I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES — an exhibition entitled Visions of Home will be at the North Dakota Museum of Art in Grand Forks through April 1st.
In North Dakota to April 1stTIME MARCHES ON — although it seemed like it was there forever: this week the Berlin Wall has been torn down .. for as long as it stood.
FOR THOSE of YOU with a gym membership, having to deal with crowded wait times at the exercise bikes and weight machines …. historically, next week is the time when many new members drop-out, and things return closer to normal.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Louie the Cat— who is the neighborhood kitteh of Cape Coral, Florida with at least ten families taking care of him … and who follows people around more like a dog.
Louie the CatTHE LATEST musical star to announce an end to touring is Paul Simon— who will have a short May-June tour, but is open to performing one-off shows for charity.
THE SISTER OF KIM JONG-UN is not only attending the Winter Olympics in a sporting capacity … she is also North Korea’s co-director of the Propaganda & Agitation Department…. AgitProp, from the old Soviet days.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Dave the Cat— an English kitteh who has been a fixture at a Bournemouth convenience store for thirteen years … and now residents are threatening a boycott if the store’s decision to ban Dave (due to a citizen complaint) is not lifted.
Dave the CatTHE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at a London police detective of the 1960’s-early 70’s, Norman Pilcher— who focused his arrests on headline rock stars like Donovan, the Stones and Beatles — who was laid-low by personal corruption (perjury, planting evidence) and who wound-up spending more time in jail than all of those he arrested combined … and was lampooned in some Monty Python skits as well as John Lennon’s I Am the Walrus.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
OLDER-YOUNGER BROTHERS? — the late Meet the Press host Tim Russert and Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) … hopefully, not senator for much longer.
Tim Russert (1950-2008) Sen. Dean Heller (1960 — )...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… in a busy week: here is a reprise of an old profile (with some updated details) … and also for the benefit of newer readers ... unaware of a wonderful back-story to a song.
Looking at "is it or isn't it?" controversial songs from the 1960's ... perhaps the most famous was written by R&B singer Richard Berry— who's remembered mostly due to a twist of fate - yet whose short career had more to it.
He was born in Extension, Louisiana in 1935, his family moving to Los Angeles in his infancy. He sang in various doo-wop bands (including The Flairs) on a song that was produced by Jerry Lieber & Mike Stoller. And they liked Berry's voice so much: when they produced a single by The Robins (later to become The Coasters), they had Berry sing the lead on their 1954 hit Riot In Cell Block #9 that had to be un-credited (as Berry was under contract to another label). Berry had another un-credited role on a duet with Etta James on her hit "Roll With Me, Henry".
Berry then led his own band The Pharaohs before tiring of the music business at age 22. He wanted to get married but needed some cash - and so he sold the rights to five songs for a total of $750.00.
One of those five songs came into being two years earlier in 1955: when he was waiting to perform a side gig in Anaheim with a Latin band named the Rhythm Rockers. As he told journalist Bob Greene, the 12-piece band played a opening three-chord instrumental (while he was in the dressing room getting ready) that appealed to him. Lacking paper, he wrote some lyrics on a piece of toilet paper.
And thus was born the song Louie Louie that was eight years away from stardom.
Berry told Greene the tune was a love song structured like One for My Baby (And One More for the Road) was — when the singer said "Set-'em-up, Joe" … it was clear that Joe was the star, but the singer was not Joe. In his tune, Berry said that the singer was a sailor who was speaking to Louie - who could be a barber, a bartender or any one else. Berry recorded the song on Flip Records (in a Jamaican calypso/doo-wop smooth style), selling modestly on the West Coast but not the big break he had hoped for, helping persuade him to leave the music business. But a few copies made it to the Pacific Northwest (in part because The Pharoahs had performed there).
In 1963 a rock band in Portland, Oregon named The Kingsmen heard the song and recorded it. They recorded it in a $50 studio with a mike up in the ceiling, so that lead singer Jack Ely's vocals — who was also singing through a dental brace — couldn't be heard clearly (especially over The Kingsmen's raggedy-funky volume). All of which meant the lyrics couldn't be understood ... and thus began the rumors that something ... well, illicit was going on … you know, the next step after … drinking beer.
Bob Greene said that he wrote the 1988 article because he got a letter from a woman whose son's social studies class had debated the issue of whether the lyrics were salacious (or not) … to no avail. (Greene also asserted that George Will probably didn't get letters like this).
As the Kingsmen’s version headed towards the top of the charts (falling short of #1 only by the song “Dominique” by the Singing Nun) ... law enforcement was called-upon, according to music historian Eric Predoehl:
The FBI looked at the recording, Predoehl says, looking at it "backwards and forwards, they played it at different speeds, they spent a lot of time on it — but it was indecipherable at any speed."
Some radio stations pulled the song on their own, and fifty-four years ago last week, Gov. Matthew Welsh of Indiana (after reading an anguished letter from a teenage) asked the president of the Indiana Broadcasters Association to request that stations in the Hoosier State not to play it.
Though they lodged complaints, the controversy made The Kingsmen stars. Interestingly, there is an actual obscenity in the song (that all of law enforcement missed) — at the 56-second mark, drummer Lynn Easton dropped one of his sticks and launched an f-bomb (that can just barely be heard).
Richard Berry said he had "no positive or negative feelings, either way" about the recording and besides: he'd sold the rights to it, anyway. But he listened and determined that The Kingsmen sang "the same words, exactly as I wrote them". The song had a new-lease-on-life fifteen years later in 1978 when John Belushi sang it in the "Animal House" film.
Berry finally met Kingsmen singer Jack Ely twenty years after the song’s success in 1983 — who explained the rickety studio set-up to him.
With some legal help in the mid-80's, Berry won back some of the rights to the song, enabling him to retire far from wealthy but comfortably. More than 400 versions have been recorded of the song, and Berry explained that it wasn't surprising that young musicians told him it was the first song they had ever learned: "it had three simple guitar-chord changes in it". Richard Berry died in January, 1997 at the age of 62. (The Kingsmen’s lead singer Jack Ely died in 2015, at the age of 71).
A young Richard Berry … and 2nd from left in a 1996 band reunionAnd those lyrics? Well, the song was ranked as #54 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs list ... with the fairly innocuous, calypso-style patois below.
The first video lets you hear a young Richard Berry sing it in 1956 (as he noted, with smooth, understandable lyrics) .... and the second video has The Kingsmen's frenetic 1963 version.
Fine little girl, she waits for me Me catch a ship across the sea Me sail the ship all alone Me never think me make it homeThree nights and days me sail the sea Me think of girl constantly On the ship I dream she there I smell the rose in her hair
Me see Jamaica moon above It won't be long, me see me love I take her in my arms and then Me tell her I never leave her again
Louie, Louie - me gotta go Louie, Louie - me gotta go
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