“Louie Louie” Is a $50 Cover Song That Spawned a Multi-Year FBI Investigation
The endless interpolation, parental outrage, and poor recording quality that made The Kingsmen's single a classic.
The Kingsmen’s version of “Louie Louie” in annoying/catchy-as-hell exercise in musical ineptitude, a song everyone knows all too well whether they want to or not.
Countless songs in the rock n’ roll canon demonstrate superior composition and talent, but despite its sloppy instrumentation and unintelligible singing, The Kingsmen’s hit endures in a way few songs have ever since it was recorded for $50 in a small Portland, Oregon studio in 1963.
It can be difficult to qualify and quantify the exact reasons people love it or love to hate it, as famed groups like The Beach Boys and The Beatles covered the song but never achieved the same magic as The Kingsmen.
In the 1995 film Mr. Holland’s Opus, Richard Dreyfuss offers some quality analysis about why the song resonates with listeners. As he tries to dissuade a discouraged student from quitting band, he tells her that music is more than “notes on a page” and throws “Louie Louie” on the record player.
While the record plays in the background he says, “They can’t sing and they have absolutely no harmonics. They’re playing the same chords over and over again. And I love it. Do you?” The student admits she does, and when Dreyfuss asks why she replies, “because it’s fun.”
But just being fun usually isn’t enough to make a song endure for the better part of 56 years. There were other factors, too. In addition to being an enjoyable listen, a concerned parent’s decision to contact the FBI regarding “Louie Louie”’s lyrics helped generate enough controversy to keep the song in the collective consciousness for many years to come.
The unnamed father in question made it his mission to understand what the hell The Kingsmen were singing about after reading that “Louie Louie” was banned from some radio stations. He thought he heard depraved, vulgar lyrics coming out of his stereo system after repeated listens, so like any reasonable father he contacted attorney general Robert Kennedy and prompted a multi-year FBI investigation.
His letter — which is dated January 30th, 1964 and posted on the FBI’s website as part of a 119 page report — said, “My daughter brought home a record of ‘Louie Louie’ and I, after reading that the record had been banned from being played on the air because it was so obscene, proceeded to try to decipher the jumble of words. The lyrics are so filthy that I cannot enclose them in this letter.”
Demanding immediate legal action against all parties involved the father wrote, “I would like to see these people, the ‘artists’, the record company and the promoters prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
The outraged father likely had no idea that the song’s origins and lyrics were far less taboo than he feared. Though the Kingsmen recorded their hit version in ’63, the famous riff from the song belongs to Cuban-born musician René Touzet’s 1956 song “El Loco Cha Cha.” Touzet’s catchy groove was later interpolated into Richard Berry’s original version of “Louie Louie” in 1957.
Looking to reap the benefits of America’s mid-50s fascination with calypso music, Barry wrote a tune from the perspective of a lovelorn sailor spilling his guts out to a bartender named Louie. With lines like, “Three nights and days I sailed the sea/Me think of girl constantly/On the ship, I dream she there/I smell the rose in her hair”, Berry’s words aren’t exactly the sex-crazed filth the aforementioned father thought he heard. As a result, The FBI never found conclusive evidence that there was anything obscene about The Kingsmen’s version of the record.
According to a 2015 New York Times article, The Kingmen first had the idea to cover the song when lead singer Jack Ely heard the Rockin’ Robin Roberts and the Wailers’ 1961 version playing on the jukebox during a club gig in 1962. After the release of their version and the ensuing FBI investigation and radio bans, speculation raged that Ely riffed his own dirty lyrics in the recording studio — something he always denied.
Despite staying true to the original tame lyrics, the Kingsmen did admit later on that drummer Lynn Easton yelled “fuck” at :54 mark after accidentally hitting his drumsticks together.
As for the unintelligible way Ely sang them? “It was more yelling than singing ’cause I was trying to be heard over all the instruments,” he said in Peter Blecha’s book Sonic Boom! The History of Northwest Rock: From Louie Louie to Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Only 19 when The Kingsmen recorded “Louie Louie” at Northwestern Inc. recording studio on an early April day in ‘63, Ely would later say that the group did the entire song in one take. Spending a mere $50 on the recording, they didn’t expect much from their final product once they were done. “I stood there and yelled while the whole band was playing, and when it was over, we hated it,” Ely told The Bend Bulletin newspaper in a 1987 interview. “We thought it was a totally non-quality recording.”
Despite their self-doubt, “Louie Louie” achieved levels of success beyond The Kingsmen’s wildest dreams. Unfortunately, Ely wasn’t around long to enjoy the success. He was ousted from the group after Kingsmen drummer Lynn Easton decided he wanted to try his hand at lead singer duties. Later attempts to rejoin were unsuccessful, and since Ely didn’t write the original song, he never received any radio royalties despite the massive success of his vocal rendition.
In later life Ely raised horses and was a strong advocate for fair royalty compensation for recording artists. Sadly, Mr. Ely passed away in April of 2015 and was not be around to see the 55 year anniversary of his band’s song in June of 2018.
Though he seemed content with his post rock n’ roll life, a 1987 article from the Oregon Bend Bulletin with a rather heartbreaking conclusion showed a 43-year-old Ely who longed for a Kingsmen reunion that he could be a part of. After admitting to yearning for such an event, he sang “Yes, the memories are fading fast.”
Richard Berry also has his own sad tale of mistreatment and greed. In 1959 he sold the publishing rights to his hit song for $750 to help pay for his wedding. By the 1980s the physical rigor of performing live and a pit bull attack left him in rough physical shape. He eventually moved in with his mother and was living on welfare one point.
Thankfully, there is a silver lining to his story—Berry won back 75% of the publishing for his song in 1986, leading to a much improved quality of life until his passing in 1997 at age 61.
If after reading all this you’re thinking, “Someone should write a book about this song”—someone already did. Former Creem editor David Marsh wrote Louie Louie: The History and Mythology of the World's Most Famous Rock 'N' Roll Song in 1993.
(This article is a modified and updated version of a story that was originally published on Micro-Chop.)
Can you imagine what that father would do today? Louie Louie seems pretty tame. Also a relief to know that Richard Berry didn't get robbed of his due. Nice story.
“No idea’s original/ There’s nothing new under sun/ it ain’t what you do but how it’s done/“ -Nas
I love how the music links are embedded in the articles. It really brings them to life. Nice work as usual.