This video! Instead of doing my assignments I had to edit this.

RIP Little Richard 1932-2020

Rock pioneer Little Richard has died at 87. He, along with Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, were among the founding fathers of rock ‘n’ roll music. My Dad was a fan when he was a teen, so I learned a little about Little Richard and his music as I was getting into music. Since so much of his music was popular in the 1950s, tons and tons of the musicians who followed in the 1960s were highly influenced by Little Richard: The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan (who said in his high school yearbook his future goal was “to follow Little Richard”), and obviously The Beatles. 

The Beatles with Little Richard circa 1964

The Beatles opened for Little Richard in 1964. They even covered his songs like “Long Tall Sally”, “Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey”, “Lucille”,  and “Ohh! My Soul”. The vocals on “I’m Down” were highly influenced by Little Richard too! John Lennon covered “Reddy Teddy” and “Slippin’ and Slidin’” as a solo artist. Paul McCartney covered “Lucille” as a solo artist too! Many of those Beatle covers were later covered on the soundtrack to the 1994 movie Backbeat about their early days in Hamburg, where The Backbeat Band made up of Greg Dulli, Thurston Moore, Mike Mills, Dave Grohl, Dave Pirner and Don Flemming, blasted through those hits. Check out the soundtrack! In 1994 just after The Beatles Anthology has been announced, Little Richard said in the press that he was going to tour with the reunited Beatles that year. Paul, George and Ringo never toured, but it got me excited about the possibility of both a Beatles reunion and Little Richard on tour. 

Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix on guitar circa 1965

Little Richard also discovered Jimi Hendrix, when a young Hendrix was the guitarist in Little Richard’s backing band The Upsetters and he even recorded a little with him too. 

Little Richard with David Bowie circa late 80s

I first discovered him with his 1986 hit “Great Gosh a Mighty” from the soundtrack to Down and Out in Beverly Hills, which he actually appeared in as well. In Feb. 1986, at the V66 Birthday Bash to celebrate their 1st anniversary, there was an all-star band with members of The Cars and The J. Geils Band performing some hits at The Metro. When I was editing my V66 documentary I came upon a brief clip of that all-star band covering “Lucille”. Good stuff! I mostly learned about Little Richard through the artists I liked at the time: he did back up vocals on an extended mix of U2 and B.B. King’s “When Love Comes to Town”, guest vocals on Living Colour’s “Elvis is Dead”, and appearing in the music video for Cinderella’s “Shelter Me”. 

In pop culture, he appeared in a ton of movies and TV shows too: a 1985 episode of Miami Vice, the 1988 Christmas at Pee Wee's Playhouse TV special, and as himself in Last Action Hero.

Little Richard and Pee-Wee Herman circa 1988

Por: Arturo Salazar

2018 es el año de Guillermo del Toro: se estrena su película “The Shape Of Water” en México, ganó el Globo de Oro a Mejor Director y traerá a la ciudad su exposición. Varios medios han reportado que este año se inaugurará la expo de del Toro llamada “Bleak House”, él mencionó que se trata de una muestra más personal, con criaturas que han alimentado su creatividad, además de elementos de sus películas y objetos personales que superan las 500 piezas.

Su primera parada fue en Museo de Arte de Los Ángeles (LACMA) en el 2016, seguido por el Instituto de Arte de Minneapolis (MIA) y actualmente se encuentra en los últimos días en la Galería de Arte de Ontario en Toronto.

Checa un recorrido a través del montaje hecho en LACMA: