Little Richard is on the phone and wants info about the Florida Strawberry Festival. He plays there Wednesday and is asking me about the area, the potential crowd size, everything. Aren't I the one supposed to be asking the questions? But it's Little Richard, one of pop music's all-time greats, one of the original rock stars. If the artist born Richard Wayne Penniman wants to spend 15 minutes discussing the finer points of funnel cake, so be it. And so I explain to "Mr. Richard" that the Strawberry Festival is a giant, state-fair-style event with a music lineup that leans heavy on country.

"Lot of my fans love country, I have country and rock 'n' roll fans," Richard says. "Country and rock 'n' roll are very close."

"And gospel," I add.

"Yes, and gospel," agrees the Minister of Gospel, who has presided over marriage ceremonies for Bruce Springsteen and other celebrities over the years.

I try to change the subject from the Strawberry Festival to his legacy, but Little Richard presses on, inquiring if the festival arena is indoors or outdoors (it's outdoors) and who else is on the lineup. I rattle off names: George Jones, Kenny Rogers, LeAnn Rimes …

"Ooo, LeAnn Rimes? I like her," Richard says. "She's veeery goood."

He stretches his syllables and coos occasionally, but the flamboyant icon was definitely toned down when he called the other day. "I can't tell you where I am at," he says politely when I ask. His voice is smooth and mellow, but raspy. He chooses his phrases carefully, stammering sometimes when he gets excited, searching for the right word.

In all, he sounds like exactly what he is: a 74-year-old, God-fearing Southern gentleman from Macon, Ga., who in 1956 became one of rock 'n' roll's first greats, only to temporarily quit the biz in '57 because he never could shake his religious upbringing — and the subsequent guilt associated with playing the devil's music.

Although his reign was short, Richard left a massive footprint. Rock lore says that Elvis Presley told him in '69, "Your music has inspired me — you are the greatest." When The Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in '88 George Harrison thanked Little Richard for inspiring his band, saying, "It's all his fault."

Of course, Little Richard is the first person to tell you that Little Richard is the greatest. "We draw huge crowds wherever we go," he says. "People always enjoy the show."

People enjoy the persona, as well. Especially when it's splashed cross their home television screen. Perhaps you've seen this one: Little Richard sits next to a woman who hit a deer on Thanksgiving night. "I called GEICO expecting a recording but someone was there to help me," she says.

"Help me! Somebody help me!" Richard squeals.

"GEICO got my claim in the works right away and I was able to enjoy my Thanksgiving," she continues.

And then comes the zinger we've been repeating around Creative Loafing headquarters for the past week:

"Mashed potatoes! Gravy! And cranberry sauce! Whoooo, hoooo!"

Little Richard's wail. Gotta love it. Not exactly the sexually charged tsunami of yesteryear, but it's still a gas to hear. Music historians will tell you he didn't invent it. But he sure owns it.

"It was beautiful," Richard says in regard to the GEICO ad. "'Mashed potatoes and gravy,' that's not something people associate with car insurance. It's catching on everywhere." Indeed.

Little Richard is no stranger to the small screen. He made a memorable series of television appearances last year as a judge on Celebrity Duets. "That, that made my big toe shoooooot up in my boot," he says to one performer. It's easy to imagine a young, virile, mascara-painted Richard making an impression on the judges of American Idol, likely winning the event if he was in his prime today. "Yes, I probably would have done it," he says of the show he regularly watches. "I like a lot of their stars. Kelly Clarkson, Fantasia. I think Ruben Studdard is fabulous. They have a lot of good stars come out of there."

Yes, they're "good stars." But none of them sound possessed. Not like Little Richard did in 1955, when he went to New Orleans and cut "Tutti-Frutti," a ribald street ditty cleaned up and recorded at the request of producer Bumps Blackwell. More than 50 years later, the song still drips with sexuality. Back then it struck fear into White America, but Little Richard claims he never saw it as something dangerous or wicked.

"To me, it wasn't like that," he says. "It was just something made up in the neighborhood."

And then it happened. Little Richard sang the first verse over the phone. Well, he half-sang, half-recited the lyric, to make his point, but it was a thrill all the same.

"I got a girl named Sue, knows just what to do," he talk/sings. "I know a girl named Daisy."

Richard says, "Those were just things we made up (for fun)."

"Tutti-Frutti" launched Little Richard's career when it climbed the charts in '56. "Long Tall Sally," "Good Golly, Miss Molly," "Lucille" and other hits soon followed. But it was Pat Boone who would famously outstrip Little Richard on the popularity charts with sanitized versions of "Tutti-Frutti" and "Long Tall Sally." In the past, Richard has railed against Boone. "Back in that time he did [make me mad]," Richard admits. "But now I see it as a blessing. He made my music go over on all the stations. I think God had a hand in that."

Little Richard quit the business amid a 1957 tour to become a minister. He's balanced the secular with the sacred ever since he returned to pop music in '62, the year bands such as The Beatles and Rolling Stones opened shows for him.

Little Richard mentions God several times during our conversation — more often when we discuss the recent death of his old friend and contemporary James Brown. There's a clip on YouTube of the two men on Wheel of Fortune. They hang on each other and goof around like blood brothers. "This is the man that got me my start," a smiling Brown says to host Pat Sajak.

"He was a good friend of mine," Richard says of Brown.

Did Brown's death make Little Richard reflect on his own mortality?

"It makes you think, he's in my (age) neighborhood," he replies. "Makes you think it could just as good could have been me."

I then asked him if he worries about death.

"I can't worry," Richard says. "If you love God you can't worry about it. You'll go crazy worrying. Don't worry."

Before I get to a next question Richard cuts in and asks my name but then remembers it (or reads it off a memo) before I respond."

"God bless you," says the Minister of Rock 'n' Roll. "God bless you and your family."

This article appears in Feb 28 – Mar 6, 2007.