Little Richard used James Brown as a stand-in when he couldn’t make gigs

James Brown used to act as a double for Little Richard, it seems.

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Lisa Cortes screened new doc “Little Richard: I Am Everything” at Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival this week and revealed the “Tutti Frutti” tale during a Q&A with Henry Louis Gates.

According to a source who attended the screening she told the crowd, “Little Richard would get so busy that he had no time to fulfill all his gigs, so his protege James Brown would dress up like him and take his gigs.”

Cortes’ rock doc reminds music fans — especially ones who might think a certain Elvis Presley was the first rock ‘n’ roll god — that Little Richard is “the originator.. the emancipator… the architect of rock n roll” (as Richard himself coyly put it when accepting the Merit Award at the 1997 American Music Awards.)

Little Richards influenced rockers like Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Brown.

Cortes is expected to host a second screening of the film on Thursday and CBS News’ Michelle Miller will moderate a Q&A after, we hear.

The doc, which “tells the story of the Black queer origins of rock n’ roll, exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator — the originator — Richard Penniman,” will make its debut on the small screen this fall when CNN premieres it on September 4.

“I made this film because the story of Little Richard is the story of rock ‘n’ roll — and rock ‘n roll is the American idiom,” Cortes has told Deadline.