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April 1963: Party bangs from the garage-the Kingsmen record “Louie Louie”
In April 1963, five lanky teenagers from Portland, Oregon $ 50 placed on the table to record a song in the Northwest Recorders. None of them had been in a studio before, and because they wanted to bring their live sound as more natural as possible, they stood in a circle around the hangmikrophone, with singer Jack Ely in the middle.
The time was only enough for a recording of “Louie Louie”, which always let people flock to the dance floor, and with the LAG drummer Lynn Easton, as well as Ely with his text. “You can bend a clean pronunciation when you have bent your head all the way back and try to sing loudly and play guitar at the same time,” he explains. “Louie Louie” became a milestone of Rock’n’roll: model for “You Really Got Me” by the Kinks and “Gloria” by Van Morrison and Them, as well as inspiration source for hundreds of garage bands that were even more rougher and unplangered than the Kingsmen,
“It sounded as if they had been drunk during the recording, and that’s why it is mandatory for everyone who has sitting,” says the director John Landis, who in his legendary television comedy series “National Lampoon” let the drug and notorious chaotic actor John Belushi sing the song. “It is the ultimate party hit.” It is also the ultimate cover song: Otis Redding, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Black Flag, even Barry White-and a few hundred other artists started their repertoire. “Louie Louie” actually came from Richard Berry, who made it heard for the first time in 1956 with his Pharaohs.
A month later, the FBI even initiated investigations
A few months later, it was re-enacted a modest radio hit on the west coast and local dance bands. The version that the Kings heard in 1961 came from the Wailers, a band from Seattle … In December 1963, the first record of the Kingsmen reached second place in the American “Billboard” charts. Many said that in the showered text I recognized sexual allusions: “I smell the rose, ah, in Her Hair” was interpreted by some DJs and listeners as “I Felt My Boner in Her Hair”, which the song had landed on the black list for many channels. In January 1964 Indiana’s governor Matthew Welsh branded the song as “pornographic”; A month later, the FBI even initiated an investigation, which, however, was stopped two years later.
The alleged ambiguities inspired the fame of the play, which was better re -enacted by young bands and has received the reputation of an exquisite mess for decades. The text was varied and verbalhorn depending on the taste. “I would like to say that success was the result of masterful marketing, planning and artistic care,” says Easton. “But actually we only had huge tusel. Somehow the stars were just right. “