More history of "Louie Louie" - Little Bill + Bluenotes +2

[Otamon]

You have forgotten Nat King Cole's Calypso Blues. This was one of the big influence!

[Weswaggin02]

royalties shoud be for el maestro rene touzet

[bellgardens53]

One sentence went wrong: Chuck had NOT that song out aka released in 1955. So how could Richard Berry get inspiration from it. Bad memory, it is easy to mix up things is one explanation....but that doesn't explain Richard Berrys Jamaican accent/words. Hmmm? Maybe another Jamaican song inspired him, but it was his own word that apart from El Loco Cha Cha it was Havana Moon. A mystery. Maybe Dave Marsh can explain it better in his Louie Louie book. Or the facts for recordings are wrong. Aw Shuck!

[bellgardens53]

A problem is that according to my Chuck Berry "After Scool Session" LP, "Havana Moon" was recorded in Chicago October 1956 and Richard Berry recorded "Louie Louie" in Las Vegas April 1956, released early 1957. Richard Berry said, "Chuck Berry had a song out then called "Havana Moon"...I guess those two songs were my main inspiration when I started writing Louie Louie in '55" . Chuck had that song out aka released in 1955. Richard must have mixed up things or he is the Back to the Future cousin.

[GSilverWorld]

@bellgardens53 Thanks a lot for the contribution. That's the way it goes sometimes.

Burton Cummings has been off a couple years about Tribute to Buddy Holly.

My own recollection of 1960 was actually 1958.

[bellgardens53]

@GSilverWorld First time here so I do not know who Burton is. Contribution...haha. I do not know about that. I am like a question mark. But I can not understand, if facts are right, how Richard could be inspired by a song (Chuck's) that was recorded later than his own. But none is perfect. I am much into E Cochran and in the book, "Backbeat - Earl Palmer's Story" he is credited playing behind 2 of Cochran's songs. On the best EC site coming to sessions, another drummer have cred for those songs

[blasticpuddhas]

The opening of El Loco Cha Cha is great

[cemmi2]

if you really wish to know one of the original sources and structures of this tune. Check out a tune that appears on an Alan Lomax collection.SouthernJourney. The Georgia Sea Island song called "Live Humble".

[HengistTheGreat]

Great post. 100 Music Knowledge Prestige Points to you. 5 stars.

[eloseddie]

Thank you for posting this...A little bit more than fifty years ago, I was a little kid growing up in East Los Angeles gazing at my teenage brother and sisters dancing the Cha Cha Cha to "El Loco"...I now have to cha cha to this forgotten Afro Cuban classic to commemorate how really cool Ramon.Conchita and Amalia really were...

Berry's Louie Louie was indeed heard at the time by my impressionable little ears....He was popular in E.L.A...Thanks for putting this all together....Eddie....

[arad7613]

Duh Duh Duh, Duh Duh! Duh Duh Duh, Duh Duh!

[osloclt]

I remember Robin Roberts with the Little Bill and the Blue Notes in the school year 1957/58 through 1959, the year I left the Northwest. He was skinny, nerdy looking kid with horn rimm glasses who was an absolute screamer on Little Richardk Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis material. Bill told me recently that Robin was killed in an accident in San Francisco in 1966.

[janman88]

You're right about Robin -- nerdy looking guy with a killer voice. Was a grad student in chemistry at Oregon State and was killed while ripped on acid, went the wrong way on a S.F. area onramp with some friends. Whatta voice.

[gmcg28c]

Chuck Berry's Havana Moon also closely resembles, Nat King Cole's "Calypso Blues". type into search

[bsbutchbs]

I think I recall that Robin Roberts was killed in an auto accident around 1959 while returning to college (WWU?).

Is that right?

[bsbutchbs]

Ahjhh the good old days

[bsbutchbs]

maybe of interest to someone.... The first gig of Little Bill and the Blue Notes was in Sumner WA. We put up posters around town and rented a hall.... had maybe 20 ppl attend.

The Wailers were an off shoot of the blue notes --- via Buck Ornsby.

[geosilver]

Maybe you can tell us what the chart positions were for BlueNotes vs Wailers. Where? I've never even heard anyone say that the BlueNotes Louie charted.

[rb62470]

Thank you for the history lesson.

[findingusernamesucks]

Oh god Havana Moon takes me back . . . and I've never been able to say that about a song til now . . . I'm only 18 so it's not like I'm 60/70 something talking about being a young adult in the 50's grooving to Chuck . . . But my dad had an old CD pressing of Chuck Berry in the nineties and that and a Janis Joplin compilation are the only respectable things I can remember him listening to in my early childhood . . . classic shit.

[califgirl101]

Thank you for this video. Could somebody please post the song Julie Was Her Name by Rene Touzet if avalible to post? Thanks again. :)

[percypage74]

I have to correct myself (just read the post)! The Kingsmen were overwhelmingly influenced by The Fabulous Wailers version, with guest vocalist Rockin Robin Roberts singing. The only thing: Jack Ely of the Kingsmen sang differently than Roberts by slurring the words. There was and still is a controversy over why - did he do it that way because he had lyric sheets on the floor that he was reading or did he keep it very vague because he only knew how to sing a popular dirty version goin around?

[percypage74]

Actually, the first 10 seconds of this (El Loco Cha Cha) IS the entire rhythm. 123 12 123 12. Havana Moon and other latin american music at the time influenced the words and vocal delivery of Richard Berrys original (and The Kingsmen's). Its great to hear this all in one place, Gsilver!

[blofeld39]

I can definitely hear "Havana Moon" in Richard Berry's delivery of "Louie Louie"; good find. ;-)

[57Will]

Never had heard "El Loco Cha Cha" until this. Chuck Berry's "Havana Moon" definitely had the rhythm associated with "Louie Louie".