Sissy Loves Black: Sissy Ballerina

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Richard used his experience and knowledge as an elder statesman of rock and roll to preach at funerals of musical friends such as Wilson Pickett and Ike Turner. Richard's performances, like most early rock and roll shows, resulted in integrated audience reaction during an era where public places were divided into "white" and "colored" domains. Without Black and brown trans women, however, there would be no sissy sonics, nor will there be a Ru Paul, Billy Porter, or Toddrick Hall (and the many artists I have not named here).

Richard's initial musical influences were gospel performers such as Brother Joe May, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, and Marion Williams.Described as the "Architect of Rock and Roll", Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950's, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding back beat and raspy shouted vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll. Richard was played by Leon Robinson, who earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for his performance.

Richard re-recorded eighteen of his classic rock and roll hits for K-Tel Records, in high-tech stereo recreations, with a single featuring the new versions of "Good Golly Miss Molly" and "Rip It Up," with both tracks reaching the UK singles chart. A nice, comfortable life, with a great job, a good, albeit on and off again boyfriend, a great relationship with her younger sister. Richard claims that a show at Baltimore's Royal Theatre in June 1956 led to some women throwing their panties onstage at him, resulting in other female fans repeating the action, saying that it was "the first time" that had happened to any artist.

A 2005 recording of his duet vocals with Jerry Lee Lewis on a cover of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" was included on Lewis's 2006 album, Last Man Standing. Two stretchers (one a wheeled stretcher and the other a folding cot) could fit easily side by side on the ambulance floor, and a third folding stretcher could be suspended from the ceiling. Because of his effeminate mannerisms, his father kicked him out of their family home when he was fifteen. His preaching focused on uniting the races, and bringing lost souls to repentance through God's love.