It was a lovely May afternoon in Hollywood and Little Richard was in no mood to dwell on the past.

No sooner was he on the line that he announced, “I was just telling Gloria [Boyce, Richard’s publicist] that I want to talk about now! Everybody wants to talk to you about yesterday. I want to talk about today! I want to talk about things that are happening now.” And what is happening now is that little Richard will grace a New Orleans stage with his flamboyant presence for the first time in ...