The Kingsmen formed in 1959 (the year I was born--coincidence? I think not...) in Portland, Oregon and made their mark as a garage band in the Pacific Northwest. In 1962 the band heard a version of a song by Richard Berry called "Louie Louie" by Rockin' Robin Roberts while in a club and noticed the crowd's reaction was to dance their asses off. They learned the tune and later recorded it in the studio in April of 1963 (the band split the $50 fee--nice investment there, fellas!), and the rest, as they say, is history. Lead singer Jack Ely left the band before they even released their first album (his only vocal and instrumentation with the group was "Louie Louie"), but the Kingsmen have been together now (in about a billion different incarnations) for sixty years now. They have released twelve albums (the last in 1994), five of which hit the Billboard 200, 19 singles, 7 of which hit the Billboard Hot 100, and have released a whopping 20 compilations, which doesn't even include various artist collections. Amazing what a seminal single can do for your career options....
"Louie Louie" was released as a single in 1963, and the band would capitalize on its success by adding it to their debut album, The Kingsmen in Person, that same year. The single would go on to reach #2 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, and would go on to be inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame's Hall of Fame Singles, the Grammy Hall of Fame, and be a song of the century/all-time on numerous poll lists including NPR, Rolling Stone, and NME.
Fun Fact: While the exact number is unknown, it is estimated that there are over 1500 cover versions of "Louie Louie." Now that's influence.
Yeah, I'm going to write a paean to "Louie Louie"--much better writers than I have devoted entire books to it, let alone a paragraph. So much of the song's early appeal was the rumors that the song was obscene (many radio stations refused to play the song, it was banned in Indiana by its governor, and the FBI spent 31 months investigating it for obscenity only to conclude its lyrics were unintelligible), and Jack Ely's vocals sound slurred (in truth, Ely was a) wearing braces, and b) while recording was placed in the middle of his band mates and had to stand on his tiptoes and scream into the mike to be heard above the instruments). In reality, discovered many years later than it should have been, the song is quite tame--a sailor is telling a bartender that he's more than ready to get back to sea so he can get home to his lady love. It's doubtful in the internet age that a song today could ever have the mystique that "Louie Louie" did (we could google it and have the lyrics in a matter of seconds), but a testament to its utter greatness is that even though we now know the truth, the song remains an anthem in a league of its very own.
Fun Fact #2: The song does have an obscenity in it--if you listen carefully around the 0:55 mark, the drummer screams "Fuck!" because he dropped a drumstick as they were recording.
Lyric Sheet: "A fine little girl, she waits for me/Me catch a ship across the sea/Me sail that ship all alone/Me never thinks how I'll make it home..." (Come on, admit it: you had absolutely no idea that was the lyrics to the first verse...)
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee
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