Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Even from an artist renowned for outrageous behavior, the action was a shocking sight. In August, 1984, Richard Penniman—better known as Little Richard, the flamboyant 1950s rocker—began picketing an office building in downtown Los Angeles. The rock star was not on strike; he was on a crusade. The offices belonged to ATV Music Corp., one of the world’s largest song publishers. Little Richard’s claim: that ATV, along with Specialty Records and Venice Music, owed him millions of dollars in royalties for “Tutti-Frutti,” “Good Golly Miss Molly” and other classic Little Richard hits. Four months later his $115-million lawsuit against those companies was thrown out of U.S. Federal Court. Now, Litt...

The North American rhythm-and-blues circuit of the 1950s and ’60s had a surprising number of artists pushing gender boundaries. Macon, Georgia’s Little Richard, who’d once performed as Princess Lavonne in a traveling tent show called Sugarfoot Sam's, was certainly the best known. But Richard was heavily influenced by Esquerita, a flamboyant and feminine pianist from New Orleans.  Also from New Orleans were two other artists who were gay or transgender or nonbinary: Patsy Vidalia, born Irving Ale, hosted the city’s legendary Dew Drop Inn and recorded as Pat Valdelar; and gay soul singer and impresario Bobby Marchan regularly switched between male and female clothing—complete wi...

In 1986, Little Richard successfully mounted a career comeback following the twin tragedies the previous year of his mother's death and his own near-fatal car crash. First he released an authorized biography, Quasar of Rock: The Life and Times of Little Richard, and starred in the movie Down and Out in Beverly HIlls, alongside Nick Nolte, Bette Midler and Richard Dreyfuss. Then he landed a contract with Warner Bros. and released, Lifetime Friend, his first album in seven years. To top it off, the artist behind massive early hits like "Tutti Frutti" and "Good Golly Miss Molly," one of the first black crossover artists and the man who influenced performers from Paul McCartney to...