PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – When he stood on his toes, leaned his head back and began to incoherently shout “Louie Louie” into a microphone 52 years ago, Jack Ely had no idea he was creating a rock ‘n’ roll classic.
Or, for that matter, did the lead singer of The Kingsmen know he was laying the groundwork for one of the first federal investigations into dirty song lyrics, while simultaneously creating a tune so memorable that everybody from the Beach Boys to Nirvana would later record it.
Ely, who died Tuesday at age 71, had simply walked into a tiny Portland recording studio with his band one day in 1963 to cut an instrumental version of a song that had been a hit on Pacific Northwest jukeboxes – one that kids could dance to.
“Right out of his mouth, my father would say, ‘We were initially just going to record the song as an instrumental, and at the last minute I decided I’d sing it,” Ely’s son, Sean Ely, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
When it came time to do that, however, Ely discovered the sound engineer had raised the studio’s only microphone several feet above his head. Then he placed Ely in the middle of his fellow musicians, all in an effort to create a better “live feel” for the recording.