At 10:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, dewy-eyed conference attendees filed into Meeting Room 18 at the Austin Convention Center, coffee in hand, ridiculously full tote bag over shoulder, shiny badge front and center on chest. It was the first panel of the Music Conference, and my first conference panel as a spectator since coordinating panels at the BH Symposium. Quite nice to be sitting in the audience rather than pacing in the background, wondering if the air temperature is comfortable and praying to God that the panelists show up on time.

After a brief and somewhat rabble-rousing introduction by SXSW Director Roland Swenson, rock writer Dave Marsh took the stage. Flush with excitement, Marsh began by explaining that he had just spent an hour hanging with the Architect of Rock n' Roll. Backstage, Marsh told us, Little Richard had hugs for everyone - including himself, SXSW volunteers, and random passers-by. "This is what a hero does," Marsh noted, then declared himself to be the luckiest person at SXSW as his interviewer. "He's really Little Richard!", he explained, almost giddily, before calling the legend to the stage.

He really was Little Richard, y'all. Just exactly as you would hope him to be. I heard him before I could see him; I was standing on tiptoes and craning my head for a glimpse through the crowd when he let loose this maniacal Little Richard laugh. "Oh, MY," he said, again with the laugh. It almost brought tears to my eyes, Beatles-landing-in-America style.

When the crowd finally sat down, I saw him. Bright red blazer with sequined lapel, black shirt and pants and sequined boots, black sunglasses. This was the man who wrote Tutti-Frutti. This man was one of the first to both rock and roll. This man played at the Cotton Club in Lubbock in the 50s; this man had dinner in the backyard of Buddy Holly's parents' house in Lubbock, along with King Curtis. (The story goes that Buddy's father wouldn't allow them to eat in the house, because inviting black men to eat inside a white family's home was then taboo. Of course, I don't know this story to be fact, but I did read it somewhere ... so there you go.)

Little Richard took over the spotlight the second he got on stage. He earnestly started to answer Marsh's first question about what music he listens to now; he tried too, really. Suddenly he was off, spouting a string of cliches and rhymes woven with sage advice for music-makers and glimpses of his storied life. All told, it was a meandering, eccentric sermon that lasted close to forty-five minutes.

Now, I could go into a play-by-play of the entire interview, but the Statesman's already done that for me here, complete with a list of LR's pearls of wisdom. My favorite pearls included:
"You can tell the story, but you won't receive no glory"; "When you sing from the heart, it reaches the heart"; "You have to live it to give it, and you have to know it to show it"; "God didn't give all the talent to one person. God didn't give all the talent just to black folk".

Then he would randomly sing, "Whooooooooooooooooh!". That was AWESOME.

LR definitely jumped from topic to topic for the first three quarters of the interview, but he seemed to have certain points he genuinely wanted to get across: that music should be an expression of who you are, that musicians should learn their craft well rather than just mashing a button on the drum machine, "sign yo' checks", that kind of thing. Towards the end of the "interview", though, things went slightly pear-shaped. It was harder to follow his thought process. He yelled hello to audience members and waved to his entourage standing by the far wall. He introduced one guy, Kenny, as one of the few black people he knew who actually liked Chinese food.

Insert awkward pause here.

He then looked over at Marsh, as though he just remembered that he was sharing the stage with someone. "I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't give you a chance to say nothing. That's awful! You can talk now. I'm ready."

Marsh asked who had stolen the most from him, musically speaking. LR answered that he always liked Jimi Hendrix, because the man had really high Indian cheekbones like himself, and that Jimi was a ladies man.

Um, okay.

Little Richard got tired, y'all.

It reminded me a little of seeing Al Green at the ACL Festival last year. Before he left the stage, after he rocked out for 40 minutes or so, he said something like "I've been giving it to you all for thirty-five years! I've been giving it, and you've been taking it. I'm tired now." Amen, Reverend.

Just before I thought everything might totally fall apart, LR told a story of how the Beatles (pre-Ringo) wanted to be his opening act once, and he would've received 50% of the groups' earnings in return. He declined because "I thought the world already had two Everly brothers, they didn't need four". Also, he got James Brown out of prison for the first time.

One amusing exchange with Marsh and few cliches later, and Little Richard was done. Marsh was exhausted, we were exhausted, Little Richard was exhausted.

He's been giving it to us for over fifty years, everyone. A little respect, please.

More Little Richard than you ever thought possible:
Austin Chronicle's interview, pre-conference
Austin Chronicle's recap of the "Keynote"
The XLent's interview, pre-conference (my favorite of the bunch)

Lucy loves you |