'He was the first punk. He was the first everything.' John Waters pays tribute to Little Richard and recalls an infamous 1987 interview with the rock pioneer
Why did you like Little Richard so much?he scared my grandmother. I thought, “What the hell is that?” It was a sound unlike anything I had ever heard in my life, even outside of music. So he had me from the very first moment I ever heard him. And then when I saw him, I thought, “Oh, my God.” And I still have the mustache that really was a tribute to him.He could see it. It was right in front of him.
not taking me to see Little Richard. I saw him in concert films and on TV, but I never saw [him live]. I’m sorry I didn’t. Especially in the beginning. Imagine what they were like. They must have been so great.Maybe you should never meet your idols. When he said he had a bodyguard that evencould have beaten up, I thought, “Well, I’m leaving with this tape.” The other ludicrous thing is, I was interviewing him for, even though I had a subscription toreaders always, because they were religious.
But then, I can never be mad at him if I hear “The Girl Can’t Help It.” It makes me so crazy. The music’s so great but I don’t know. It sucks because he was my hero, even though he didn’t even have the mustache anymore.He was always torn. He was not bisexual, he was … I don’t know. When you go from God to gay. He was bi-God-gay [Obviously, he was struggling with that when you did the interview with him in the Eighties.
Is “struggling” the right word? Or was it more about which side had more money? Struggle? When I interviewed him it was so bizarre because his autobiography had just come out. It was ghostwritten, but still, he told all the stories. And it was. It had so many shocking, funny stories in it. But then he denied them all. So it was confusing. It just depended which side he was on.I have no idea. I guess he flipped over to radical Christianity. He could have been a Christian and not a hate-Christian.
But I still always play Little Richard’s music. And I love his music. I was rooting for him. I wanted him to be last. All the other ones are dead: Chuck Berry, Elvis. It was down to those two. And
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