Little Richard now gets the television treatment he has always deserved. Even the title Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll (BBC 2) says everything about him. And it was Little Richard, honest and clever, who gave himself that title.

He was a true genius in that he mastered the traditions that surrounded him - in his case gospel and blues - and used them to make something new. His music is electrifying, even today. Not many arts documentaries have rock legends lining up to pay homage, but Ringo Starr, Keith Richards and Nile Rogers were happy to show what fans of Little Richard they still are.

In 1962, Little Richard played the Liverpool Empire and a local band, the Beatles, played support. “We were blessed,” said Starr.

It was the admiration of other musicians that was so striking. A clip showed Little Richard singing Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On while the musicians in his all-white backing band were beaming like babies.

When the young Rolling Stones were brought on tour with Little Richard, Jagger and Richards would climb into the rafters of the theatres to watch exactly how he worked an audience. “He did it with a beautiful nonchalance,” remembered Richards.

The big revelation of this fascinating film - it was 90 minutes long - was how good Little Richard was at being himself. “I was always flamboyant,” he said. According to himself, he was dressing up in curtains and wearing his mother’s make-up before he was 10.

This did not go down well in 1940s Georgia, where Little Richard was raised in a family of a dozen children. Again, according to himself, his father threw him out of the house when he was 11, essentially for being a child who was gay.

So Little Richard went on the road, ending up in New Orleans with the drag queens and the gay community and the hookers. Everyone knows that rock and roll was originally about sex but this film showed it was also about gay sex. Lucille was about a female impersonator. Tutti Frutti had to have its lyrics changed to make it acceptable to a straight audience. 

But his life was filled with tragedy. First of all there was his sexuality “He went both ways,” explained Sir Lady Java, a female impersonator.

“I just want to explore sex in its entirety,” said Little Richard, in a justification of his love of orgies.

Black churches condemned him. His brother Tony died. There was a terrifying experience when a plane he was in nearly crashed. Or, as Sir Lady Java put it “he just didn’t have the nerve” to continue with what would now be called his pan-sexual ways.

In 1958, Little Richard stopped recording and he was never in the Top 10 again. He had found religion. “It changed me from being homosexual and made me a man,” he said.

It was terrible to see him in denim.

He was ripped off by his record company, which he later sued successfully. White singers had hits with his songs. Tutti Frutti was recorded by Pat Boone (Pat Boone!) and despite Little Richard writing Long Tall Sally at a faster tempo so that Pat Boone couldn’t sing it, Boone had chart success with that as well.

Little Richard wisely spent the settlement from his old record company on living in a hotel. “He loved room service,” remembered a colleague. His fame revived in 1984 when he collaborated on an unusually frank biography, The Life and Times of Little Richard, written - a proud moment, this - by a Dublin man, Charles White But then Little Richard’s influence had never dimmed. Prince and Michael Jackson, for example, owed him a lot - perhaps everything. “I was wearing purple before y’all,” said Little Richard truthfully.

It was Pat Boone, interviewed for this programme behind an executive’s desk, who summed it up best. “Before Little Richard, music was always above the waist.” Little Richard famously told Arsenio Hall: “I’m not conceited, I’m convinced.” After watching this excellent programme, we were convinced too.