The First Time I Worked for Little Richard

The original title of this piece is The First and Last Time I Worked for Little Richard. The first story got too long, so the second part I'll publish later.
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By the sound of the title, you probably think I worked one Little Richard Show, but it was closer to 20 over a long number of years. It occurred today that perhaps the most interesting of all these was the first one and the last.
By "worked for" I mean I supplied the piano (and prep for the piano) on his shows. This is going back to the early '90's.

The first show I had a call for was in Galveston for a summer event at Moody Gardens. They might have been opening their latest pyramid or some such thing.
The concert was on the airport runway next to the Moody complex and stared Blood Sweat & Tears, Dr. John, and (The Beautiful) Little Richard.

This was my first L.R. show and I was excited, after all, this man is a god (in Rock and Roll), and has been a major influence on everyone who ever picked up a guitar (or rock piano).

Not to drag this out, it was an all day deal with multiple sound checks, etc. and when evening came and the concert started, well, let's put it like this: They were planning for 8,000... 800 showed up. That is a lot of empty runway space.

Musically, the shows were terrific. BS&T I had not seen since my 16th birthday sounded better than I remembered. Dr John, who I had been a big fan of since his first album was also great with a 5 piece horn section.

It began to get weird after the BS&T show ended. I went up to do a final check on the piano, and some goons told me I had to leave. Now. I tried to explain I had a job to do, but they countered with if I didn't leave, the show would be canceled and it would be my fault.

I left.

From then on it was like a totalitarian dictatorship transferred in from behind the Iron Curtain. These guys who looked like secret service agents went around ordering everyone around, muttering into walkie-talkies and threatened the meager audience that L.R. would not come out if they all didn't back up 9 feet from the stage... it was all pretty crazy.

Finally it was Little Richard Time! After giving us all time (about 10 minutes) to admire His Beauty (by standing on my piano and posing) he sat down and did his show. Which was good except:

• he claimed he saw people video taping him and so threatened them with his goons.
• He complained bitterly about how much he hated the piano.

Yep, in front of friends and family (mine, not his) he bitched about what a piece of crap the gleaming white grand piano was and how he was going to chop it into firewood, etc.

I wanted to fall through my a** hole and disappear. I had fantasies of getting a picture with him and the whole nine yards. Now I was caught between shame and humiliation.

When the ordeal was finally over, I ran up on the stage to check it - none of the things he claimed were true! WTF?! I thought...

I got a lot of good-natured kidding from my buddies "Bil, Little Richard wants to see you in his trailer". I wrote letters of apology/explanation to the producers (the agent appreciated that). Then heard the rest of the story: After finding out 90% of the expected audience didn't show, L. Richard was looking for an out. All the trouble making was about him being pissed at the low turnout.

Here's the kicker:

4 days later I got a call from his bandleader asking me to come work for them at the New Orleans Jazz Festival.