It's hard to imagine a time before Little Richard. For more than half a century, the singular entertainer known as The Architect of Rock 'n' Roll has enthralled audiences and inspired generations of performers. His songs, persona and trademark "wooo" are seared into America's collective consciousness, impossible to forget or discount.
But there was a time before the world knew his name, when he was still an eccentric hotshot from Macon, Ga., scrounging a living playing in Nashville's famous R&B clubs of the 1950s.
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"I was making $100 a week at the New Era club, when it was on Fourth Avenue, for (owner William Sousa) Soo Bridgeforth," he recalls. "I wasn't famous. I thought I was, but I wasn't — no records yet. I packed the house. You couldn't get in. I had a song that I would sing called 'Baby, Don't You Wish Your Man Looked Like Me.' I would say, 'Baby, don't you wish your man looked like Little Richard?' And all the ladies would say, 'Yeah!' All the men said, 'No!' "
He remembers playing the Club Revillot at 14th and Jefferson, too, and Club Baron, and the Bijou. "And I would pack those places," he says.
More than half a century later, Richard, 76, sits in a hotel lobby in downtown Nashville, mere blocks from the sites of those early gigs. Even without a stage, he has no trouble attracting an audience. Curious guests not-so-subtly snap cell phone photos in the distance, and one man approaches the rock icon with a request to sign his banjo. (Richard politely declines, explaining that he's not a picker.)
It's clear that plenty has changed since his first visit to Nashville. But the unique rapport Little Richard has with the city — a place he now calls home — hasn't.
"I think Nashville has been underrated," he says. "It's more of a mighty place than people think it is. It's a mighty city and it's going to be more mighty. In about five more years, it'll be New York City. The buildings are going to look like that. It's a beautiful scene."
'56 rock 'n' roll
In his early days, it was artists such as Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys and broadcasts from Nashville rhythm and blues radio station WLAC that inspired Richard Wayne Penniman and helped draw him to Music City.
Today, his eyes light up when speaking about current country stars. Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, Faith Hill and Taylor Swift are among his favorites.
When he was given a star on the Music City Walk of Fame last November, Richard made time in his acceptance speech to compliment fellow inductee Trace Adkins.
Adkins, in turn, took the opportunity to exclaim, "Little Richard knows my name!"
"What I like about now, the country music that you hear today is '56 rock 'n' roll," Richard says. "The stuff that we played in '56, they call that country music today. The banging pianos and the 'uhhhh!' (singing)."
Nashville producer Steve Fishell, who has worked with the likes of Emmylou Harris and the Dixie Chicks, got to witness those connections firsthand when he worked with Richard on a song for The Imus Ranch Album in 2007. Richard recorded a fiery cover of "I Ain't Never," a song made famous by country star Webb Pierce in the 1950s.
"Richard put his stamp on that song," Fishell says. "I've never heard it rock so hard, and yet it really makes sense. He clearly loves country music. That surprised me a little bit, but then when you think about his past, and the connection that great songs have, it's not surprising that an artist of his stature would listen to country."
But in the beginning, Richard's time in Nashville was all about rhythm and blues. He made some of his earliest recordings playing piano for Nashville blues singer Christine Kittrell. Michael Gray, co-curator of the recent Country Music Hall of Fame exhibit Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945-1970,says Richard put in "hours of bandstand apprenticeship" in Nashville R&B nightclubs.
"Nashville was segregated at the time, but R&B and blues music flourished in the black nightclubs and theaters here," Gray says. "Nashville was a major stop on the Southern touring circuit."
'I'm the originator'
Richard's tour makes its latest stop on Valentine's Day at the Grand Ole Opry House, where he'll headline a bill that could have been put together 40 years ago, featuring doo-wop pioneers (and recent Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame inductees) Little Anthony and the Imperials and Northern soul favorites the Tams. He talks up the show with trademark fervor.
"It's gonna be a whoopersnapper," he says. "It's gonna knock you to your knees and make you holler, 'Please!' I want everybody to come so they can enjoy themselves. I want to be their Valentine. For the grandmamma, for the wife, for the kids."
Alongside the self-promotion, it might actually be impossible to have a conversation with Little Richard without hearing the man sing. One of his current favorite songs to break into is Kenny Chesney's "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven."
"When he did the song, he was smart enough to go down to the Caribbean and do the West Indian reggae," Richard explains of Chesney.
The message in the song's hook — "Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go now" — also resonates with Little Richard. He says he's grateful to still be around.
"People come to hear me because I'm the originator," he explains. "I've been around for so long, and I'm still operating — and look decent! I think that gets to people.
"I still remember that I love this music. I love it from the bottom of my heart."
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