard and footage from his performances.]

Richard: Roll it again!
♪ Well, it’s Saturday night, and I just got paid ♪
♪ Fool about my money ♪

Ron Jones, Bandmate & Friend: When Little Richard started making those records, it was like taking the best acid in the world, you know? [Chuckles]

[Footage of Little Richard playing piano with one leg on the lid.]

Richard: ♪ I’m gonna rip it up ♪

Keith: Watching him, I mean, that’s how the Rolling Stones became the Rolling Stones.

[A young Keith Richards dances on stage in a Rolling Stones performance.]

Richard: ♪ And ball tonight ♪

Big Freedia When Richard started to perform, you can see he was a queer kid.

Richard: ♪ I woke up this mornin’, Lucille was not in sight ♪
♪ I asked my friends about her, but all their lips were tight ♪

Big Freedia With all this makeup on, updo hairstyles, all of that.

Richard: ♪ Satisfy my heart ♪

Big Freedia He was a pioneer.

Richard: ♪ And gave you such a wonderful start ♪

Big Freedia And so he just kept coming.

[Continued footage of Little Richard’s performances and black and white stills.

Nile Rogers: For a long, long time, Little Richard was the top of the sort of artist food chain.

[Cheers and applause as Little Richie performs in front of a large audience.]

He was one of those artists that carved out that path for others to walk down.

Richard: Let it all hang out! [Cheers and applause] With the beautiful Little Richard from down in Macon, Georgia! I want you all know that I am the king of rock ‘n’ roll!

[Cheers and applause]

Big Freedia He had to stand up for hisself… because of the music industry. They just never gave him his flowers.

[Now, Little Richard is seen in a brief montage of televised interviews. Contemplative instrumentals play. Text on screen: Producer, Joanna Boateng. Dearl Nelson. Director, James House. Richard: King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.]

Interviewer: Would you welcome Little Richard? And here he is.

[Cheers and applause]

Richard: Shut up! [Laughs]

Interviewer: What a life you have had.

Richard: See, I was rockin’ all the time. Then my spirit start rollin’. That’s where it came from.

Interviewer: You said you turned away from the “devil’s music.”

Richard: What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul? – I believe you’re the only person who ever claimed to be both the king and the queen of rock ‘n’ roll.

[Now, a view of Los Angeles, California in 1985. A woman addresses Little Richard.]

Woman: Richard, do you have, like, a favorite side?

Richard: Yes, this is my little side. And this is my big side. I like both of them. [Laughs]

Ron: At that point in his life, Richard wasn’t playing rock ‘n’ roll. We were very, very close friends. I met Richard, um, in Los Angeles in the ’70s and became part of his band. We bonded.

Richard: Your eyes may shine, your teeth may grit… but none of my suns you will get. [Laughs]

[Continued aerial footage of Los Angeles and photos of Little Richard.]

Ron: Years later, I would go visit him. He was living at a hotel on Sunset Boulevard. With a spiral staircase and all of that. I’d go to the lobby and hang out, and then Richard would come down from the elevator. And there’s people in the lobby, and they’d say, “That’s Little Richard.” He’d say, “Oh, hey, baby!” And he was waving at everybody. And he would embrace people, and they would ask him to sign autographs. And he would sign autographs. So we’ll get through that. Then the driver would come. He would just want to ride.

[A limousine plays a Little Richard single.]

– ♪ Good golly, Miss Molly ♪
♪ Sure like to ball ♪
♪ Ooh, good golly, Miss Molly ♪
♪ Sure like to ball ♪
♪ When you’re rockin’ and a- rollin’ ♪
♪ Can’t hear your mama call ♪
♪ Ahh ♪

Ron: The conversation along the road could be about anything. We’d talk about his life, you know, the beginning of rock ‘n’ roll.

– ♪ When you’re rockin’ and a-rollin’ ♪

Ron: When I came on the scene, there wasn’t no rock ‘n’ roll. Everybody was playing blues. You know?

[Little Richard is seen in the back seat. Text on screen: #AmericanMastersPBS.]

Richard: ♪ Dun-dun, dun, dun ♪
♪ Dun-dun, dun, dun, dun- dun ♪

That’s — Every blues singer in the country was doing that. And I got tired of —

♪ Dun-dun, dun, dun ♪

You know, I created rock ‘n’ roll. Didn’t even know what I was doing.

Ron: My experience with Richard was that he was always trying to tell his story. Richard, he wanted to be heard. It was because of what he’s been through. He was there in the beginning. His story is the story of rock ‘n’ roll.

[Tender music plays over black and white footage of a residential street in Macon, Georgia in 1932. A sign reads: WHITE ENTRANCE.]

He was born in Georgia. Macon, I believe. He’s in the South, so, you know, there’s the Jim Crow stuff, you know, segregation. But Richard would say when he was, you know, 10 years old, he wasn’t aware of stuff like that.

Richard: I’m from a little country town where you see the chickens are all over the yard. You know, it’s like a little country town. And you would hear people singing all over the neighborhood.

[Black and white footage of Black individuals picking cotton. A tune is sung.]

Richard: And then late at night, I would run down the street singing. Everybody wanted to kill me in the neighborhood. Um, left at the next corner. But it was really, really something. And I used to play the piano every Sunday, you know —

♪ Gimme that old-time ♪
♪ Talking about religion ♪
♪ Gimme that old- time religion ♪
♪ Religion that it used to be ♪

[A cassette tape plays in a vehicle.]

Tyina Steptoe, Writer & Historian: One thing that always strikes me about Little Richard — when he would talk about his hometown, two of the themes that always came out were religion and music. Every Black community in the South had a church on every corner.

[African Americans gather in archived church footage.]

Churchgoers: ♪ You gotta be set free ♪
♪ Yeaaah! ♪

Tyina: In those churches, you know, they would improvise. They played loudly, to be heard. People are singing with their feelings.

Richard: There’s a lot of Black churches that play gospel music. You can’t tell it from rock ‘n’ roll ’cause the Black churches are so rhythmy. You go into some Black churches, they have a better band than I ever had in rock ‘n’ roll!

Tyina: Before there was a rock ‘n’ roll, those churches were rocking.

Richard: When I was a little boy, I said, “One day, I’m gonna do that.” And so I was singing gospel music every day. I always liked women singers. I liked the way the ladies sing high. And I loved Mahalia Jackson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and the Clara Ward Singers. I’d be like —
♪ Oooh ♪ You know? I wanted to be like that.

[“Packing Up” by Clara Warn & The Famous Ward Singers]
– ♪ Packin’ up ♪
– ♪ Gettin’ ready to go ♪
– ♪ Gettin’ ready to go ♪
– ♪ Gettin’ ready to go ♪
– ♪ Packin’ up, ooh, Lord ♪
– ♪ Packin’ up, packin’ up ♪
– ♪ Lord, oh, Lord ♪
– ♪ Packin’ up, packin’ up ♪
– ♪ Packin’ up, packin’ up ♪
– ♪ Whooo- ooh! ♪
– ♪ Packin’ up, packin’ up ♪
– ♪ Whooo- ooh! ♪
– ♪ Packin’ up, packin’ up ♪
– ♪ Whoo- hoo- ooh! ♪

[Ron listens to the song with headphones, then takes the headphones off.]

Ron: Absolutely. You can hear in that, of course, the famous “Whoo!” So even all those early on gospel songs like that went — ♪ Nuh- nuh- nuh, nuh, nuh- nuh ♪ That’s what they’re doing. And Richard took it to be — ♪ Nuh- nuh- nuh- nuh- nuh- nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh ♪ He made it rock ‘n’ roll. With the higher voice.

[“True Fine Mama” by Little Richard]
– ♪ Whoo, come back, baby ♪
– ♪ Come back, baby ♪
– ♪ Don’t leave me here ♪
– ♪ Don’t leave me here ♪

Richard: You could hear I took all those little things that I had from a little boy, and I just put them together and made the songs.

♪ Don’t disappear ♪
♪ Yes, true fine mama ♪

When I was a boy, I knew that I was different.

[Black and white footage and photos of a young family. In new footage, a young boy applies blue eyeshadow and red lipstick. Tender instrumentals play.]

Tyina: Richard Penniman came from a huge family. His mother eventually had a dozen children. And his family described him as being trouble.

Richard: I was so flamboyant. You know, I was wearing my mother’s makeup and lipstick, everything all over me.

Tyina: Even as a young boy, he’s developing a style that didn’t play by the rules.

Richard: I used to play house with my cousins and I wanted to be the mama, you know? The girls loved you, but the boys hated you. They’d call me “sissy,” “punk,” “freak,” “faggot.” And they used to want to fight you. And so I had my first experience with a boy. I told my mother. And she used to tell me to hush.

Tyina: In the 1940s, homosexuality is a crime.

Man in TV footage: Most Americans are repelled by the mere notion of homosexuality. A vast majority believe that homosexuality is an illness.

[Tender instrumentals become tense. Continued stills of a younger Little Richard.]

Richard: My grandfather was a preacher. My daddy, he said he wanted seven boys and I was messing it up because I was gay. Right at the light. That’s it. You know, so I was always considered a bad boy.

Charles Moore, Little Richard’s Valet: Back in the ’70s, sometimes on the road he would come see me in my room, and we would talk. I never forgot what he told me about his dad. When he saw his son dressed with a wig on, with makeup on, he tied him down and beat him. Beat him until he’d go unconscious. But Richard said it didn’t faze him. He did his own thing regardless of his dad. No one could tell him. He would say, “Be what you want to be.” And that — To me, I admired him. I still do admire him for that.

[Little Richard’s limo arrives at a diner. He eats inside.]

Richard: My daddy, he put me out. He told me I had to do what he wanted me to do or else get out, and so I didn’t do what he said, I got out.

Ron: He left home, but his whole life he wanted to be accepted by his dad, but his dad ended up dying before that happened. His father got in an argument with one of Richard’s friends. The guy shot him. His friend killed his dad. I can only imagine, you know, what it was like in terms of that guilt. Inside of him, there was something always fighting.

[A radio station interview.]

Tom Schnabel: You’re listening to KCRW 89.9 FM. My name is Tom Schnabel.

Roger Steffens: And I’m Roger Steffens. Welcome to KCRW, Richard.

Richard: Oh, I’m so glad to be here. I’m just speechless. I just — I got to just get — ♪ Whoo! ♪

Roger: ♪ Whoo! ♪

Tom: As well as Charles White who is the author of a brand- new book called “Richard: The Quasar of Rock.”

Charles ‘Dr. Rock’ White, Biographer & Friend: When I started to write his life story, he used to say, “Dr. Rock, I’m omnisexual.” [Laughs] Because, really, he was torn — torn by it.

Roger: Now, listen, do we call you “Little” or do we call you “Richard”?

Richard: Oh, whatever is suitable and fitting.

Charles: Sexuality was a dilemma for him. But it wouldn’t be obvious.

Roger: You know, my first impression is you’re not little at all.

Richard: Oh, no.

Roger: I don’t mean you’re overweight, but, I mean, you are tall.

Richard: Oh. Everything is big, I must admit. [Laughs]

Charles: He has great — great humor and great fun.

[Charles brings out a heavy bin of cassette tapes.]

[Grunts] [Laughs] Alright. They’re all Little Richard. I interviewed him for the book. He always wanted to be a great musician. But, really, he wanted to be accepted.

[Little Richard on cassette tape. Up-tempo music begins.]

Richard: So, I left my hometown when I was 14, and that’s when it all started. I joined a show called The Broadway Follies. To me, they was the nicest people I’d ever met. I became their vocalist. And they changed my name to Little Richard.

Bobby Rush, Blues Musician & Friend: Little Richard came up through the Chitlin’ Circuit like I did. Let me explain Chitlin’ Circuit. At that time, all across the South, it was segregated. And so if you were Black, you had the Chitlin’ Circuit. It got its name because they always served the inside of a pig, a hog, the chitlin’, the guts. And so everybody was eating chitlins in joints like this we’re sitting in now. You know, my mama told me to leave Caldonia alone. That’s what she told me. No kidding. Louis Jordan, “Caldonia.” I sung that song every night ’cause I didn’t know no other song but that song.

♪ Caldonia, Caldonia ♪
♪ What make your big head so hard? ♪

[Black and white stills of the Chitlin’ Circuit.]

Richard: I thought I was famous then. But there wasn’t nobody screaming over me but me.

Bobby: I remember Little Richard and I — Oh, this story. When I came off the stage, it was his time because he was starting the show. He said, “Bobby Rush, don’t go nowhere. Stand right there.” He said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you something about this man here.” Oh, I got my chest stuck out. I’m waiting for the glory. He said, “Myself and Bobby Rush… we are the prettiest men in the world.” [Laughs] And I did like this. I said… [Laughs] He thought he was the best- looking man in the world. You know? But one thing he had was talent.

[Text on screen: #AmericanMastersPBS. Tender instrumentals play over footage of a New Orleans street.]

So, we would do the show, get up the next morning, and go to the next town. If you come to New Orleans, you play the Dew Drop, man. [Laughs] When you went to the Dew Drop, man, it was like Carnegie Hall in New York, man. You was, like, in heaven, man. It was it.

Deacon John, Former Band Leader, The Dew Drop Inn: The Dew Drop Inn. Well, this was the hippest place to play in town. Little Richard came in here, and one time, I was his opening act. Richard was a really flamboyant dresser with glamorous suits and ties that he wore with the hair up, with the bouffant.

Richard: It was quite popular in those days for men to wear their hair like that. So I just took it a step farther, put mine a few inches higher than everybody else. I was the only guy wearing eyelashes. I was the only man wearing makeup.

[Continued stills of gatherings at The Dew Drop. Jazzy instrumentals play.]

Deacon: You know, a lot of people thought he’s some wild and crazy guy. But, you know, everybody from all walks of life came into a place like the Dew Drop. We had doctors, lawyers, pimps, prostitutes, rich, poor, you know, LGBT, you name it. Even the emcee, Patsy, she was a female impersonator. And Patsy might come out in a big gown with can- can slips and said, “Good evening, darlings. Welcome to the Dew Drop.” And Patsy would lift up the evening gown and said, “Come on and get the rest.” [Laughs] It was New Orleans, man.

Big Freedia, Rapper & Performer: The drag scene is definitely a thing that New Orleans has been doing for a very long time. We got the whole setup from all the older queens who came before us. Being a queer kid from New Orleans, I can relate to what Richard went through back then. When you meet people that’s just like you, it feels just fabulous. That gives you a moment to lay your hair down and be yourself. You can talk the way you want to talk. You can walk the way you want to walk. When you’re different, you’ve got to have that support, you know, a community of people that shows you the ropes.

Richard: These guys, these female impersonators. I went with them, and they wanted me to dress as a woman. Instead of saying “he,” they would say “she.”

Tyina: He creates this Princess LaVonne character, and she would just dazzle the audiences.

[Footage of an individual performing on stage.]

– ♪ Ain’t that good news? ♪
– ♪ Ain’t that good news? ♪
– ♪ Ain’t that good news? ♪
– ♪ Ain’t that good news? ♪
– ♪ Ain’t that good news? ♪
– ♪ Everybody’s blues crazy ♪

Richard: I wore the eyelashes and the head bands, and I’d have so much mascara on, it looks like mud. [Laughs]

– ♪ The blues ♪

Tyina: So, at this point, he’s writing blues music. He’s singing and performing R&B.

– ♪ Everybody’s blues crazy ♪

Tyina: There’s this great story where he’s whipping his hair around, and he turns to the audience and says, “I’m the king of the blues. And also the queen, too.” [Laughs]

♪ Ain’t that good ♪
♪ News ♪

Tyina: And so even though the Princess LaVonne character gets retired, I think that he took her with him. ♪

Ron: Richard was the greatest marketer of himself or anyone that I knew. Was constantly putting himself out there. So, he sent his demo tape to Specialty Records.

[Low instrumentals play over black and white footage of Little Richards.]

Richard: I waited one year. Can you imagine them having me wait a whole year?

[A reel-to-teel tape plays.]
♪ Taxi, taxi, take me anywhere ♪
♪ Taxi, taxi, take me anywhere ♪

Voice of Art Rupe, Founder of Specialty Records: We didn’t listen to the tape right away. It was a scratchy tape, and it was poorly recorded.

[Telephones ringing]

He just kept calling us. So, finally I said, “Find that tape.” And we found it, and we listened to it.

Richard: ♪ She got my money, but I don’t even care ♪

Art: And so if it hadn’t been for Richard’s persistence, we would have never met Little Richard.

[Footage of New Orleans, 1955.]

Richard: They had me to meet them in New Orleans, and I met them down there.

Richard: Alright. Stand by, please. This is “Wondering.” Done with a lot of feeling. Take one. I recorded some blues. I recorded “Wondering.”

♪ I’m ♪
♪ Wonderin’ ♪

Robert “Bumps” Blackwell, Producer, Specialty Records: I just stopped the session because we were getting no place fast. Great singer singing a good song. So what? And we went into the Dew Drop Inn. There was a piano. All of the boosters, rounders, pimps, whores, and everything else was hanging around. And that was when I began to know and understand Richard. ‘Cause that’s all you gotta do, is give Richard an audience, turn the lights on, and the show is on.

[A piano tune gains tempo.]

Ron: And Richard jumped on the piano and did —

♪ Awop-bop-a-loo-bop, alop-bam-boom ♪

So they heard it and say, “Wait a minute. What’s that?” It was a hook that they had never heard before. But Richard had been singing that phrase for years, you know, on the Chitlin’ Circuit.

Richard: And so I started singing. Awop-bop-a-loo-mop alop-bam-boom. If it don’t fit, don’t force it. You can grease it and make it easy. If you want it, you got it. Tutti-frutti, good booty.

Deacon: The lyrics could be interpreted as gay sex. They’re not gonna play that on the radio! [Laughs] “Tutti frutti, good booty.” And everybody knew this ain’t about ice cream. [Laughs] But the primary reaction from the producers’ point of view — hey, this sounds like a hit record.

Bumps: I asked him, did he have a grudge against making money? He said, “No.” I said, “Good.”

Richard: They said it was smutty, and so they helped me clean up my own lyrics. It was my song. I brought the song there.

Bumps: So we wrote the words “Tutti frutti, oh, rootie,” and “A girl named Sue” and “A girl named Daisy,” put Richard on the piano. And in 15 minutes, I think we cut two or three cuts. And it’s been history ever since.

[A drum beat begins in a recording studio. Little Richard performs “Tutti Frutti”]

Voice: Ready?

Richard: Ready!

Voice: Okay. Let’s go.

Richard: ♪ Wop bop a loo bop, a lop bom bom ♪
♪ Tutti frutti, oh, rootie ♪
♪ Tutti frutti, oh, rootie ♪
♪ Tutti frutti, oh, rootie ♪

[Bobby listens to “Tutti Frutti” with headphones.]

Bobby: The beat. The up-tempo of it. He was on his way to the rock ‘n roll now.

– ♪ Awop bop a loo bop, a lop bom bom ♪

Bobby: It was the first step in crossover. Blues and R&B had a baby.

Big Freedia: I mean, I love it. When I first heard it, I was like, “This is me all day.” I mean, just the word “tutti frutti.” It connects you to the gay community. You know, we are tutti frutties. [Laughs] That was one of the slang words that the mainstream community, they did not know at the time. I just know all of us tutti frutties were going crazy.

– ♪ Tutti frutti ♪

Big Freedia: You could tell this is a song directly for us.

– ♪ Oh, rootie ♪
♪ Awop bop a loo bop, a lop bom bom ♪

Big Freedia: And, I mean, I think it was just horrible how they stole everything that he did.

[Footage of a palm tree lined street. Little Richard is seen in his limo.]

– ♪ On the day… ♪

Richard: When I came out with “Tutti Frutti,” Black records was played for Black people only. Black artists had never been received by the white stations.

– ♪ Writing love letters ♪
♪ In the sand ♪

Pat Boone, Singer & Actor: At that point, I was a pop artist.

♪ When I cried ♪

You know, what I wanted to sing were songs about love and happiness and all that.

♪ Saw the tide ♪

That was what they played on the radio back then.

♪ From the sand ♪

Rhythm and blues music was called race music. Here I’m a churchgoing white kid from Nashville. I knew very little of it. But then when I heard a song by Little Richard called “Tutti Frutti”…

Richard: ♪ Awop bop a loo bop, a lop bom bom ♪

Pat: …I loved it. I just flat loved it. And so I thought, I’m gonna do my version of it.

TV Host: Jumping into 10th position this week, “Tutti Frutti.” And here to sing it in person is the man who made it a hit, one of America’s greatest recording stars, Pat Boone!

Pat: When I recorded that song, it was hard to say, “Awop, ah- eh- ahah. What was that again?” ♪ Tutti frutti, oh, rootie ♪ But I was having to write that out. “Awop, bop, aloo — What? Bomp? Bop?” Write that out — write it out so I could sing it.

♪ Awop bop a loo mop, alop bop bop ♪

My version took off like a rocket. It was a million-selling hit. The kids loved it.

Richard: Pat Boone came out singing a white version of “Tutti Frutti.” I was very disgusted because I was just coming on the scene, and he sold more than I did.

[Cover art of Pat Boone’s single for “Tutti Frutti”.]

Big Freedia: I mean, you have this white straight man that’s saying “tutti frutti” when he really don’t know the meaning of the song. And he made all the money, too. It’s just not right.

Nile Rogers, Musician, Producer & Composer: Listening to music when I was a child, I grew up with covers and hearing people re-interpret music. But when I hear Little Richard playing “Tutti Frutti” and I hear Pat Boone singing “Tutti Frutti,” that painted a real interesting picture to me. Society was telling me, “Hey, Nile, if you want to be a musician… you can’t be Little Richard. You have to be safe.”

[A black and white photo of a young Nile. and continued footage of a music studio.]

Ron: But Little Richard, he was always a fighter. He said, “Okay, well, that’s what they did? Well, I’m- a do the next one a little faster. I’m gonna speed the tempo up and see if you can do that.” To make it uncoverable. And that was “Long Tall Sally.”

[“Long Tall Sally” by Little Richard]
Richard: ♪ Gonna tell Aunt Mary ’bout Uncle John ♪
♪ He claim he has the misery, but he’s havin’ a lot of fun ♪
♪ Oh, baby, yes, baby ♪

Pat: But if I can sing, “Wop bop a loo mop, balop bop, bop,” I can sure sing “Long Tall Sally.”

[Pat performs “Long Tall Sally”]
♪ Gonna go tell Mary ’bout Uncle John ♪
♪ He said he has the blues, but he has a lot of fun ♪
♪ Oh, Mary, yes, baby ♪

Mine sold a million and a half like that. Another big hit for Pat Boone, which some people think, if they didn’t live through the era, think that we were taking something from those Black performers. No, we weren’t. We were introducing him to a much bigger audience. And I’ve said many times, I think I and Elvis were midwives at the birth of rock ‘n’ roll.

[“Hound Dog” by Big Mama Thornton]
– ♪ You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog ♪
♪ Been snoopin’ around the door ♪
♪ You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog ♪

Pat: I knew Elvis Presley was drawn to rhythm and blues music, same as me. He loved the excitement of it, the freedom of it.

[Women scream and cheer as Elvis Presley performs “Hound Dog”.]

Elvis Presley: ♪ You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog ♪
♪ Cryin’ all the time ♪
♪ You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog ♪

Pat: Then when Elvis started performing Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog” with basically the same arrangement, most people knew nothing of the original, that is, at least, in the pop world.

Deacon: You know, you have to remember Elvis and his white contemporaries were afforded more opportunities for airplay than the Black artists could ever hope to get.

Richard: A lot of white kids, they would buy my “Long Tall Sally” or my “Tutti Frutti,” but they would buy Pat Boone’s and put it up on the table and put mine under the table to satisfy their family, ’cause their mother wanted this white image for them. We were in the same house but different locations.

[Solemn guitar instrumentals play.]

Deacon: It makes me sad, and it makes me angry, too. It affected, you know, a lot of Black artists during that time, you know? But then the white teenagers said, “Wait a minute. I don’t want to hear Pat Boone singing ‘Tutti Frutti’ and ‘Long Tall Sally.’ We want to hear the real thing.” Forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest. [Laughs]

[“Ready Teddy” by Little Richard.]
– ♪ Ready, set, go, man, go ♪

Deacon: And so Little Richard just started putting out hit after hit.

– ♪ Ready, ready, Teddy, I’m ready ♪

Richard: I was the first Black artist to go top 40, to break the racial barrier. That’s what I should say.

♪ To the corner, pick up my sweetie pie ♪
♪ She’s my rock ‘n’ roll baby, she’s the apple of my eye ♪

Nile: To be a Black artist and go to the top of the pop charts, like… It was amazing to me.

– ♪ I’m ready, ready, ready to rock ‘n’ roll ♪

Alan Freed: This is Alan Freed, kids, rolling right along with your own special brand of music.

– ♪ Saturday night, and I just got paid ♪

Ringo Starr, The Beatles: England was not playing rock ‘n’ roll. The BBC were not really playing rock ‘n’ roll. But there’s a country called Luxembourg who had this huge antenna, and in Liverpool we could hear their radio, what they were sending out. And they had the Alan Freed show.

Alan: Man, that Little Richard really rocks.

Ringo: So my mate Roy and I, we would sit 4:00 every Sunday. This is what we did, is gonna listen to this show. Little Richard came on. First time we’d heard him. Like, “What?!” He was just so great. But what was great, ’cause we were young teenagers — He said, “Shag on down to the Union Hall.” [Laughs] We — “Shag on down”? You know, it means something different in England.

Richard: ♪ Shagged on down by the Union Hall ♪
♪ When the joint starts jumpin’, I’ll have a ball ♪
♪ I’m gonna rock it up ♪

Alan: And now here’s Little Richard with “Lucille.” [“Lucille” plays]

Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones: When I first heard “Lucille” and that riff… To hear something like that just suddenly out of nowhere was mind-blowing, you know? Gobsmacking, you know? [Laughs]

[“Lucille” by Little Richard]
Richard: ♪ Lucille ♪

Keith: He’s not got enough recognition for writing songs like that. And an incredible talent.

Richard: I made ‘Lucille’ up from a female impersonator in my hometown. I felt that it was risque.

Keith: I can always remember, you know, you’d just be waiting for the next Richard record to come out. Well, it’s been two months. You know, it should’ve been…

Richard: ♪ Bad-luck baby put the jinx on me ♪
♪ I got the heeby-jeebies, and I can’t get well ♪

Keith: Those records had a big effect on me and my generation. They threw a whole different light on life and its possibilities. [Laughs]

[Little Richard’s limo drives by the Hollywood sign.]

Richard: Back in those days, everybody loved me. Alan Freed. He put me on the hit movie.

[Cheers and applause as Alan Freed introduces Little Richard.]

Alan: Now here’s that real solid man of rock ‘n’ roll. Little Richard and “Long Tall Sally”!

[Don’t know the Rock” by Little Richard. 1956.]
Richard: ♪ Gonna tell Aunt Mary ’bout Uncle John ♪
♪ He claim he has the misery ♪

Charles: The scene in that movie was just amazing.

Richard: ♪ And he ducked back in the alley, oh, baby, yeah ♪

Charles: We had seen nothing like that in the world of music and cinema. It was so extraordinary. The whole makeup thing and his high pompadour. His foot up on the top of the piano. And, of course, the voice was like a volcanic eruption.

Richard: ♪ Ooooh, have some fun tonight ♪
♪ Everything’s alright ♪
♪ Have some fun, have me some fun tonight ♪

Charles: At the end, the cinema was like an undiscovered Egyptian tomb. We were so in awe that we could hardly speak. You were in a state of shock. It was that powerful.

Keith: People like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, I think these guys — especially Richard — they knew that they were on the forefront of something new. I don’t think they all knew what it was, but they realized that they’d broken through something really important.

Ringo: Rock then became a force, and Little Richard was always leading it.

[In the limo, Little Richard points to a white house. He exits the limo and stands on the front lawn.]

Richard: That’s my house right there on the left where I used to live. That’s the first house I ever bought right there. Is there anybody here think we gonna break in? This neighborhood was the neighborhood. I enjoyed it because my brothers and sisters, you know, I had moved them from Macon, Georgia, here. And this is the first time they had a chance to live in a house like this. You know, in Macon, they had homes like this, but only white people lived in them. And for them to have the opportunity to live in a home like this with cars that was theirs felt good to give them something that I never had before. I think the same lady still live next door over there that was living there when I had my monkey, Tutti Frutti. Yeah, he used to raise so much sand up in this neighborhood. He was biting everything.

[Sentimental instrumentals play.]

Sir Lady Java: When I first met him, I was a teenager, and he lived around the corner, and he was a wonderful person. He was very loud and boisterous. You automatically seen him coming. He made me laugh, and I made him laugh. And he said he didn’t know that I wasn’t a woman, that I was gay. And I said, “I’m Sir Lady.” And he — [Laughs] He would look at me. I’d say, “Oh, you know what I’m talking about, bitch.” He told me, “Don’t — Don’t hand me that.” He kind of liked me, but we never did get together. He went both ways. He liked a girl called Angel. He loved Angel.

[Black and white photos of Little Richard, Sir Lady Java, and Angel.]

Richard: ♪ Send me some lovin’ ♪

Sir Lady Java: Oh, their relationship, boy… was on fire. And he couldn’t even wait to get back to the bed. He would take her in the back seat of the limo. ‘Cause he loved the limos.

– ♪ Can you send me your kisses ♪

[Video footage of Angel.]

Lee Angel, Richard’s Girlfriend: It was a lot of fun. [Laughs] Richard’s fantasies are the greatest on Earth.

– ♪ I miss you so much ♪

Richard: Oh, they should just keep “Lee” and take the “Angel” off. [Laughs] Oh, she is a whooper. She’s a wonderful girl. You know, she’s beautiful. She’s lovin’, she’s kind.

♪ I’m waitin’ for you ♪

[A photo of Angel on stage with Little Richard.]

Sir Lady Java: It was true love. He wanted to get married to her, but she was young, and she had to live her life. He was devastated because he really wanted to marry her. After that, his feelings became very private. And he stayed private.

[Solemn instrumentals over continued photos of Little Richard.]

Ron: At that time, Richard discovered how Specialty Records, the way things were done with the royalties. I don’t know the percentages of the contract, but it was terrible. It was terrible.

Richard: If you spoke for your money, you was a troublemaker. But if you just went along with the program, didn’t say nothing, you was a “good boy.” Never a man — a “good boy.” Mind, the record company’s not paying me my royalties. I had to work all the time.

HB Barnum, Friend & Bandmate: Richard asked, would I come on the tour. Richard had such charisma. That, along with his tremendous talent, was just — made it natural, you know? I said, “Of course.” Oh, it was exciting. I mean, you know, I was young. I was raised in Los Angeles, so when I went South, that was quite an experience for me.

[A sign reads: We want white tenants in our white community. Another photo shows a group of Black people standing under a sign reading: Colored. Astor Motel.]

I remember there were colored and white restrooms, but I thought it was funny. But later on, I began to realize that this was a serious situation.

Richard: Policeman would stop me and make me wash my face. I couldn’t go to the bathroom. I was the hottest thing in the country. And I remember we was in a hotel in Montgomery, Alabama, and the Ku Klux Klan made us get out of the hotel at 4:30 in the morning with white sheets on. Made us leave the hotel. You know, if you’re Black, you’re in trouble.

HB: A lot of the gigs that we did, it was segregated audiences. There’d be a rope down the middle of the dance hall. [Laughing] That’s how stupid it all was, you know?

[Little Richard performs. White teens dance with another in one section, Black teens in another.]

Richard: And I am Little Richard. Come up and listen. Come on!

– ♪ She can’t help it, the girl can’t help it ♪
♪ She can’t help it, the girl can’t help it ♪
– ♪ If she walks by, the men folks get engrossed ♪
– ♪ She can’t help it, the girl can’t help it ♪
– ♪ If she winks an eye, the bread slice turn to toast ♪
– ♪ She can’t help it, the girl can’t help it ♪
– ♪ Yeah, she’s got a lot of what they call the most ♪
– ♪ She can’t help it ♪

HB: Richard reached out to everyone in that audience. The kids was going crazy. And then what started to happen was that the kids danced together. I had never say seen nothing like that before. For a brief minute, we realized, “We have so many things in common.”

– ♪ Every mother’s son ♪

Ron: Richard broke barriers down.

– ♪ If shes smiles then beef steak become well done ♪

Ron: White kids were loving it. Everyone was loving it.

– ♪ Ahhh ♪

Rev. Bill Minson, Richard’s Friend & Spiritual Advisor: Some people would say, “Well, you know, you can’t compare Little Richard to a Dr. King.” Well, Dr. King believed in nonviolence, and he went in places that he wasn’t supposed to go to make change. I see a very strong parallel to what Richard did.

[Cheers and applause of Black and white fans sitting together in a concert hall.]

Rev. Minson: Rock ‘n’ roll, it brought the races together, because music is a universal language.

HB: Problem was, it threatened the establishment.

White man: The obscenity and vulgarity of the rock ‘n’ roll music is obviously a means by which the white man and his children can be driven to the level of the Negro.

Young woman: Just all depends upon how you look at it. I guess if you want to think it’s nasty or sexy, you could. But to me, it’s just —

Interviewer: Well, the two things are not necessarily the same.

Young woman: Yeah, well, you know, it’s just so limber and loose. I mean, it’s really marvelous.

Young man: Well, he just feels the rhythm, digs it the most.

Interviewer: You don’t see anything wrong with it?

Young man: No.

[Girls cheering as Little Richard drives by. Uneasy instrumentals play.]

Richard: The white kids liked me. They loved me. And all the white girls was screaming over me. And the system didn’t like it, you know? And the white families said that I was raucous, I was demonic, I was a demon possessed, whatever you would say. I was awful. I was not supposed to be the hero for their kids.

[A newspaper article reads: Does Rock and Roll Cause Delinquency? Text on screen: #AmericanMastersPBS.]

Tyina: To be a history nerd for a second, rock ‘n’ roll becomes popular right at the moment when Black activists are having a lot of success with desegregation.

[Black and white footage of Black and white individuals eating together in a cafeteria.]

Voice from archived footage: In some cases, Negroes achieved full integration at terminal restaurants and waiting rooms.

Martin Luther King Jr.: We still advocate nonviolence with passive resistance and still are determined to use the weapon of love.

Tyina: This set off a panic. You’ve got a lot of worried white people.

Voice from archives: They want to throw white children and colored children into the melting pot of integration.

Man on Television: Rock ‘n’ roll has got to go, and go it does. [The man shatters a record.]

Tyina: For Little Richard, the white segregationist backlash didn’t surprise him too much. But in Black churches, there was also a lot of preaching against rock ‘n’ roll that hit him much harder.

[Pensive instrumentals play.]

Charles: I went to interview him, and he’d said to me, “Oh, Dr. Rock, let me tell you what the Lord has told me to tell you. [Laughs] He would talk about rock ‘n’ roll being the devil’s music. He felt that he was going with the devil instead of going with the Lord, and that played on his mind.

[Footage of an airport in 1957. An airplane takes off.]

HB: We would talk about religion. Didn’t mean anything to me until the plane trip. He was flying first- class. All of us were in coach, you know. Now, whatever happened at the front of the plane, I don’t know.

Richard: When I was on this airplane, the engine turned red and hot. Plane didn’t catch on no fire, But it scared me. In my mind, I could see two angels flying up under that plane.

HB: Well, he came through the door and said, “Y’all going to hell if you don’t repent.” Everybody stood up and went, “What is this? What’s going on?” He had everybody in the plane praying. I mean, everybody. And, you know, we were like, “Oh, yeah?” He told me that he was going to quit the business, become a preacher. It was a complete shock.

[Footage of clouds as an airplane flies through the sky. Ethereal instrumentals play.]

Art: It was very difficult because Richard could have blown his nose, and we could have recorded it and sold it. We did everything trying to get him to come back, including withholding his royalties. But he wouldn’t record the “devil’s music” any more. I don’t know the real reason. I suspect it was typical Richard, other than what he reveals.

Ron: I think he got tired of being ripped off. And so it was over. That was it for him then.

[A news article reads: Little Richard Retires. Now, a man’s hands play a gospel tune on piano.]

Tyina: After he leaves the world of rock ‘n’ roll…

– ♪ I’m going to tell them ♪

Tyina: …he starts to make gospel recordings.

– ♪ All about Him ♪

Tyina: He becomes a student at a religious college.

– ♪ I’m going to tell God ♪

Tyina: He marries a nice woman.

– ♪ About Him ♪

Tyina: And though the marriage doesn’t last very long, on the outside, it looks like Little Richard was trying to straighten himself out.

[Photos of Richard holding a bible and standing with his then-wife.]

– ♪ Going to tell God all about it ♪

Rev. Minson: I met Richard like maybe early ’80s. The funny story with me would always be, okay, we’re in the limo. Richard says, “Well, Bill, are you a fool again for Jesus today?” And then I happily say, “Yes, I am! Don’t ever let it change.” And then we both just start laughing. And in over three decades that I knew him, the only fragility that I would relate to Richard would be, “Is this going to be good enough for God?”

– ♪ When I get home ♪

[A photo of Richard praying.]

Sir Lady Java: I remember that time. He was very serious about his religion. I mean, Richard was a teenager when he was fooling with drag. You grow up, and being yourself is a hard thing to be. I would like it if he was able to be real with himself. But he didn’t have that kind of nerve.

– ♪ All about it when I get home ♪

[An album cover of The King of Gospel Singers, Little Richard.]

Tyina: The consequence of Little Richard’s focus on gospel was that, in the United States, in mainstream popular music, he largely gets forgotten.

[Aerial footage of Liverpool, England in 1962. A fast-paced drum beat plays.]

Ringo: After I joined the Beatles in ’62, we got the opportunity to play the Liverpool Empire. If you’re not from Liverpool, you won’t understand. We’re playing the Liverpool Empire.

Tyina: Little Richard winds up getting booked for some dates in the U.K. But he goes there fully expecting to be a gospel performer. The Beatles were supporting him. They had not yet broken big. They weren’t major stars.

[“Love Me Do” by The Beatles]
– ♪ Love, love me do ♪

Ringo: To play on the same stage as Little Richard was huge.

[A photo of The Beatles performing on stage.]

– ♪ I’ll always be true ♪
♪ So please ♪
♪ Love me do ♪
♪ Whoa- oh, love me do ♪

Ringo: And then, lo and behold, Brian, the manager, brought us backstage. Little Richard, you know, was this close. It was so great.

[A photo of The Beatles gathered around Richard. Now, a radio interview.]

Interviewer: When did you meet the Beatles?

Richard: In Liverpool. Brian Epstein said, “They want to just touch you.” Let me show this up to the audience. Looky there. Paul grabbed my hand, and he rubbed my shoulders. John got my finger, and George got my finger, and Paul got my arm.

Roger: And they made a wish. [Laughter]

Richard: They were just pulling back, and I said, “Pull me.”

[Slow piano music plays.]

Ringo: We were blessed. You know, if you look at music and where rock came from, he is right in there.

Charles: When I first went to see him in ’62, I remember, you know, you’re just waiting for — You couldn’t wait to get there. And then somebody said he would only sing gospel. We all looked, and we didn’t know what the hell to say or do.

[Cheers and applause as Richard plays a tambourine on stage.]

Announcer: It’s Little Richard!

Tyina: In that moment, Richard sees that he has to make a decision about what kind of music to perform.

Big Freedia: I come from gospel music, and it was definitely a toss-up for me when I switched from sacred to secular music. It’s like the angel on one shoulder and a devil on another. What are the church gonna think? What are the community gonna think? You have to try to find which way that you want to go.

[Richard plays piano. The crowd jumps up and dances. Richard jumps and dances as he performs.]

Richard: ♪ Come on over, baby ♪
♪ Whole lotta shakin’ going on ♪
♪ So come on over, baby ♪
♪ You can’t go wrong ♪
♪ We ain’t fakin’ ♪
♪ A whole lotta shakin’ going on ♪

In a world of chaos and commotion and strife, we need a little joy. I’ll never leave my fans again because they need me, and I need them. We help each other so much.

♪ Well, come on over, baby, whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on ♪
♪ Whooo ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ A whole lotta shakin’ going on ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ We ain’t fakin’ ♪
♪ A whole lotta shakin’ going on ♪
♪ Well, you gotta shake it, baby, shake it ♪
♪ Won’t you shake it ♪
♪ Whoooo ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ A whole lotta shakin’ going on ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ We ain’t fakin’ ♪
♪ Whole lotta shakin’ going on ♪
♪ Whoa, yeah ♪
♪ Shake it, baby, shake it ♪
♪ Whooo ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, baby ♪
♪ A whole lotta shakin’ going on ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Come on over ♪
♪ A whole lotta shakin’ going on ♪

Ringo: As a drummer, as a musician, it was so great. You know, a really great memory for me, you know? ‘Cause that was the start of it.

[Footage of The Beatles performing.]
– ♪ You know that can’t be bad ♪

Ringo: He was like a huge influence on us.

– ♪ Whooo ♪

Roger: Richard, did you really teach Paul how to do that yell?

Richard: Yes, I did.

Ringo: I loved all those interviews he did where he was telling everybody that he taught Paul how to yodel. [Laughs]

Roger: How did you do it?

Richard: He was standing in the — in the wing of the stage. And I would say… ♪ Whoooo ooh-ooh-ooh ♪ He would say… “Whoof!” [Laughter] I said… ♪ Whooo ♪ He said, “Whoof! Whoof!” And I said… ♪ Whoo ♪ He go, “Whoof, whoof!”

Ringo: Well, he didn’t teach him. That was always the joke. Paul just decided to “whooo,” and Little Richard, from that day on, told him how he taught Paul to “Whooo!” But that was Little Richard. And we loved the man.

[Photos of Richard with long wavy hair.]

Tyina: What happens next is that Little Richard immediately gets booked to headline another British tour.

Richard: ♪ Ain’t had no lovin’, baby, since you know when ♪
♪ You know I love you, yes, I do ♪
♪ I’m savin’ all my lovin’, baby, just for you ♪
♪ I need your lovin’, and I need it bad ♪

Keith: I was a total fan, and the idea of working with Richard was just like a dream, you know?

– ♪ Baby, won’t you give all your love to me ♪

Keith: I was in my first week as a rock ‘n’ roll star. I mean, before that, I was just a musician in a club band.

Richard: The Rolling Stones was opening my show.

– ♪ Everything is wrong since me and my baby parted ♪
♪ All day long I’m walkin’ ♪

Richard: Didn’t nobody know them but their mothers. Mick, you know I’m telling the truth. Keith, I’m telling — Didn’t nobody know Keith and Mick but their families. It was really something.

– ♪ Come on ♪

Keith: So, suddenly, there we are on this huge tour, and Mick and I used to try and find our way up into the rafters of the theaters and just watch it from above and see how he operated.

– ♪ Well, Lawdy, Lawdy, Lawdy, Lawdy, Miss Claudie ♪
♪ Whooo ♪

Keith: It was an insight to how hard you might have to work if you wanted to do this stuff. You know? And he did it with a beautiful nonchalance. It was high-powered, but you always had a feeling that there was more in the tank.

– ♪ You like to ball every morning ♪
♪ Back home till late at night ♪

Keith: It was a real lesson in stagecraft, especially since we hadn’t never seen a stage before.

– ♪ Got to show them what you mean ♪
♪ Well, please ♪

Keith: That whole tour was a university of rock ‘n’ roll.

– ♪ Whoo! ♪

Keith: Amazing. And, also, I tell you what — Richard — he shows you what fun it could all be.

[Photos of The Rolling Stones and Richard on tour.]

You know, I mean, he’d be outrageously camp some nights and, you know, incredibly funny, especially in the north of England, to watch the local bigwigs being introduced to Little Richard, and, oh, he would mercilessly rag them. It was — you know, he’d kissed them. You know? He’d stroke them, you know? [Laughs]

Richard: Mick Jagger was sleeping on the floor in Bo Diddley’s room because my room was full, as always. [Laughter] I had nowhere to walk because I was saying, “Next! Next!” [Chuckles]

[Cheers and applause as The Rolling Stones perform.]

– ♪ Say the joint was a- rockin’ ♪

Richard: You just watched Mick Jagger. You can see he borrowed a lot of stuff directly from blues and rhythm and blues.

– ♪ Never stopped rockin’ ♪
♪ Till the moon went down ♪

Richard: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

♪

Roger: All right, now — now let me ask you what Mick Jagger learned from you, Richard.

Richard: How to walk. [Laughter]

[Mick Jagger dances on stage.]

Richard: You know I’m telling you the truth, Mick.

– ♪ Well, at twelve o’clock ♪

Richard: If you agree with that, Mick, I’ll put back on my glasses. Okay.

Keith: Just watch us. You live and learn and borrow. You know?

– ♪ Till the moon went down ♪

Keith: And it was after that tour, playing with Little Richard, The Rolling Stones became The Rolling Stones.

Richard: It was really amazing to see that these people had been inspired by me. I felt unworthy but blessed and thankful.

[Footage of Los Angeles, California. A tape plays in a music studio.]

Voice: Here we go from bar 40. [Speaking indistinctly]

[Guitar instrumentals begin.]

HB: Little Richard called me and said, “Want you to produce the album.” Of course I go, “Yeah!” You know. It was fun, you know, because this is the first time that I can tell him what to do. He’d say, “Oh, baby, you work me too hard. You work me like a slave.” So it was quite an experience for me and an honor for me. We were talking about we was gonna go on the road and do a world tour and everything. Nothing really happened.

[A slow piano tune takes over from guitar instrumentals.]

Tyina: By the late ’60s to early ’70s, Richard’s new rock ‘n’ roll records were not selling. Richard blamed the record label.

[Richard rides in his limo at night.]

Richard: I started asking about my money, and they stopped pushing my records. Soon as I wanted my money, they stopped playing them because they didn’t want to pay me. That’s the way it went. That’s the way it was.

Tyina: Little Richard felt like it was because of racism. And what is true is that, in the world of popular music, people are associating rock ‘n’ roll with white performers. Now rock ‘n’ roll has a white face.

[The Rolling Stones’ “Jumping Jack Flash” plays. The Beatles walk off an airplane to a crowd of screaming women.]

Announcer on Television: As most of you are well aware by now, Beatlemania has hit the United States as the group has four of the top-selling 20 records.

Ringo: It was the Beatles and then, later on, the Stones.

Keith: There was a sort of total sea change in America.

Televised voice: Quarter of a million fans of the Rolling Stones…

[The Rolling Stones perform to a sea of thousands of people cheering.]

Keith: The America before the British Invasion is a totally different place. Everything that went before, they sort of threw it in a garbage can. It’s amazing, you know, because this is the stuff that we’re playing back to them, you know? It seems incredible to us.

Richard: It’s easy to get discouraged. In your heart, you said, “Man, forget it.” And it makes you mad. And then you say, “Well, I’m just gonna do what I do best.”

Tyina: Even though Little Richard was being outsold by the people who were inspired by him, the response from Richard, it’s so defiant.

[Fans greet Richard as he walks to his limo.]

Richard: And that’s when I started looking more and more fabulous.

Fan: You’re beautiful!

Richard: Everything I put on was a diamond.

[Crowd cheers as Little Richard performs.]

Ron: When I started working with him in the ’70s, he took it up at least another hundred notches. He always was innovative in what his style was like, what his clothes was like, what designs he would be wearing. It just went to a whole nother level.

Announcer: Mr. L.R. — Little Richard!

[Cheers and applause from crowd. Richard is adorned in mirrors attached to his headband and vest.]

Ron: You can see the headbands and stuff that he was wearing. And that would mirror outfit that he had on. He was the pioneer of that look in show business.

– ♪ Lucille ♪
[Singing indistinctly]
♪ Lucille ♪

Ron: He had no fear at all because he was confident in who he was. He brought glamor to rock. If you look at other artists at that time, you can see he’s influenced so many musicians throughout the world.

[David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” plays]
– ♪ Ahh ♪

[Photos of Elton John and David Bowie are shown, both wearing extravagant outfits while performing.]

Nile: In the year 1982, when David Bowie walked up to me when we were thinking about the album, that would become “Let’s Dance”…

– ♪ Put on your red shoes ♪

…after doing a ton of searching and listening and going to different archives, he walks up to my apartment, and he’s got something behind his back. Knocks on my door. When I open the door, and he says, “Now, darling, I want my record to sound like this looks.” And he goes wham. He whips out a picture of Little Richard. As soon as he showed me that and said that, we were done. Like, “Let’s go, bro. I know — I got it.” Little Richard was just so far ahead of his time. But it’s hard to be a pioneer.

[Text on screen: #AmericanMastersPBS. Little Richard performs in front of a vast and excited crowd.]

Richard: Let all the womenfolk say, “Whoo!” Let all the men say, “Unh!” Ooh, my soul. I want you all to know that I am the king of rock ‘n’ roll!

Charles Moore: Well, after the gig, once we got back to the hotel room, all kind of people would be there. “Yeah, I love you, Little Richard! I love you!” [Laughs] “You want this? I’ll do it to you. Take off your clothes, and let’s do it.” There was just people like that. And he — he knew where to get them, how to get them, especially if there’s drugs involved.

[Richard rides in his limo.]

Richard: Everybody liked to go to orgies — everybody. I just enjoyed sex in its entirety. Sex, to me, was like a smorgasbord. You should just go and pick whatever you want. And if you knocked on my door, and I wanted mo’, fo’ sho’.

Charles Moore: He did it in excess. Everything in excess. You know? Women, men, orgies. Wine, whiskey, weed, angel dust, cocaine, heroin — It was called a speedball when you mixed the two. You inject the pure stuff, it can kill you, like some people I know, some musicians I know that did that. It’s not good.

[Troubled instrumentals play. A photo is shown of Little Richard singing at a microphone.]

He had some demons he had to fight. But I saw a side of Richard, he just wanted to have peace and maybe someone — either a man or woman — that he could share his life with. Someone that he loved.

Richard: I was lonely. I felt that no one wanted me. Although you had millions of fans screaming over you all over the world, but you just wanted somebody to be with you personally that said, “Little Richard, I love you. I care for you, Richard.”

Lee Angel: Someone told him that I was looking for him, and he reached me. I flew to Los Angeles, and at the airport, 12:00 in the afternoon, L.A.X, 17 crazy-looking guys got out of a limousine, and Richard got out with this red and gold bat-winged outfit and his pompadour and his makeup yelling, “Shut up!” I saw the loneliest man I’d ever seen in my life. He was drinking. He was doing drugs. He was smoking, which is funny. In the beginning, Richard didn’t do anything. He did not believe in anyone doing these things. He had me try PCP for the first time, and it just… [Sighs]

[Footage of Richard speaking, muffled. Troubled instrumentals continue.]

Lee Angel: He just wasn’t the person I knew anymore.

Richard: That’s when I found out that I had really fallen. You know, I started looking real old, and I got real small, and I got so that I didn’t want to see my mother and my sisters and brothers. ‘Cause I didn’t want them to see me in that condition. So I said, “It’s time to get right with God.”

Charles Moore: During that time, well, he changed. He came to my hotel room. We talked for hours about his life. He didn’t want to be gay anymore.

[A picture of a shirtless Little Richard.]

Charles Moore: It’s a pitiful thing to see a person not loving himself. He just came to a point where he said, “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be rock ‘n’ roll. I don’t want to be Little Richard.”

– ♪ Lady ♪

[A telephone rings. 1976. A car pulls up to a Holiday Inn. Solemn instrumentals play.]

Richard: My brother Tony called me and asked me to see him. Instead of going to see Tony, I picked up a guy by the name of Tom. And we went and checked into a hotel and just have a good time to get high and let it all hang out. The next morning, my brother fell dead from a heart attack.

Ron: When Richard’s brother Tony died, that had a profound effect on him. He felt he should have gone to see his brother. And so that guilt laid on him, and it magnified in his mind. This was the last straw. The parties and the cocaine, it’s the orgies, all of that was over.

[Gospel music plays. Richard arrives at Landmark Community Church in his limo in 1984.]

Pastor: He was the king of rock ‘n’ roll. Now he’s the child of the king. Let’s welcome and receive the one and only Brother Little Richard! Come on!

[Applause as Richard comes to the front.]

Richard: I didn’t come here to preach. I came here just to talk to you. And I’m not that type of preacher. You know, I know you probably figured I was gonna start moaning and groaning. [Laughter] My granddaddy used to do that and kill me when he’d get to the house. [Laughter] Yes, my granddaddy would get down Sunday morning.

♪ Mmm ♪

Sister said, “Go on and tell it, Preacher!”

♪ Whoa-oh ♪

Said, “Go on and tell it…”

♪ So, my ♪

Said, “Going to church.”

♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪

Said, “Go on and preach it! So, my, my, my, it’s a talent!

♪ Whooa ♪

Talent! Hey, talent! Whoo! Talent!” He ain’t told him nothing yet.

[Laughter and applause from churchgoers]

Richard: I’m an evangelist now. I feel high all the time, but I don’t take anything. I just don’t have a desire. I think that my day should be spent now, at the age of 52, spreading the gospel. Well, the Bible said, “For what shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give…”

Rev. Minson: Sweet hearing his voice. And the first time I saw him administer the gospel, I just knew this was — this was an incredible guy.

Richard: I came here tonight to tell you that Jesus loves you. How God changed me from being homosexual and made me a man. Do you want to hear that tonight? Do you want to hear it?

[Congregants cheer]

Rev. Minson: What he was doing was revealing himself and revealing we all have demons.

Richard: I didn’t know that homosexuality was wrong until I read it in the Bible!

Rev. Minson: Oh, yeah! I mean, what — When you come out and pronounce it publicly like that, to say, “Okay. I took a left turn instead of a right turn, but I’m on the right path now, and this is the reason why. And I’m on the right path so much, I don’t care about where you know I came from. Look at where I’m going. And I’m telling you, that’s where you need to go.”

[Cheers and applause as Richard appears for an interview with David Letterman. Richard has a small afro.]

David Letterman: Richard, how are you? Nice to see you.

Tyina: When he goes on “David Letterman,” the first thing that’s really striking to me is that he doesn’t look like Little Richard. Not the one that I knew.

David: This would be Little Richard.

Tyina: Looks like he’s gonna go sell used cars. And the producers show footage of him from the ’70s. This is the person who brought queer aesthetics into rock ‘n’ roll.

David: Little Richard. [Cheers and applause]

Tyina: But you can really see a sadness. I think that he does have this kind of internal conflict about the music that he was performing and the way that he presented himself.

David: When you see yourself in action in the old days, you want to get back into it on that level?

Richard: I’m just so glad God brought me out of that. I never knew I looked like that. [Laughter] I’m just so glad that God was able to clean me up and wash me up, and thank you, Lord.

Tyina: I think he came there to almost apologize. Preaching against homosexuality.

David: You keep saying one provocative thing after another. You used to be gay, but now you’re not.

Richard: I’m not. I’m a man for the first time in my life.

David: Yeah.

Richard: I know how you feel now.

[Laughter and applause]

Rev. Minson: In life, we have to make choices. He chose one over the other.

[A sign reads: Live at the Big Tent. Little Richard.]

Voice: Wop-bop-a-loo-bop, alop-bam-boom — Little Richard.

Charles: The architect of rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t playing rock.

Interviewer: Do you miss anything of your old life, of the rock-star adulation?

Richard: No, I don’t miss — I don’t miss it, because I came from rock ‘n’ roll to the Rock of Ages, so I can’t miss it. I have something better.

[Slow instrumentals play.]

Charles: Well, at that stage, I was a journalist and rock ‘n’ roll D.J. I went to interview him. He spotted this guy painting a house. And he pulled in. “Oh, yeah. Hi, there, brother. How you doing?” “Oh, it’s Little Richard!” And he comes up and throw his arms around him and all of that. He just loved people. And you could see the confusion in his life. I asked him, “Can I write your life story?” The things he told me just left you gobsmacked.

Montage of voices:
– This week sees the publication of one of the most remarkable and revealing accounts ever of the life of a major pop star.

– Well, joining us right now is a true legend.

– Get up and applaud Mr. Little Richard.

– Would you welcome Little Richard.

[A crowd cheers as Richard is seen making television appearances.]

Richard: This resurgence of my fame, it made me feel alive again. And I just thank God for Dr. Rock coming over and writing a book on my life.

Tyina: When he’s promoting the book, there is a sense of pride.

Richard: I am young and beautiful! Am I right?

[Cheers and applause]

Tyina: He’s very candid.

Interviewer: You were not afraid to write truthfully…

Richard: That’s right.

Interviewer: …about some things that people would not. You weren’t afraid to write about drugs. You weren’t afraid to write —

Richard: About sex.

Interviewer: Your sex life.

Tyina: He’s thinking about life and who he was.

Richard: I want to say this about the word “homosexual.” Personally, I don’t like that word, “homosexual.” I want to say “gay,” being gay. I would like to say that. One thing that I’ve learned in my evangelism, discrimination and segregation is so heavily still in the world today. I see it now how people segregate against a person because they’re gay. God loves us all.

Ron: All of those things that he didn’t think that was fair he was ready to talk about.

News Reporter: Richard Penniman, better known as Little Richard, filed suit in federal court this week, claiming he’s been defrauded of music royalties due him since 1959.

Tyina: Little Richard made headlines when he sued Specialty Records.

Interviewer: Yeah, a lot of people would think that you’re a millionaire by now, many times over.

Richard: I am, but I just haven’t received the millions. I’m not only standing for myself, but I’m standing for many Black people that have been ripped off that was not paid, and they was used and abused.

[Text on screen: #AmericanMastersPBS.]

Deacon: For Black performers, the standard dues back then for royalties was like 2%. Who gets the other 98%? Hey, you know it. [Laughs]

Richard: I’m not asking for nothing that don’t belong to me. All I want is what I have earned. And I would appreciate it so much.

Tyina: I grew up hearing rock ‘n’ roll was robbed. Black people invented rock and roll, but they were exploited.

News Reporter: Last summer, Congress looked into the ripoff of artists and writers.

Tyina: When Richard winds up settling, he also proved all of those stories to be correct.

Voice: And I want to commend you on behalf of all of those who’ve been afraid to come forward prior to this time.

[A photograph of Richard sitting at a desk with multiple microphones in front of him. He smiles and reaches his hands out. Now, aerial footage of Los Angeles. Uplifting instrumentals play.]

Ron: He did get a settlement from Specialty. The settlement allowed him to live in a hotel. He loved hotels because he loved the room service and all of that stuff. And, of course, I would go visit him. And he would want to talk about the music of the time. “Who’s this new thing? Who’s this new guy coming up, you know?”

[“Kiss” by Prince & The Revolution]
– ♪ Don’t have to be beautiful ♪

Ron: Hair, makeup, looked very, very like Little Richard. He said, “I was the first one! I was doing it before y’all. Prince, are you listening?” He would constantly say that. “There wouldn’t be no Prince or no Michael Jackson without me.”

[“Bad” by Michael Jackson]
– ♪ Your butt is mine ♪
♪ Gon’ tell you right, ah ♪
♪ Just show your face ♪

Tyina: When you look at Michael Jackson with his own feminine aesthetic…

– ♪ I’m bad, I’m bad ♪

Tyina: …the look and style, the whoops and hollers…

– Whoo!

Tyina: They’ve upset these firm divisions between masculine and feminine. So I don’t think we get to a Michael Jackson moment without a Little Richard moment three decades earlier. In fact, you can find similar examples all the way through the ’80s.

Nile: I remember the first time I ever met Little Richard and the first time I met Liza Minnelli.

[Photographs are shown of Liza Minnelli and Little Richard.]

– ♪ Good times ♪

Nile: And both of them commented on what I was wearing. [Laughs] I mean, Liza — this is her exact words. She went, “I want that, that, that, that, that, that, that, and that.” And Little Richard said something to the effect of, “What are you talking about, baby? I did that 25, 30 years ago.” [Laughs]

– ♪ Good times ♪

Nile: He always made me laugh. But Little Richard, at that moment, is telling you everything about the world of being a Black artist in his time.

[A photo of Little Richard and Chuck Berry. Low instrumentals play.]

Tyina: I think if you think about who invented rock ‘n’ roll, who did create this style of music, usually, you know, your Elvis Presleys get the accolades.

News Reporter: Presley died at the age of 42 at Graceland, the mansion his music had paid for.
Second Reporter: He was the undisputed king of rock ‘n’ roll.

[A billboard reads In Memoriam: Elvis Presley. Crowds gather at Elvis’s estate.]

Man: He was the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, and he’ll live on forever.

Pat: I would’ve thought Elvis gotta be the king of rock ‘n’ roll.

Charles: I like Elvis very much. Yeah. But Richard was the one that created a new type of music. But the white media would always put Elvis first.

[Richard is seen in a television interview.]

Richard: When I started singing rock ‘n’ roll, wasn’t nobody singing it. Listen, when I started, “Whoo!” wasn’t nobody sayin’ that.

Charles: We found it very hard. That was the way it was. Racism in America.

Richard: See, they didn’t want a Black guy to be the one to create rock ‘n’ roll ’cause the white kids liked it, and they didn’t want the white girls screaming over no Black boy. [Cheers and applause from audience.] And by me being — by me being a Black guy and a good-looking Black guy…

[Cheers and applause]

Bobby: When he’d got on TV, he seemed so jolly. He seemed so friendly about it.

Richard: And you know I’m not conceited.

Arsenio Hall: No, no.

Richard: I’ve never been that way.

Arsenio: No.

Richard: You know I don’t believe in stuff like that.

Arsenio: I hope nobody mistakes this…

Richard: I hope — I’m not — You all, I’m not conceited.

[The crowd shouts in response]

Richard: I’m convinced. [Laughter]

Bobby: He’d laugh and joke about it on TV. But it wasn’t funny to Richard. My friend Richard. If he were living today, I wouldn’t say this. In the back room, when we was alone, he had tears in his eyes. You could see the hurt. I understood him so much. Not just as a man, as a blues singer, as a Black man. They stole his music. And when they crowned people as the king of rock ‘n’ roll, and it wasn’t him, that tore Richard.

[A photograph of Richard playing piano and smiling. Now, footage of Radio City Music Hall at night. 1988. Triumphant instrumentals play. Richard walks the red carpet at the Grammy Awards.]

Reporter: The Grammy Awards here in New York.

Second Reporter: It’s the first time the ceremony has been held here in seven years as the music business gathers to honor its best.

Tyina: The Grammys are the industry’s way of celebrating itself.

Paparazzi: Right here, honey!

Richard: Okay. Wait a minute. I’m gonna smile like a white lady.

[Laughter and cheers on the carpet. Michael Jackson performs.]

– ♪ Way you make-a me feel ♪

Tyina: And that year, you know, Michael Jackson was supposed to be the glittery center of this show. But, you know, Little Richard had been invited to the party.

Announcer: The one and only Little Richard!

Tyina: And even though he’s never been given a Grammy Award, he’s there presenting one.

[Cheers and applause as Richard and Buster Poindexter arrive on stage.]

Buster Poindexter, Singer & Actor: What?

Richard: I used to wear my hair like that. [Laughter] They take everything I get. They take it from me.

Buster: Hoo!

Richard: He can’t get that, though.

Buster: [Laughs] All right, now —

Richard: Wait a minute. Look at the hair.

Bobby: You could see it was tense.

Richard: I used to wear my — I used to hide Easter eggs in mine.

Bobby: He’s influenced all these people throughout his career.

Buster: Now?

Richard: Shut up. [Laughter]

Ron: He didn’t get his just do. But Richard didn’t just lay down and cry.

Richard: And the Best New Artist is…

Ron: He did what he needed to do. [Laughter]

Richard: Me.

[Laughter, cheers, applause]

I have never received nothing. You all ain’t never gave me no Grammy. [Laughter] And I been singing for years. I am the architect of rock ‘n’ roll. You ain’t never gave me nothing!

[The audience gives Little Richard a standing ovation.]

Big Freedia: That was a beautiful moment. You can see everybody in the audience think that it’s time to give him his flowers.

Richard: And I am the originator. [Cheers and applause] And I still say, “Whooo!” [Cheers and applause] And the winner is…still me. [Laughter]

Tyina: When I watch that footage, it reminds me of church, where people get up and testify, where they lay their burdens down. And that’s the path to salvation. So Little Richard came to testify on this night. And he does it in such a Little Richard way.

Richard: Shut up. [Laughter] Whoo! [Laughs] The winner really is me.

Tyina: It’s a beautiful thing to watch Little Richard take up space.

Buster: Richard? [Laughter] Richard.

Tyina: Shut up. [Laughter] And the winner is… Jodi Watley!

[Cheers and applause as Jodi accepts her award.]

Tyina: A moment for him where he can honor the people who were inspired by him and, at the same time, remind people who tend to forget, “I helped create that.”

[Now, 1997 footage of an awards ceremony. Slow instrumentals continue.]

Arsenio: Ladies and gentlemen, stand up and give it up for the incredible Little Richard!

Tyina: After that, he started getting the recognition that had been missing.

[Richard accepts an award from Arsenio. He wipes tears away as he receives a standing ovation.]

Bobby: Seeing that, it’s reminding me I was 83 years old when I won my first Grammy. It wasn’t because I didn’t have big records. Because the odds are stacked against me. The odds was stacked against Little Richard. But he overcome all of that. So I understood what he was crying about. I told him, “It’s better late than never.”

Richard: I want you to know tonight that rhythm and blues had a baby, and somebody named it rock ‘n’ roll. [Cheers and applause]

Bobby: I think that was a win for all the Black people who were the originators of rock ‘n’ roll. But, Richard… you the king.

[A photograph of Little Richard in profile. Aerial footage of buildings.]

Rev. Minson: The last time I was at the hotel, I spent three days there, and… I never saw him happier. That’s my last memory of him.

Ron: In those days, they’d bring him out in a wheelchair, but he still loved to go out on the road. He would always say, “The beauty is on duty.”

News Reporter: Let me bring you some breaking news. The singer Little Richard has died, aged 87.

[Footage of a news report. Text on screen: Little Richard. 1932-2020.]

Reporter: Finally, tonight, we’re remembering a music legend. Rock ‘n’ roll icon Little Richard has died.

Reporter: While he swerved in and out of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, Little Richard remained close to his religious and gospel roots, sometimes struggling with his own sexuality.

[Footage of a young Little Richard dancing on stage. Text on screen: #AmericanMastersPBS.]

Pat: For me, the main thing about Little Richard’s music and contribution is that, before “Tutti Frutti,” music was always above the waist. [Laughs] And Little Richard took notice of the fact that — that the whole body could be involved.

HB: He left a big footprint. Crazy, wild clothes, jumping up and down, working the stage, standing on the piano. There was nobody doing that before Richard.

Tyina: His life was a constant reminder of what queer Black people have given to mainstream popular music.

-Nile: Thinking about Little Richard brings tears to my eyes. I mean, he was one of those artists that carved out that path for others to walk down.

Big Freedia: You know, I definitely think he has a big influence on me and everybody like me.

[A montage of current day pop stars: Janelle Monae, Lizzo, Lil Nas X, and Harry Styles.]

– ♪ Whether you’re high or low ♪

Big Freedia: Janelle Monae, Lizzo. Everybody in today’s culture…

– ♪ I’m bad as Michael Jackson ♪

Big Freedia: …has a little of that swagger of Little Richard, and they may not even know it.

[A picture of Little Richard smiling, wearing a mirrored outfit.]

– ♪ Good golly, Miss Molly ♪
♪ Sure like to ball ♪
♪ Whooo ♪
♪ Good golly, Miss Molly ♪
♪ Sure like to ball ♪
♪ When you rockin’ and rollin’ ♪
♪ Can’t hear your mama call ♪

[Episode ends.]

Narration: Stay tuned for two short films on gender- bending performer Gladys Bentley and opera singer Sissieretta Jones from the “Unladylike2020” digital collection.

[Video montage of clips of Bella Abzug, Nam June Paik, William F. Buckley, Max Roach, Floyd Abrams, Rissi Palmer, J’Nai Bridges, Anthony Fauci, Roberta Flack, Cesar Chavez, and Little Richard. American Masters.]

Narration: Major support for American Masters provided by…

Jo Ann Jenkins, CEO, AARP: These days, we need each other more than ever. That’s why AARP created Community Connections, an online tool to find or create a mutual-aid group, get help, or help those in need. Stay connected with AARP.

[Bold graphic texts displayed, aligned with narration. Jazzy music begins.]

Narration: American Masters is made possible by support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family. Judith and Burton Resnick. Seton J. Melvin. The Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation. Vital Projects Fund. Lillian Goldman Programming Endowment. The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation. Ellen and James S. Marcus. The Andrew and Elizabeth Kertesz Foundation. Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III. The Rosalind P. Walter Foundation. Thea Petschek Iervolino Foundation. The Marc Haas Foundation. Koo and Patricia Yuen, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. Support for this program provided by the Leslie and Roslyn Goldstein Foundation. And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you.

Credits:
Little Richard As A Child: Ruks Oduko.
Little Richard As Princess Lavonne: Nicole Stanbury.

Composer: Mat Davidson.
Music Supervision: We Are Golden.

Consulting Producer: Charles White.
Archive Producer: Aileen Mcallister.

Archive: Alamy. BBC / Getty Images. Brian Smith. British Pathe. Celebrity Footage. Charles White. Cnn News. Critical Past. Ebony Magazine Courtesy Of The National Museum Of African American. History And Culture. Everett Collection, Inc F.I.L.M. Archives Footage Farm Footagero. Getty Images Global Image Works Historic Films Itv Studios. Joe Smith Collection At The Library Of Congress. Motion Picture. Broadcasting And Recorded Sound Division. Kcrw Radio. Kinolibrary. Library Of Congress. Liverpool Record Office. Mirrorpix. National Archives, Washington National Library Of Medicine. NBC Universal/Getty Images. Nile Rodgers Productions. Oakwood University Library. Oddball Films. Peter Kaye Photography. Pond 5. Producer Library. Reelin In The Years. Shutterstock. Ralston Crawford Collection, Tulane University. UCLA Film & Television Archive. Universal Studios Licensing LLC.

Post Production: Splice.
Post Producers: Lydia Thatcher. Stefana Apopei.
Dubbing Mixer: Luke Hodsdon.
Colourist: Laura Hewett.
Online Editor: Tristan Lancey.

For Minnow Films:
Production Accountant: Natalie Chan.
Production Secretary: Romani Graham.
Director Of Production: Louise Murray.
Production Executive: Justine Faram.
Production Manager: Alisha Mckenzie.

Director Of Photography: Brendan Easton.
Additional Camera: Daniele Sarti. Duncan Stingemore.

Editor: Shane Mccormack.

Executive Producer: Sophie Leonard.

Commissioning Editor For The BBC: Mark Bell.

Original Production Funding For Little Richard: King And Queen Of Rock ‘n Roll Provided By The Leslie And Roslyn Goldstein Foundation.

Original Production Funding For American Masters Provided By:
Corporation For Public Broadcasting. AARP. The Cheryl And Philip Milstein Family. Judith And Burton Resnick. Seton J. Melvin. The Blanche And Irving Laurie Foundation. Vital Projects Fund. Lillian Goldman Programming Endowment. The Ambrose Monell Foundation. The Philip And Janice Levin Foundation. Ellen And James S. Marcus. The André And Elizabeth Kertész Foundation. Sue And Edgar Wachenheim III. The Rosalind P. Walter Foundation. Koo And Patricia Yuen. The Petschek Iervolino Foundation. The Marc Haas Foundation.

For American Masters:
Budget Controller: Jayne Lisi.
Business Affairs: Laura Ball.
Audience Engagement: June Jennings.
Social Media: Maggie Bower.

Production Coordinators: Chris Wilson. Iyare Osarogiagbon.
Digital Associate Producer: Diana Chan.
Multimedia Producer: Cristiana Lombardo.
Digital Lead: Joe Skinner.

Series Producer: Julie Sacks.

Executive Producer: Michael Kantor.

A Production Of Minnow Films Limited And Bbc In Association With American Masters Pictures. © 2023 Minnow Films Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Logos appear on screen: Minnow Films. BBC. The WNET Group, Media Made Possible By All Of You.

[New scene: Text on screen: American Masters. Unladylike 2020. Gladys Bentley. Warning: This video contains content that some may find disturbing. A montage of photos appear on screen. A photo of Gladys Bentley. Text on screen: Gender-bending performer & musician Gladys Bentley. 1907-1960.]

Voice: Gladys Bentley was an incredible talent on the piano and one of the few women at this time who was really boldly out and unashamed of her queer desires.

– ♪ They say I don’t act right ♪
♪ It’s unladylike ♪
♪ How I wanna live my life ♪

[Text on screen: Unladylike 2020. Unsung women who changed America. A montage of brightly colored portraits of different women. New scene: A clip from “You Bet Your Life” from NBC, 1958.]

Interviewer: You’re the Gladys Bentley.

Gladys: Yeah, that’s right.

Interviewer: I thought your name sounded vaguely familiar. Well, what are you going to sing, Gladys?

Gladys: I’m gonna try to do “Them There Eyes” for you.

Interviewer: “Them There Eyes.”

Lorraine Toussaint, Narrator: Blues singer and pianist Gladys Bentley made her only television appearance on Groucho Marx’s “You Bet Your Life” comedy show.

– ♪ I fell in love with you the first time ♪
♪ I looked into them there eyes ♪
♪ You’ve got a cute little way of flirtin’ ♪
♪ With them there eyes ♪

Dwandalyn Reece, Curator of Music & Performing Arts, National Museum of African American History & Culture: Gladys Bentley, the way that she presented herself was usually in a tux and a top hat, but she also had the makeup. She’s always playing with identity and presentation and fluidity.
Voiced by Lisa Wilkerson: “I have violated the accepted code of morals, but the world applauded my piano playing and song styling. Even though people bitterly condemned my personal way of living, they still could appreciate my artistry as a performer.”

– ♪ Yes, baby, them there eyes ♪

[Gladys concludes her song to audience applause. Now, a black and white photo of three young Black children sitting on a stoop.]

Lorraine: Gladys Bentley was born in 1907 to a working-class family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father was African-American, her mother, an immigrant from Trinidad.

Lisa: “It seems I was born different. At the age of 9, I stole my brothers’ suits and began to feel more comfortable in boys’ clothes than in dresses.”

Dwandalyn: Early on, she knew that she was attracted to women. She didn’t feel like her body represented who she was.

Cookie Woolner, Historian, University of Memphis: Her parents are concerned about her budding lesbianism. They take her to doctors, hoping to cure her, to make her a “normal” woman. We have the rise of medical experts who study the science of sex, who are introducing terms like “homosexual” and “heterosexual.” But most doctors at this time saw same sex desire as pathological.

[An old report on screen titled: The Homosexual Neurosis. Excerpt from a variety of articles: A perversion now commonly noted. The civil responsibility of sexual perverts. Opinion favors sterilization law. To begin sterilizing ‘unfit’. Says science must supply the remedy. Ladies be sure your pants are buttoned.]

Lisa “Some decide to take the reins of their destiny in their own hands. That is the way I reacted to being an unwanted child.”

Lorraine: In 1923, at age 16, with dreams of becoming a musician, Bentley ran away from home to live in Harlem, New York, then the epicenter of the Harlem Renaissance.

[Black and white video footage of a slice of life in Harlem, New York.]

Dwandalyn: It was a flowering time of African-American arts, letters, cultural expression. When African-Americans left the South with the Great Migration, they really create lives for themselves in places like New York, Chicago, Detroit, building these urban communities that were tolerant, that supported experimentation and different kinds of identities.

[Photos and video footage of Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston. Jazzy piano music plays. A news article reads: U.S. Has Voted Dry. Photos from the prohibition era.]

Cookie: One of the reasons Harlem emerges as such a central site for queer African-Americans at this time is because this is the Prohibition Era. So from 1920 to 1933, it is illegal to purchase alcohol. But, of course, we have the emergence of speakeasies, where people are able to purchase bootleg alcohol and take part in other illicit activities, from gambling, to interracial dancing, or same-sex dancing. So the entertainment industry becomes a really important alternative for black women, who really didn’t have many other opportunities for work.

Lorraine: Bentley first worked on the Harlem party circuit. Then a job opened up at a nightclub.

Cookie: The club was actually looking for a male piano player, but she insisted that this would be the perfect time for them to start using a female instead.

Lisa: “My hands flew over the keys.”

[“Worried Blues” composed & performed by Gladys Bentley.]

– ♪ What make you menfolk treat us women like you do? ♪
[Scatting]
♪ I don’t want no man that I got to give my money to ♪
[Scatting]

“When I finished my number, the applause was terrific.

[Applause]

I was offered work right on the spot.”

Lorraine: Bentley soon became a headliner at various clubs and theaters.

[Archival photos and articles read: ‘Pansy’ Places on Broadway. “Pansy Club” now with racket getting bolder. Pansy Parlors.]

Cookie: We have clubs such as The Ubangi Club, where Gladys Bentley performed, which are appealing more to explicitly queer audiences. We have what’s known as the Pansy Craze going on. This interest in queer culture that white people had in this period.

Dwandalyn: Gladys Bentley sometimes was billed as a male impersonator, showing queerness and flirting with women onstage and singing songs with lyrics that are upsetting all the cultural norms about identity.

[“Big Gorilla Man” composed & performed by Gladys Bentley. Photos of Gladys appear.]
– ♪ That big gorilla ♪
♪ A woman killer ♪
♪ And I ought to know ♪

Lorraine: Bentley’s lyrics were known for their bold content, highlighting her cross-dressing tendencies and her feelings towards women.

Dwandalyn: She was not the only person who cross-dressed. Ethel Waters did it, Marlene Dietrich did it. Women in their own ways were challenging conceptions of what a woman could be.

[A performance of “Masculine Women, Feminine Men” from 1926.]

– ♪ …that I need so bad ♪
[Scatting]

[Music ends]

Shirlette Ammons, Musician: Gladys Bentley represents this lyrical and sexual prowess that women like me can wear onstage that is not ladylike.

[Shirlette raps in a park with musicians.]

♪ They just gonna lean so fresh, so clean ♪
♪ For them boys in skirts to butch bulge in jeans ♪

My name is Shirlette Ammons.

♪ …convene ♪
♪ Sook, Lex, Shirlette, perfect connect ♪
♪ Like ♪

I am a musician, writer, and television producer.

♪ I need to lose some sleep ♪
♪ I need the struggle, resistance ♪
♪ and the comic relief ♪

Just knowing that Gladys existed, and existed so proudly and so openly, changed my life and completely gave me license to be all the things that I am — black, Southern, queer, an artist. And so I started writing this record called “Twilight for Gladys Bentley” to reimagine Gladys in the body of a hip-hop artist.

♪ Gladys ♪
♪ Today I’m wearing armor in honor of my father ♪
♪ Tomorrow, overalls for my aunts, my mama ♪

Gladys used the popular music of her time to make a statement. I use the popular music of my time to make a parallel statement.

[A montage of photos of Gladys and recordings of her work on vinyl. A low instrumental beat plays.]

Lorraine: In 1928, Bentley began a recording career that would span two decades. She traveled to clubs all over the country and inspired characters in several books.

Lisa: “The clubs where I worked overflowed with celebrities. I had made my mark in show business.”

[Text on screen: Miss Bentley was an amazing exhibition of musical energy– a large, dark, masculine lady, whose feet pounded the floor. New text: Gladys Bentley and Her Entertainers. The Talk Of The Town. Seek to Ban Songs Of Gladys Bentley. Gladys Bentley, the masculine-garbed, smut-singing entertainer.]

Lorraine: But beyond the world of show business, Bentley’s lifestyle faced criticism.

Cookie: There was really no way that someone like her could be viewed as a respectable figure at this time. This is the Jim Crow era, right? There’s such a concern about racial uplift, upward mobility that a figure such as Bentley is seen as so deviant that many in the mainstream African-American community were not a fan, to put it mildly.

Dwandalyn: There were people such as Adam Clayton Powell or traditional mainline churches that had views of homosexuality that did not fit the tenets of Christian beliefs. And for many people, it was an aberration, something going against what God dictated. And so that backlash existed.

[Continued photos from news articles: In Sermon Sunday Morning, Dr. A. Clayton Powell Denounces Degeneracy and Sex-Perverts. Homosexuality and sex-perversion among women, said Dr. Powell, has grown into one of the most horrible debassing, alarming and damning vices of present day civilization.]

Lorraine: Bentley’s act fell on hard times in the mid-1930s.

Cookie: The Depression definitely made a difference in the entertainment world, and with the end of Prohibition, we actually see more regulation of nightclub spaces. There’s a concern about bar spaces that are seen as disorderly, and “disorderly” was often a code word for gay at this time.

Lorraine: In 1937, Bentley moved to Los Angeles, California. But there she faced challenges to her desire to perform onstage in men’s clothing.

[Archival photos of Los Angeles, California. Ads for Gladys Bentley shows at Mona’s Club 440.]

Cookie: The state of California actually had anti-cross-dressing laws that went back to the 19th century to keep entertainment good and clean. And there were times where she was banned from performing because of her cross-dressing.

Lorraine: In the early 1950s, Bentley adapted her public image to match the times.

[A montage of news articles denouncing sex perversion, cross-dressing, and homosexuality.]

Cookie: The post-World War II era becomes incredibly conservative, especially around norms of gender and sexuality, and this leads to what is known as not only the Red Scare, but also the Lavender Scare. And this kind of comes to a head with the firing of hundreds of government employees who are thought to be gay.

Dwandalyn: And possibly as a reaction to those times, she had to change her performance style to stay employed and to keep doing her line of work.

[August 1952 issue of Ebony magazine. An article written by Gladys Bentley titled, “I’m A Woman Again.]

Cookie: This is when we see her publish an article in Ebony magazine with the title “I Am a Woman Again.”

Lisa: “For many years I inhabited that half-shadow no-man’s-land which exists between the boundaries of the two sexes. Today I am a woman again, through the miracle of modern medicine, living a normal existence.”

Lorraine: In that same article, Bentley stated that she consulted a doctor to receive hormone treatments and also married a man.

Cookie: I think she is spinning a tale of respectability. Right? A tale of someone who wants to be seen as fully human in this very repressive time.

Dwandalyn: If you read that article really closely, it really is a plea for tolerance and understanding. She’s not condemning who she was or is, but really explaining the struggles of what it meant to live her life.

Shirlette: She went back into the closet so that one day I would never have to do that.

♪ Unh, pacifists might laugh at this ♪
♪ Might ask me if I’m a masochist ♪

But this is a white boys’ game still. When you’re making music that represents a marginalized history and the gatekeepers still don’t look like you, that’s something that a lot of musicians and artists who are black or queer are constantly battling.

Lorraine: Bentley was studying to become an ordained Christian minister when she died of complications from a flu virus at age 52.

Dwandalyn: I see her as a pioneer. She’s somebody we can all look up to, whether we’re gay, lesbian, bi, heterosexual. She invited us to be our whole selves, and that’s what we all want to be.

[“Red Beans & Rice Blues” composed & performed by Gladys Bentley]
♪ Red beans and rice ♪
♪ Greasy bacon in the pot ♪

Lisa: “I have earned the distinction of being the first and, in some cases, the only performer of my race to crash the most plush glitter spots. I am still a star.”

[Music ends, applause. A painted portrait of Gladys Bentley. New scene: Unladylike 2020. Sissieretta Jones. Warning: This video contains content that some may find disturbing. A painted portrait of Sissieretta in bold colors.]

Voice: Sissieretta Jones was the leading African-American singer of her generation and one of the first African-American women to performed at Carnegie Hall.

[A photo of Sissieretta. Text on screen: First African American woman to headline at Carnegie Hall. Sissieretta Jones. 1868-1933. Unladylike 2020. Unsung women who changed America.]

– ♪ They say I don’t act right ♪
♪ It’s unladylike ♪
♪ How I wanna live my life ♪

[A black and white photo montage of New York, New York in 1892.]

Julianna Margulies, Narrator: 1892. New York, New York. 24-year-old Sissieretta Jones sang opera at the newly built Madison Square Garden Concert Hall to an audience of thousands.

Maureen Lee, Author, Sissieretta Jones: The Greatest Singer of Her Race: Unfortunately, we have today no recordings of her voice. There were very few African-Americans who recorded at that time. But we have many descriptions of her voice from the press, how powerful it was and the emotion and the sympathy that you could hear when she sang.

[Article text reads: Mme. Sissieretta Jones has won the highest lyric honors on the concert stage, and who is endowed with a marvelous voice, sweet in quality and of extensive range…]

Harolyn Blackwell, Soprano: Madison Square Garden was really the big turning point in her life.

[Amelita Galli-Curci sings Sempre Libera by Giuseppe Verdi. 1919.]

This prima donna with her beautiful silk gowns, her hair coiffed, the long gloves, and the medals across her chest to say in her subtle way, “Yes, I have accomplished this.”

[Music ends, applause. A painted portrait in the likeness of Sissieretta.]

Voiced by Lorraine Toussaint: “I woke up famous after singing at the Garden and didn’t know it. Singing to me is what sunshine is to flowers. I give out melody because God filled my soul with it.”

Julianna: Jones was born Matilda Sissieretta Joyner in 1868 in Portsmouth, Virginia, just after the end of the Civil War. Her parents were devout Methodists. Her father, a pastor, had been born into slavery.

Maureen: In 1876, the family moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where her father had been offered a ministerial position. They went north looking for a better life than in the South.

Julianna: Jones began singing in the church choir at an early age.

Lorraine: “After singing a solo at a Sunday school concert, some people said to my mother, ‘The child sang a high C. You should let her learn music.'”

Maureen: Maybe it was a benefactor at the church who got the money together. She went to the Providence Academy of Music and got some vocal training.

Julianna: She married a hotel porter in 1883 at age 15 and had a daughter, who died as a baby. In 1886, Jones pursued additional vocal training in Boston.

[“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” sung by Fish Jubilee Singers. 1909.]
– ♪ Swing low ♪

Julianna: She began touring music halls throughout the Northeast to great acclaim…

– ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪

…and was hired by a white manager as the lead vocalist of the Tennessee Jubilee Singers, performing arias, gospel, and popular tunes.

– ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪

Maureen: She’ll be limited to concert appearances because there isn’t any opportunity for her to sing in opera. Opera companies weren’t hiring African-American singers, and most white American musicians were not going to appear on the same stage with Sissieretta.

Julianna: In 1888 and 1890, Jones and the troupe toured throughout the Caribbean to packed racially mixed concert halls. The second tour was managed by an all- black team, including her husband.

[A map of the West Indies.

Harolyn: That’s when she was given the title of the greatest singer of her generation.

[“Carmen” by George Bizet. San Francisco Opera. 2019.]

Maureen: And she was given all of these metals and precious jewels. And the more she acquired, the more she pinned on her chest.

Julianna: Jones soon became known as the Black Patti — a comparison to Italian opera star Adelina Patti.

[A photo of Adelina Patty. “Il Bacio” by Luigi Arditi sung by Adelina Patti. 1905.]

Harolyn: Opera was a European art form, and so her manager decided this was the way we were going to promote her. And unfortunately, it stuck throughout her entire career.

Lorraine: “It rather annoys me to be called the Black Patti, but I have a voice and I am striving to win the favor of the public by honest merit and hard work.”

J’Nai Bridges: To be so gifted in these times as a black person, I can imagine was one of the most frustrating things because she couldn’t just be Sissieretta Jones. She had to be the Black Patti, which was demeaning. My name is J’Nai Bridges, and I’m a mezzo-soprano opera singer. Recently I made my Metropolitan Opera debut singing Queen Nefertiti in “Akhnaten” by Philip Glass. The first time that I walked onto the stage, I think my heart skipped a beat, maybe three, but it really felt like I was home.

[J’Nai performs on stage: “Carmen” by George Bizet. San Francisco Opera, 2019. Then, “Girls of the Golden West” by John Adams, San Francisco Opera, 2017.]

I like to call myself an opera athlete. We are our instruments. As an opera singer, we’re unamplified. And so singing for these 4,000-seat opera houses, you have to literally sing from your toes to your head. And it takes great strength.

Julianna: In 1892, Jones sang at the White House for President Benjamin Harrison and reportedly performed for three other U.S. presidents. The following year, she became the first African-American woman to headline a concert on the main stage at Carnegie Hall, slated on the same program as noted abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

[“Ave Maria” by Charles Gounod. Sung by Marie Machialowa. 1905. Then, “Oh Glory” by Shawn Okpebholo. Carnegie Hall, 2018.]
– ♪ Maria ♪

J’Nai: One of the highest honors I’ve received is being invited to perform at Carnegie Hall.

♪ Glory ♪

In 2018, I made my solo recital debut. And to think that she had stood on that stage in the hardest of times in America really kind of brought it full circle to me. It almost felt like she gave me her blessing.

♪ In paradise ♪

[J’Nai holds roses on stage.]

Julianna: After touring Europe, where she performed for emperors, kings, and princes, the tide of Jones’ career turned. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling ushered in a new era of segregation and racial violence.

[A photo of a lynched Black woman hanging from a noose on a bridge.]

Harolyn: Even having sung for four presidents, racism at that point, with the Jim Crow laws, made it ten times more difficult for her to succeed.

Lorraine: “They tell me that my color is against me, but I am proud of what I am.”

Julianna: At a time when minstrel shows performed in blackface stereotyped and demeaned black culture, Jones became the star of the Black Patti Troubadours, a popular vaudeville show made up of 50 African-American acrobats, comedians, dancers, and trained singers.

[A montage of ads for the Black Patti Troubadours.]

Maureen: For the next 19 years, she was on the road. They would travel by rail and they would go from one city to the next, 42 to 45 weeks a year, 5 or 6 cities in a week.

J’Nai: She faced extreme discrimination, unable to stay in hotels, so they had to eventually get their own train car, so she would sleep in her train car.

Julianna: Segregation not only affected how the Black Patti Troubadours traveled, but also how audiences saw the show.

[Photos of a theater with balconies. Text reads: The entire balcony reserved for the colored people. Prices– 25, 35, 50, 75c. The lower part of the house will be reserved exclusively for whites.]

Harolyn: The white audiences, of course, sat in the orchestra, and the black audience sat upstairs, and there weren’t that many white audience members, but they would not allow the blacks to come and sit in those chairs.

Lorraine: “Why, putting the colored people off in the gallery and leaving all those vacant seats downstairs — I think people of my race ought not to be shut out this way.”

J’Nai: Opera houses for the longest time have pretty much looked like one thing, and that is older white people. I have seen people look down on African-Americans in this field because they might think that this isn’t our art form.

[“Satyagraha” by Philip Glass. La Opera, 2018.]

And it’s just not true. Opera is for everybody, and it should represent our community. It should represent America.

Julianna: Jones retired from the stage in 1915 to care for her aging mother in Providence. Despite being the highest-paid African-American performer of her time, Jones had to sell her medals and properties to survive until her death in 1933. Benefactors and fans raised money to place a headstone on her grave in 2018.

[An article reads: Black Patti, once famous singer, dies. Was celebrated star 30 years ago. Next, black and white footage. “Ave Maria” by Franz Schubert sung by Marian Anderson, 1944.]

– ♪ Ave ♪
♪ Maria ♪

J’Nai: I’m completely convinced that without Madam Sissieretta Jones, there would be no Marian Anderson. There would be no Leontyne Price. There would be no Jessye Norman. There would be no me. She not only changed the opera world, but she changed history. What a queen.

Lorraine: “We come through the furnaces of affliction and persecution and become as gold, tried in the fire. As the crushed rose amidst the sweetest perfume, so the Negro, bruised and beaten, sings the sweetest songs.”

Credits:

Unladylike 2020: Gladys Bentley.

Directed, Written & Produced by CHARLOTTE MANGIN. SANDRA RATTLE
Original Artwork by AMELIE CHABANNES.
Narrated by LORRAINE TOUSSAINT.
Voice of Gladys Bentley LISA WILKERSON.
Editor XUAN VU.
Motion Graphics Animator JOEL ORLOFF.
Directors of Photography & Sound Recordists ASHLEY BATTLE.
BRETT WILEY.
Writer WILLA JONES.
Studios BEYOND STUDIOS DC. MESS STUDIO. SONIC UNION. STUDIOWERKS DC.

ARCHIVES:
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. The Afro-American. Alamy. Alfred Eisenstadt / The LIFE Picture Collection. Anthony Barboza/Archive Photos via Getty Images. Atelier Jacobi/ullstein bild / Getty Images. Atlas Obscura. Bahadir Aydin/Shutterstock. Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. Bettmann / Getty Images. Briana Brough/Durham Magazine. Caitlin Kelley/Forbes. Carl Van Vechten/Alfred A. Knopf. Carl Van Vechten/Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. Chicago Daily Tribune. Chicago Defender. Chris Delmas/AF. Cleveland Public Library/Cleveland Memory Project. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of
African American History and Culture. Courtney E. Smith/Refinery29. CriticalPast. Curt Teich Postcard Archives Digital Collection, Newberry Library. Daily Boston Globe. Daily Mirror. Debby Wong. Democrat and Chronicle. Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archives. E. Azalia Hackley Collection/Detroit Public Library. Ebony. Emma Mcintyre/ELLE. Excelsior Records. Frank Driggs Collection. Gary Gershoff/Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images. Gay Man’s Press Publishers. Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society. Ginger Brooks Takahashi. HathiTrust Digital Library. Herald Examiner Collection/Los Angeles Public Library. Herbert Gehr / The LIFE Picture Collection. Hint Fashion Magazine. Index-Journal. INSTARImages. InStyle. Internet Archive. J. Baruch/ullstein bild / Getty Images. Jamie McCarthy. Jas Obrecht Music Archive. JD Dovle Archives. Jet. John Steiner Collection,. Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. John Vettese/WXPN. Jon Kopaloff. Jordi Vidal/Redferns. Jubilee Pictures Corp. JUST. Kirn Vintage Stock / Corbis. Lavender Pulp. Lev Radin / Shutterstock. Los Angeles Herald. Library of Congress. Livingston County Daily Press and Argus. Los Angeles Sentinal. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times. Miami Herald. Michael Ochs Archives. Missouri State Archives. Music Division, The New York Public Library Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. NBC Universal. New York Age. New York Amsterdam News. New York Daily News. New York Herald. North Carolina Arts Council. NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. Out/Look National Lesbian & Gay Quarterly. PBS & WGBH Educational Foundation. Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center, The New York Public Library. Popperfoto / Getty Images Proquest. Queer B.O.I.S. / Tumblr. Queer Music Heritage. Research and Reference Division, Schomburg Center, The New York Public Library. Sack Amusement Enterprises. Salt Lake Telegram. San Francisco Examiner. Sandra Davidson / North Carolina Arts Council. Sandra Katharine Davidson. Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University Sean Drakes / Getty Images Entertainment / Getty Images. Shirlette Ammons. Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA. St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Sterling Paige, Courtesy of Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY. Steve Granitz/Wirelmage. Suncoast Music. The American Journal of Psychiatry. The Bee. The Daily Times. The Document Record Store. The Journal of Abnormal Psychology. The Morning News. The New York Age. The New York Public Library. The New York Times. The News-Herald. The Oshkosh Northwestern. The Ottawa Journal. The Pomona Daily Review. The Shreveport Times. Tim Walter. Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Entertainment / Getty Images. U.S. Senate Historical Office. University of North Texas Libraries. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers,
Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University. William Goodwin Inc.. Youtube/Ash Crowe. Youtube/LaMosiqa. Youtube/Springstoff

MUSIC
“UNLADYLIKE”
Written & Performed by Toni Romiti

“THEM THERE EYES”
Performed by Gladys Bentley
Written by Maceo Pinkard, Doris Tauber and William G. Tracey Via NBC’s “Groucho Marx: You Bet Your Life”

“HONOR & SACRIFICE”
Written by Cody Kurtz Martin
Licensed by Soundstripe Inc

“PETALS”
Written by Shane Becker
Licensed by Soundstripe Inc.

“PRESTIGE”
Written by Mathew Wigton
Licensed by Soundstripe Inc.

“CHRISTOPHER WALKEN”
Written by Mathew Wigton
Licensed by Soundstripe Inc.

“WORRIED BLUES”
Written & Performed by Gladys Bentley

“PINK PANTHER”
Written by Benjamin Caleb Johnson
Licensed by Soundstripe Inc.

“BIG GORILLA MAN”
Written & Performed by Gladys Bentley
PURPLE VELVET TOUR MEDLEY
Written & Performed by Sookee, Lex LaFoy and Shirlette Ammons

“GUT LIGHTING”
Written & Performed by Shirlette Ammons

“GET DRESSED WITH CHAUNESTI
Written & Performed by Shirlette Ammons

“LIKE HONEY”
Written by Adrian Dominic Walther
Licensed by Soundstripe Inc.

“SOMETHING SWEET ABOUT DEATH”
Written by Malory Leyland Torr
Courtesy of Extreme Music

“REAL LOVE”
Written by Malory Leyland Torr and Danny George Mclauchlan
Courtesy of Extreme Music

“WICKED LOVE FT NAOMI AUGUST”
Written by Naomi Marie Agosto
Courtesy of Extreme Music

“THIS IS HOW WE PURPLEIZE
DANGEROUS QUEENS OF THE NIGHT”
Written & Performed by Shirlette Ammons, Lex LaFoy and Sookee

“RED BEANS AND RICE”
Written & Performed by Gladys Bentley

UNLADYLIKE2020: SISSIERETTA JONES

Directed, Written & Produced by CHARLOTTE MANGIN. SANDRA RATTLEY.
Original Artwork by AMELIE CHABANNES.
Narrated by JULIANNA MARGULIES.
Voice of Sissieretta Jones LORRAINE TOUSSAINT.
Editor ADAM LINGO.
Motion Graphics Animator JOEL ORLOFF.
Directors of Photography & Sound Recordists HANNAH ENGELSON. BARBIE LEUNG.
Writer JOSIE HIRSCH.
Studios BE ELECTRIC / STAR STREET STUDIO. NECESSARY STUDIOS.

ARCHIVES
American Broadsides and Ephemera. B.O’Kane/Alamy Stock Photo. Bakersfield Morning Echo (Bakersfield, California). Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images. Bettmann/Getty Images. Between the Covers Rare Book Inc. Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library. Boston Public Library. Buyenlarge/Getty Images. Carnegie Hall Archives. Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, Tennessee). Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature. Collection of John Davis via Brown University Library
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera. CriticalPast. Dramatic Museum Portrait Collection, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. E. Azalia Hackley Collection/Detroit Public Library. Everett Collection/Alamy. George Henry Farnum Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society. Research Division George Tames/New York Times Co./Getty Images. H. Lawrence Freeman Collection, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Harvard Theater Collection. Historic New England. Homer Sykes/Alamy Stock Photo Indianapolis Journal (Indianapolis, Indiana). J. Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs, University of Washington Special Collections. Karen Almond, Metropolitan Opera. LA Opera, Artists herein are represented by and appear courtesy of the American Guild of Musical Artists. Law Library of Congress. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection. London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company. Maureen Lee. Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University Archives, Howard University, Washington DC. National Archives. National Library of New Zealand. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution New Ulm Review (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.). Noam Galai/Getty Images. Randy Houk. Rhode Island Collection, Providence Public Library. Rhode Island Historical Society. Saint Paul Globe (Saint Paul, Minnesota). San Francisco Museum of Performance and Design. San Francisco Opera. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, New York Public Library Sean Gallup/Getty Images. Selma Morning Times (Selma, Alabama). Steve J. Sherman. TASS/Getty Images. The Chicago Defender (Chicago, Illinois The El Paso County Historical Society The Evening World (New York, New York). The Freeman (Indianapolis, Indiana). The Journal and Tribune (Knoxville, Tennessee). The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, New York Public Library. The Morning News (Savannah, Georgia). The Providence Daily Journal (Providence, Rhode Island). The San Francisco Call (San Francisco, California). The Sun (New York, New York). The Washington Bee (Washington, D.C.). University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives Collections. Victoria and Albert Museum, London William Lovelace/Express/Getty Images. Without Sanctuary. WFMT Chicago. WPRI.

MUSIC
“UNLADYLIKE”
Written and Performed by Toni Romiti

“LA MIRADA”
Written and Performed by Nicola Cruz

“TRAVIATA SEMPRE LIBERA”
Written by Giuseppe Verdi
Performed by Amelita Galli-Curci

“WEIRD AWAKENING*
Written by Lea Maria Cappelli and Michael Evan Irish
Courtesy of Extreme Music

“SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT”
Written by Wallace Willis
Performed by Fisk University Jubilee Quartet

“BRAND NEW FT NAOMI AUGUST”
Written by Naomi August
Courtesy of Extreme Music

“HABANERA”
Written by Georges Bizet
Performed by Sophie Braslau

“HABANERA (L’AMOUR EST UN OISEAU REBELLE)”
Written by Thumpin Vinyl Josh Powell, Marc Williams, Milroy Nadarajah), and Georges Bizet Courtesy of Extreme Music

“IL BACIO”
Written by Luigi Arditi
Performed by Adelina Patti

“BLOW HARD*
Written by Joseph Glenn Alley, Bruce Fingers, and Billie Ray Fingers Courtesy of Extreme Music

“AKHNATEN”
Written by by Philip Glass
Performed by J’Nai Bridges
Courtesy of LA Opera

“GIRLS OF THE GOLDEN WEST”
Performed by J’Nai Bridges
Written by John Adams
Courtesy of San Francisco Opera

“CARMEN”
Written by George Bizet
Performed by J’Nai Bridges
Courtesy of San Francisco Opera

“AVE MARIA”
Written by Charles Gounod
Performed by Marie Michailowa

“HEART YOU FT AISA”
Written by Phillip Andrew Cox, Joel Angelo Margolis, and Aisa Renardus Courtesy of Extreme Music

“OH GLORY”
Written by Shawn Okpebholo
Performed by J’Nai Bridges
Courtesy of WFMT Radio

“DARK HEARTED”
Written by Aaron R. Kaplan, Bruce Fingers, Billie Ray Fingers, David Cowan
Courtesy of Extreme Music

“SMOKESCREEN”
Written by Tom Vedvik and Martin Tillman
Courtesy of Extreme Music

“SATYAGRAHA”
Written by Philip Glass
Performed by J’Nai Bridges
Courtesy of Los Angeles Opera

“AVE MARIA”
Written by Charles Gounod
Performed by Marian Anderson
Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration

ORIGINAL PRODUCTION FUNDING FOR UNLADYLIKE2020 SERIES PROVIDED BY
The National Endowment for the Humanities. Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The National Endowment for the Arts.

ORIGINAL PRODUCTION FUNDING FOR UNLADYLIKE2020: GLADYS BENTLEY PROVIDED BY Harnisch Foundation.

ORIGINAL PRODUCTION FUNDING FOR UNLADYLIKE2020: SISSIERETTA JONES PROVIDED BY Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.

UNLADYLIKE2020 SERIES
Artistic Directors AMELIE CHABANNES. JOEL ORLOFF.
Line Producers ARTESIA BALTHROP. OKEMA T. MOORE.
Associate Producers & Researchers MARIANA SURILLO. JOSIE HIRSCH. WILLA JONES.
Post Producer OKEMA T. MOORE.
Archival Producers EMILY HARROLD. REBECCA KENT. AMORY DAVIS.
Archival Researcher GABRIELLE KOEHLER.
Music Supervisors ARTESIA BALTHROP. MARIANA SURILLO.
Assistant Editors JASMINE CANNON. HINA ALI.
Junior Assistant Editor SUZETTE BURTON.
Online Editor LAVARRO JONES.
Colorist MITHIN THOMAS.
Sound Mix Manager KARA REVNES.
Supervising Sound Editor/Mixer LAURA TAYLOR.
Animation Assistants RILEY THOMPSON. AUDREY DUPUPET.
Archival Assistant DOMINIC LOUNDS.
Production Interns KÏARÄ BHAGWANJEE. OLIVIA FIDLER. TATINI MAL-SARKAR. JASMINE SABADOSA. HADDIE WEBSTER. ANI WILCENSKI.
Development & Impact Producer KATHY LEICHTER.
Impact Operations Producer ALICE QUINLAN.
Digital Strategist LAUREN PRESTILEO.
Interactive Website Developer CELSO WHITE.
Interactive Website Designer SCHESSA GARBUTT.

Humanities Advisors MICHAEL BRONSKI. HASIA DINER. MARY JO TIPPECONNIC FOX. CYNTHIA E. OROZCO. STEPHANIE J. SHAW. KAREN MANNERS SMITH. NANCY C. UNGER. JUDY TZU-CHUN WU.
Fiscal Sponsorship Provided by THE FUTURO MEDIA GROUP. FRACTURED ATLAS.
Insurance FRONT ROW INSURANCE BROKERS, LLC TAYLOR & TAYLOR ASSOCIATES.
Legal Services INNES SMOLANSKY. HUNTON ANDREWS KURTH LLP.
Finance Associate MICHELLE JACOBY.
Transcription / Captioning TEMI SERVICES.
Sound Effects FREESFX.
Special Thanks JETBLUE. PART2 PICTURES.

FOR AMERICAN MASTERS
Executive Producer MICHAEL KANTOR.
Series Producer JULIE SACKS.
Supervising Producer JUNKO TSUNASHIMA.
Digital Lead DAVID POLK.
Multimedia Producer JOE SKINNER.
Associate Producers CRISTIANA LOMBARDO.
Series Production Coordinators AISHA AMIN. KRISTA CAMPBELL. HAILEY ROZENBERG.

FOR UNLADYLIKE PRODUCTIONS
Created By Charlotte Mangin.
Executive Producers Charlotte Mangin. Sandra Rattley.

This program was produced by Unladylike Productions, LLC which is solely responsible for its content. A production of Unladylike Productions in association with THIRTEEN’s American Masters. © 2020 Unladylike Productions, LLC. All rights reserved.

Credits end.

[Text on screen: The First Women. Performers. Athletes. Explorers. Journalists. Scientists. Activists. Entrepreneurs. Doctors. Politicians. Artists. Now, a montage of painted portraits of women and archived photographs. A variety of unidentified voices provide narrative.]

– She was liberated long before we ever started stumbling around in the dark about what it means to be a liberated woman.

– Women were always daredevils.

– Once you get a taste for it, it’s very hard to turn back.

– When you think of all the additional challenges and all the additional hurdles that they had, it was dangerous to try to climb a mountain in petticoats.

– Women were supposed to act a certain way, be told what to do, how to speak, what to wear. It was still before women had the right to vote.

– Taking the step to run for office really challenged the notion of how far women can go in a leadership role.

– Women demanded new space and pushed the boundaries of what being a lady means.

[Text on screen: Unladylike 2020. Unsung woman who changed America. In honor of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage. To see the full collection of Unladylike2020 films visit pbs.org/americanmasters.]

♪ They say I don’t act right ♪
♪ It’s unladylike ♪
♪ How I wanna live my life ♪
♪ Oh, they say I don’t act right ♪
♪ It’s unladylike ♪
♪ How I wanna live my life ♪

Narrator: You’re watching PBS.

[Video cuts to black. Video ends.]

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