{"id":2687,"date":"2020-05-20T19:37:43","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T00:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/read.streamapse.com\/?p=2687"},"modified":"2020-05-20T19:37:43","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T00:37:43","slug":"the-1950s-queer-black-performers-who-inspired-little-richard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/?p=2687","title":{"rendered":"The 1950s queer black performers who inspired Little Richard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since Little Richard died on May 9<\/a>, he\u2019s been rightly celebrated as one of the most exciting and influential performers in the canon of American popular music. But in most tributes, the full story of his artistic development has been slighted.<\/p>\n

This is a pity, because Little Richard\u2019s music is deeply rooted in an underground tradition of queer black performance that\u2019s also worthy of celebration. Indeed, when I have lectured on Little Richard\u2019s work to my students, they\u2019re often surprised and delighted to learn about the subculture that contributed so much to his artistic persona.<\/p>\n

His hairstyle, makeup and lyrics were inspired by fellow performers such as Billy Wright<\/a> and Eskew Reeder<\/a>. The better their influence is understood, the more the gleefully subversive energy that suffuses Richard\u2019s own work can be appreciated.<\/p>\n

The Wright stuff<\/h2>\n

Little Richard \u2013 born Richard Penniman \u2013 honed his craft as a teenage drag queen in touring minstrel tent-shows and vaudeville revues, as well as in an extended network of clubs and bars in the southern and eastern United States known as the \u201cchitlin\u2019 circuit<\/a>.\u201d In a 1967 interview<\/a>, singer Lou Rawls offered his own memories of playing the circuit:<\/p>\n

\u201cThese clubs were very small, very tight, very crowded and very loud. Everything was loud but the entertainment. The only way to establish communication was by telling a story that would lead into the song, that would catch people\u2019s attention.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

African American studies scholars L. H. Stallings<\/a> and Mark Anthony Neal<\/a> have both observed that, while it wasn\u2019t explicitly identified with sexual outlaws, the chitlin\u2019 circuit nevertheless provided a space for queer black artists to flourish.<\/p>\n

It was within one of these spaces in the city of Atlanta \u2013 either the Royal Peacock<\/a> or Bailey\u2019s 81 Theatre<\/a> \u2013 that Little Richard first met Billy Wright<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wright had also started out as a female impersonator but had more recently established himself as a singer. He would score four top 10 hits<\/a> on the R&B charts from 1949 to 1951.<\/p>\n

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Little Richard admired Wright enormously. In Little Richard\u2019s words<\/a>, Wright wore \u201cvery loud-colored clothin\u2019 and shoethin\u2019 to match his clothin\u2019,\u201d which Little Richard began to imitate. He also copied Wright\u2019s pompadour hairstyle and even began using the same brand of pancake<\/a> makeup.<\/p>\n

Billy was equally fond of Little Richard, helping to secure his first recording session with RCA in 1951 \u2013 using the very same musicians that had backed up Wright on his own records.<\/p>\n

Both men were creditable R&B artists, but their recordings from this period offer no hint of the spectacular flamboyance that they apparently projected in person. The queer style that had brought them together was too outr\u00e9 to even consider trying to capture on tape.<\/p>\n

Hurricane Esquerita<\/h2>\n

A year or so later, Little Richard met another young black queer performer named Eskew Reeder at a bus station in Macon, Georgia.<\/p>\n

As Little Richard told the story<\/a>, he picked Reeder up and took him home, where Reeder played him a version of \u201cOne Mint Julep\u201d by The Clovers on the piano. Little Richard was bowled over, immediately asking for lessons, and thereafter adopting aspects of Reeder\u2019s style \u2013 playing blues licks in the uppermost register of the keyboard<\/a> with the right hand, while supplying a pounding, rhythmic accompaniment with the left.<\/p>\n

<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reeder later suggested<\/a> that Little Richard\u2019s trademark falsetto whoop was also inspired by his own approach to vocalization.<\/p>\n

Eskew Reeder would eventually adopt the stage name of \u201cEsquerita.\u201d It was a phonetic pun on his own name in which we can also hear a winking homoerotic suggestion: \u201cEsquire Eater\u201d; a scatological joke: \u201cExcreter\u201d; and perhaps even a prescient tribute to queer theory: \u201cAskew Reader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Esquerita didn\u2019t release any recordings until 1958, more than three years after Little Richard achieved national stardom with \u201cTutti Frutti\u201d; but Little Richard always acknowledged the original direction of influence.<\/p>\n

Esquerita\u2019s 1958 sessions convey a flamboyant wildness that exceeds even Richard\u2019s most exuberant recordings. The almost indescribable B-side, \u201cEsquerita and the Voola<\/a>,\u201d is a case in point \u2013 a strange mixture of pseudo-classical piano riffing set to a booming floor-tom rhythm, over which Esquerita warbles like a pop-opera Valkyrie.<\/p>\n

Today, \u201cEsquerita and the Voola\u201d stands as the missing link between barrelhouse boogie-woogie and Queen\u2019s \u201cBohemian Rhapsody\u201d \u2013 a vinyl slice of queer black cabaret that must have left most record company executives and radio DJs utterly baffled.<\/p>\n