Marguerite53
Premium Level User
Just for fun!! More than you might ever want to know about a generation's famous song..... Louie, Louie. On the front page of the Sunday Oregonian today. Enjoy! Marguerite 
Play it again, Louie Louie
The tune reigns as the Northwest's -- and the world's -- ultimate party song, long after its mumbled lyrics goosed the FBI into a wild obscenity chase
Sunday, August 19, 2007
STEVE WOODWARD
The Oregonian Staff
Louie Louie, me gotta go.
Today the town of Spanaway, Wash., expects to see more than 1,000 guitarists gather to smash the world's record for simultaneously playing the most recorded song in history.
The song: "Louie Louie."
Fifty years after rhythm-and-blues musician Richard Berry recorded the first version of his ballad about a lovesick Jamaican sailor, the song has outlived its initial flop, an obscure recording in a Portland studio, an FBI obscenity investigation, mediocre lyrics and childlike guitar chords.
"It's not a great song," says Dick Peterson, drummer of the Kingsmen, the Portland band that made the recording listed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of rock 'n' roll's 500 most influential songs.
But, he adds, "it's a party."
And that, friends, is the secret to the song's extraordinary success: From its humble beginnings during the Cold War, when the government feared that the incomprehensible lyrics subverted American youths, "Louie" has become the world's -- and especially the Pacific Northwest's -- ultimate party song.
An effort to make "Louie" the state song of Washington almost succeeded. Every year, Rose Festival parade crowds cheer Portland's One More Time Around Again Marching Band as it blasts its signature version. Seattle's Experience Music Project included a display about the song's history when the museum opened in 2000. And the song's rep as a party song was set in stone when it became part of the soundtrack to the 1978 frat-boy comedy "Animal House."
At 3 p.m. today at LouieFest '07, guitarists will try to set a record for the number of people banging out the three-chord anthem (A-A-A, D-D, E-E-E, D-D) in unison. Festival organizers say that 1,343 strummers set the current "Louie" record in 1992 in England. A 2003 effort fell short, with only 754 guitarists in Tacoma.
A fine little girl, she wait for me
Me catch the ship across the sea
I sailed the ship all alone
I never think I'll make it home
Berry, a Louisianian-turned-Californian, had written "Louie" a couple of years earlier, before his 1957 record. It was pretty much a dud.
But after Berry sold the publication rights, reportedly for a mere $750, garage bands in Oregon and Washington kept the song's candle burning.
Then, in the spring of 1963, two popular Northwest bands, the Kingsmen and Paul Revere & the Raiders, recorded "Louie" in the same downtown Portland studio within a week of each other. Both hit the top of the charts on Portland radio.
The Raiders went on to numerous hits and national fame. But the Kingsmen's "Louie" went on to history. As Peterson writes in "Louie Louie: Me Gotta Go Now," the Kingsmen made a quick demo tape for a potential summer-long gig aboard a cruise ship. With only $36 available for an hour's studio time, the band quickly recorded "Louie," a calypso ballad fit for a cruise.
Band member Jack Ely, a weak singer whose mouth ached from recently tightened braces, was the only one who knew the words. After Ken Chase, a deejay from KISN radio and a supporter of the band, heard the first take, he moved the microphone up and away from Ely for the second, final take.
Though the band didn't get the cruise ship job, a Seattle record label released the demo, which found its way to a Boston radio station. Listeners there voted it the worst recording week after week, but soon, they were asking where they could buy it.
Three nights and days we sailed the sea
Me think of girl constantly
On the ship I dream she there
I smell the rose in her hair
"Louie" was re-released by a New York record label. Shortly afterward, in January 1964, the first complaint hit the desks of the FBI: possible violation of Section 1465, Title 18, interstate transportation of obscene matter.
Some parents whose children bought the Kingsmen's record insisted "Louie" contained obscene and suggestive words, especially if the 45-rpm version was listened to at 331/3 rpm. They had handwritten copies of off-color lyrics shared among students from Sarasota, Fla., to San Diego.
Indiana Gov. Matthew E. Welsh called for banning the song from radio.
"How can we stamp out this menace????" one parent wrote to then-U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
Members of the Flint, Mich., Junior Women's Club recorded a copy of the 45-rpm version, which they "taped at twice the regular speed and then slowed down so that it now plays somewhere between 45 and 331/3 rpm. At this speed the obscene articulation is clearer," one of them reported in an exchange of letters with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Alas, the FBI's crackerjack crime laboratory couldn't hear that. Neither could federal prosecutors, the Federal Communications Commission nor the U.S. Post Office.
In one internal FBI memo, an assistant U.S. district attorney and the FCC's chief engineer "advised they were not able to discern any of the obscene language and found the record played on both speeds as being quite unintelligible."
In December 1965, after nearly two years of investigation, the case was closed.
Me see Jamaica moon above
It won't be long me see me love
Me take her in my arms and then
I tell her I never leave again
Berry died in 1997. He performed "Louie," his claim to fame, numerous times before his death.
The Kingsmen still tour every weekend during the summer. Audiences still demand the iconic song. The same three chords. The same adulation.
The band has had nearly two dozen members since it formed in 1959. Only one, Mike Mitchell, remains. Ely, the incomprehensible singer on the famous recording, left the band within a month of the recording, but he continues to perform "Louie" on his own.
Peterson, who joined the band a few months after the recording, still marvels at the phenomenon "Louie" became.
"From a poorly recorded record to J. Edgar Hoover," Peterson says, almost in disbelief over its path. " 'Louie Louie' is not a great recording by the Kingsmen. Without the controversy, the song would have died."
Louie Louie, me gotta go
Or something like that.
Steve Woodward: 503-294-5134; stevewoodward@ news.oregonian.com
Play it again, Louie Louie
The tune reigns as the Northwest's -- and the world's -- ultimate party song, long after its mumbled lyrics goosed the FBI into a wild obscenity chase
Sunday, August 19, 2007
STEVE WOODWARD
The Oregonian Staff
Louie Louie, me gotta go.
Today the town of Spanaway, Wash., expects to see more than 1,000 guitarists gather to smash the world's record for simultaneously playing the most recorded song in history.
The song: "Louie Louie."
Fifty years after rhythm-and-blues musician Richard Berry recorded the first version of his ballad about a lovesick Jamaican sailor, the song has outlived its initial flop, an obscure recording in a Portland studio, an FBI obscenity investigation, mediocre lyrics and childlike guitar chords.
"It's not a great song," says Dick Peterson, drummer of the Kingsmen, the Portland band that made the recording listed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of rock 'n' roll's 500 most influential songs.
But, he adds, "it's a party."
And that, friends, is the secret to the song's extraordinary success: From its humble beginnings during the Cold War, when the government feared that the incomprehensible lyrics subverted American youths, "Louie" has become the world's -- and especially the Pacific Northwest's -- ultimate party song.
An effort to make "Louie" the state song of Washington almost succeeded. Every year, Rose Festival parade crowds cheer Portland's One More Time Around Again Marching Band as it blasts its signature version. Seattle's Experience Music Project included a display about the song's history when the museum opened in 2000. And the song's rep as a party song was set in stone when it became part of the soundtrack to the 1978 frat-boy comedy "Animal House."
At 3 p.m. today at LouieFest '07, guitarists will try to set a record for the number of people banging out the three-chord anthem (A-A-A, D-D, E-E-E, D-D) in unison. Festival organizers say that 1,343 strummers set the current "Louie" record in 1992 in England. A 2003 effort fell short, with only 754 guitarists in Tacoma.
A fine little girl, she wait for me
Me catch the ship across the sea
I sailed the ship all alone
I never think I'll make it home
Berry, a Louisianian-turned-Californian, had written "Louie" a couple of years earlier, before his 1957 record. It was pretty much a dud.
But after Berry sold the publication rights, reportedly for a mere $750, garage bands in Oregon and Washington kept the song's candle burning.
Then, in the spring of 1963, two popular Northwest bands, the Kingsmen and Paul Revere & the Raiders, recorded "Louie" in the same downtown Portland studio within a week of each other. Both hit the top of the charts on Portland radio.
The Raiders went on to numerous hits and national fame. But the Kingsmen's "Louie" went on to history. As Peterson writes in "Louie Louie: Me Gotta Go Now," the Kingsmen made a quick demo tape for a potential summer-long gig aboard a cruise ship. With only $36 available for an hour's studio time, the band quickly recorded "Louie," a calypso ballad fit for a cruise.
Band member Jack Ely, a weak singer whose mouth ached from recently tightened braces, was the only one who knew the words. After Ken Chase, a deejay from KISN radio and a supporter of the band, heard the first take, he moved the microphone up and away from Ely for the second, final take.
Though the band didn't get the cruise ship job, a Seattle record label released the demo, which found its way to a Boston radio station. Listeners there voted it the worst recording week after week, but soon, they were asking where they could buy it.
Three nights and days we sailed the sea
Me think of girl constantly
On the ship I dream she there
I smell the rose in her hair
"Louie" was re-released by a New York record label. Shortly afterward, in January 1964, the first complaint hit the desks of the FBI: possible violation of Section 1465, Title 18, interstate transportation of obscene matter.
Some parents whose children bought the Kingsmen's record insisted "Louie" contained obscene and suggestive words, especially if the 45-rpm version was listened to at 331/3 rpm. They had handwritten copies of off-color lyrics shared among students from Sarasota, Fla., to San Diego.
Indiana Gov. Matthew E. Welsh called for banning the song from radio.
"How can we stamp out this menace????" one parent wrote to then-U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
Members of the Flint, Mich., Junior Women's Club recorded a copy of the 45-rpm version, which they "taped at twice the regular speed and then slowed down so that it now plays somewhere between 45 and 331/3 rpm. At this speed the obscene articulation is clearer," one of them reported in an exchange of letters with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Alas, the FBI's crackerjack crime laboratory couldn't hear that. Neither could federal prosecutors, the Federal Communications Commission nor the U.S. Post Office.
In one internal FBI memo, an assistant U.S. district attorney and the FCC's chief engineer "advised they were not able to discern any of the obscene language and found the record played on both speeds as being quite unintelligible."
In December 1965, after nearly two years of investigation, the case was closed.
Me see Jamaica moon above
It won't be long me see me love
Me take her in my arms and then
I tell her I never leave again
Berry died in 1997. He performed "Louie," his claim to fame, numerous times before his death.
The Kingsmen still tour every weekend during the summer. Audiences still demand the iconic song. The same three chords. The same adulation.
The band has had nearly two dozen members since it formed in 1959. Only one, Mike Mitchell, remains. Ely, the incomprehensible singer on the famous recording, left the band within a month of the recording, but he continues to perform "Louie" on his own.
Peterson, who joined the band a few months after the recording, still marvels at the phenomenon "Louie" became.
"From a poorly recorded record to J. Edgar Hoover," Peterson says, almost in disbelief over its path. " 'Louie Louie' is not a great recording by the Kingsmen. Without the controversy, the song would have died."
Louie Louie, me gotta go
Or something like that.
Steve Woodward: 503-294-5134; stevewoodward@ news.oregonian.com
