Louie Louie - Three Unforgettable Chords
Louie Louie by Richard Berry |
Louie Louie is an American rock 'n' roll song written by Richard Berry in 1955. It has become a standard in pop and rock, with hundreds of versions recorded by different artists. The song is written in the style of a Jamaican ballad; and tells, in simple verse-chorus form, the first-person story of a Jamaican sailor returning to the island to see his lady love. The singer brags of his "fine little girl" to the Louie of the title, presumably a bartender.
A version by The Kingsmen recorded in 1963 is the best-known recording. The Kingsmen's version was also the subject of an FBI investigation about the supposed but non-existent obscenity of the lyrics, an investigation that ended without prosecution.
Berry was inspired to write the song in 1955 after listening to and performing René Touzet's "El Loco Cha Cha" with Ricky Rillera and the Rhythm Rockers, another example of the influence of the "Spanish Tinge".
Richard Berry released his version in April 1957 with his backing band, the Pharaohs (Originally the b-side of You Are My Sunshine, Flip Records 321), and scored a regional hit on the west coast, particularly in San Francisco. However, the single never charted on Billboard's national rhythm and blues or pop charts. Berry's label reported that the single had sold 40,000 copies. After a series of unsuccessful followups, Berry sold his portion of publishing and songwriting rights for $750 to the head of Flip Records in 1959.
While the title of the song is often rendered with a comma (Louie, Louie), in 1988 Berry told Esquire magazine that the correct title of the song was "Louie Louie", with no comma.
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The Kingsmen version remains the most popular
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Version by The Kingsmen
In the U.S. music industry of the 1950s and 1960s, mainstream white artists would often re-record songs by black artists. On April 6, 1963, a rock and roll group from Portland, Oregon, called The Kingsmen chose Louie Louie as their second recording, their first being "Peter Gun Rock" recorded the year before.
There is some dispute as to the circumstances of this recording. It is definitely known that the Kingsmen recorded it at Northwestern, Inc., Motion Pictures and Recording in Portland Oregon. The group paid a small sum of $52 for a one-hour Saturday morning session. The Kingsmen's lead singer, Jack Ely, based his version on a 1961 recording of Berry's tune by another band from the Pacific Northwest, Rockin' Robin Roberts and the Fabulous Wailers (no relation to The Wailers headed by Bob Marley years later), unintentionally introducing a slight change in the rhythm as he did. "I showed the others how to play it with a 1-2-3, 1-2, 1-2-3 beat instead of the 1-2-3-4, 1-2, 1-2-3-4 beat that is on the (Wailers') record," recalled Ely. "It turned out to be a much faster version of the song, but we liked it." The night before their recording session, the band played a 90-minute version of the song during a gig at a local club.
The Kingsmen's studio version was recorded in one or two takes (with the second being used); according to some reports, the band may have thought they were rehearsing rather than laying down the final track. Ely himself, depending on which source one believes, was either hoarse from singing the night before, wearing braces on his teeth, hung over, obliged to shout the lyrics into a boom microphone which couldn't be adjusted to his height, or some combination thereof - or it could have been that Ely, along with the rest of the group, simply lacked the proficiency to produce a proper recording.
"Actually," says Ely, "we did have the talent, but we were directed by producer Ken Chase to set up in a circle around a boom mic hung up by the ceiling, and I was directed by Ken to sing up into that one mic in order to capture that same live sound we normally had at his club. It is rather comical to note at this time that, while we were recording Louie Louie, Mr. Lindahl had been purposely locked out of the sound booth by Mr. Chase so as not to interfere with Chase's engineering. He was, as they say, "madder than a wet hen." But what was done was done, and he proceeded to expel us all from his studio."
Sound Engineer, Robert Lindahl |
Robert Lindahl, then-president and chief engineer of NWI, and the sound engineer on the Kingsmen's and Paul Revere & the Raiders' later session of the same song in the exact same studio, mistakenly recalled in interviews that both times the boom mics were parked against the wall and never used, and noted that the Raiders' version is not known for "garbled lyrics" or an amateurish recording technique. Another error left on the track is when singer Jack Ely begins singing the verse of the song much too early after the guitar break in the middle, at about 1:58. He realizes he's made a mistake and drummer Lynn Easton was left to cover the error with a drum fill.
Whatever the factors in the session, the Kingsmen transformed Berry's relatively easy-going ballad into a raucous romp, complete with a twangy guitar, occasional background chatter, and almost completely unintelligible lyrics by Ely. A chaotic guitar break is triggered by the shout, "Okay, let's give it to 'em right now!" Released in May 1963, the single reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, a position it held for six weeks. (It topped the less prestigious Cashbox chart.) The version quickly became a standard at teen parties in the U.S. during the 1960s.
Another factor in the success of the record may have been the rumor that the lyrics were intentionally slurred by the Kingsmen to cover the fact that it was laced with profanity, usually in the graphic depiction of sex between the sailor and his lady. Crumpled pieces of paper professing to be "the real lyrics" to Louie Louie circulated among teens. The song was banned on many radio stations and in many places in the United States, including Indiana, where it was personally banned by the Governor, Matthew Welsh, simply on the rumor alone, as practically no one could understand the actual lyrics. The Kingsmen and Ely protested, when asked, that the lyrics were sung more or less as Berry had written them, but this did not stop the controversy. Even the FBI became involved in the controversy - but concluded a 31-month investigation with a report that they were "unable to interpret any of the wording in the record"
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Paul Revere & The Raiders
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Paul Revere & the Raiders recorded and released a version of Louie Louie the same week as The Kingsmen, in the same Portland studio. Initially, their single was more successful both locally and nationally, being picked up for distribution by Columbia Records. Meanwhile, local sales of the Kingsmen record were so low (reportedly 600) that the group considered disbanding. Things changed when Boston's biggest DJ, Arnie Ginsburg, was given the record by a pitchman. Amused by its slapdash sound, he played it on his program as "The Worst Record of the Week." Despite the slam, however, listener response was swift and positive.
By the end of October, the Kingsmen's version was listed in Billboard as a regional breakout, and as a "bubbling under" entry for the national chart. Meanwhile, the Raiders' version, with far stronger promotion, was becoming a hit in California, and was also listed as "bubbling under," one week after the Kingsmen's debut on the chart. For a few weeks, the two singles appeared destined to battle each other, but demand for the Kingsmen single acquired momentum and by the end of 1963, Columbia had stopped promoting the Raiders' Louie Louie. But Paul Revere's band held the bragging rights in their hometown of Portland, where they outsold the Kingsmen by a reported 10 to 1.
By the time that the Kingsmen's Louie Louie had achieved national popularity, the band had split. Two rival editions - one featuring lead singer Ely, the other with Lynn Easton, who held the rights to the band's name - were competing for live audiences across the country.
The Legacy
The Kingsmen's version has remained the most popular version of the song, retaining its association with wild partying. It enjoyed a brief comeback which also associated it with college fraternity parties in the 1970s when it was sung, complete with the supposedly obscene lyrics, by Bluto (John Belushi) and his fellow fraternity brothers in the movie National Lampoon's Animal House. A more faithful rendition of the song was recorded by Belushi for the accompanying soundtrack album. The song's inclusion in the film is in fact a bit of an anachronism; the film's action is set in 1962, one year prior to the Kingsmen's recording.
It is unknown exactly how many versions of Louie Louie have been recorded, but it is believed to be over 1,500 variations, according to LouieLouie.net. This popularity helped Berry (who had retained his BMI rights) receive overdue compensation for unpaid royalties.
Some bands have taken liberties with the lyrics, including attempts to record the supposed "obscene lyrics". It is believed the first artists to do so were The Stooges. Iggy Pop would later record a more civilized cover version of the song, with new lyrics composed by Pop, for his 1993 album American Caesar.
Ray Davies says that he wrote The Kinks first hit, You Really Got Me while trying to work out the chords of Louie Louie. The band later recorded it on an EP, but still didn't get the chords quite right.
Frank Zappa |
Louie Louie has figured in the musical lexicon of Frank Zappa. An early live version of his original composition Plastic People (from his You Can't Do That Onstage Anymore series of live albums) is set to the melody of Louie Louie (The official version was released on the album Absolutely Free). Also from the Absolutely Free album is the song Son of Suzy Creamcheese, a song that has a melody that sounds like a sped-up version of Louie Louie. Zappa also fired guitarist Alice Stuart from The Mothers of Invention because she couldn't play Louie Louie. At a Zappa concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Mothers Of Invention keyboardist Don Preston climbed up to the legendary venue's pipe organ, usually used for classical works, and played the signature riff (The performance can be heard in the Zappa album Uncle Meat). Quick interpolations of Louie Louie also frequently turn up in other Zappa works.
Louie Louie was Motörhead's first single for Bronze Records. It was a relatively faithful cover of the song, with "Fast" Eddie Clarke's guitar emulating the Hohner Pianet electric piano riff.
Nirvana's popular single Smells Like Teen Spirit uses as its introduction a loose adaptation of the Louie Louie chord line by way of Boston's More Than a Feeling, according to Kurt Cobain in a 1992 Rolling Stone interview.
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Posh Boy Records
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Black Flag released its own version of Louie Louie in 1981 on Posh Boy Records, then reissued the single on its own SST label and as part of the anthology The First Four Years. It features Dez Cadena on vocals for the lead track, with Cadena's own lyrics for the song as an alternate version heard on the 1982 outtakes compilation Everything Went Black. A live recording of Black Flag's version from the 1986 live album Who's Got the 10½? features Henry Rollins following in the band's tradition of improvising new lyrics for the song.
In 1988, rap trio The Fat Boys covered the song for its fourth album Comin' Back Hard Again, with new lyrics by the band that focused on the history of the song.
In the early '80s, Rhino Records released on vinyl and cassette two editions of The Best of Louie Louie. The first features Richard Berry's original recording, the Kingsmen's influential version, Black Flag's version, and several other, often bizarre versions, including one by the Rice University Marching Owl Band and one recorded especially for the album by an unidentified a cappella group singing the song's title to the melody of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus".
In August 2003, 754 guitarists played a ten-minute rendition of Louie Louie at Cheney Stadium, in Tacoma, Washington, United States.
The Louie Louie Riff: A-A-A, D-D, Em-Em-Em, D-D
Article courtesy of www.wikipedia.org
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