Louie Louie
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The Kingsmen
Want to Learn How to Play Guitar? Learn to Play Easy Guitar Songs –Acoustic Lessons Here!
Runtime: 20:54 Teacher: Peter
- A
- D
- Em
Lesson Description
This guitar lesson has 6 chapters. We start with the Performance, where you see everything that we want you to learn. In the next chapter, the Overview, you learn that Peter actually was friends with the lead singer who confessed something quite interesting to him after the song became the subject of a Congressional inquiry. In the Intro, Peter shows you the simple lead that starts the song. It’s a lead, but it’s very easy and well worth learning how to play. The Chorus comes next, and Peter introduces the main Strum Pattern that gets you rocking. In the Verse you learn exactly what the guitar was playing on the recording. In the Slow Practice you get to put it all together. Plan on grooving with Peter as many times as it takes for you to learn how to play this strum really well. In the Bonus Chapter Peter shows you how to spice up the rhythmic punch by syncopating the beat and also by varying your volume. The second Bonus Chapter is Peter’s application of everything you just learned to a party.This is one of our easy guitar songs to learn.
Song Information
Louie Louie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Louie Louie" is an American rock 'n' roll song written by Richard Berry in 1955 and recorded by him and his backing band, the Pharohs. It was released in 1957 as the B-side to "You Are My Sunshine." The song is written in the style of a Jamaican ballad, with a sailor returning to the island to see his lady love. The singer brags of his "fine little girl" to Louie, probably a bartender.
According to Berry, the lyrics were influenced by "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)," which also features a customer talking to a bartender. The song's speech pattern and references to Jamaica were influenced by Chuck Berry's "Havana Moon." It was a hit on the west coast, especially in San Francisco, but the song never charted on Billboard's charts. Berry sold his publishing and songwriting rights for $750 to Flip Records in 1959.
The version by The Kingsmen recorded in 1963 is the best-known recording. "Louie Louie" was their 2nd recording, produced by Ken Chase, a radio personality in Portland, Oregon. He owned a teen nightclub where The Kingsmen were the house band. Their version was characterized by odd timing due to an error that stuck and Jack Ely's odd sounding voice. While Berry's version was an easy going ballad, the Kingsmen made it raucous romp with twangy guitar, background chatter and garbled lyrics. It became a teen standard during the '60s. Their version spent 16 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, #1 on the Cashbox chart, and it acheived the rank of #55 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. profane and were garbled to hide their real meaning.
The Kingsmen's version may have also been popular because of a rumor that the lyrics were profane and were garbled to hide their real meaning. Due to an angry parent's complaint to the Attorney General of the United States, the FBI became involved, but concluded that the lyrics were unintelligible at any speed and could not prove that they were obscene.
Paul Revere and The Raiders also recorded "Louie Louie,' and their version competed with the one by The Kingsmen in 1963. However, their version never got the general public's attention like the Kingsmen's version, and promotion of the recording ceased.
The number of versions of "Louie Louie" is unknown, but may be as many as 1,500. The Kingsmen's version made a comeback in 1978-79 with the movie National Lampoon's Animal House. The song's continued popularity helped Berry, who had retained his BMI rights, to receive compensation for his unpaid royalties.
