Richard Berry | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Richard Berry, Jr. |
Also known as | Ricky, Jasper Woods [1] |
Born | Extension, Louisiana, United States | April 11, 1935
Origin | Los Angeles, California, United States |
Died | January 23, 1997 61) Inglewood, California | (aged
Genres | Doo-wop, R&B |
Occupation(s) | Musician, composer |
Instrument(s) | Piano, vocals |
Years active | 1950s–1996 |
Labels | Modern (Flair, RPM, Crown), Flip, Happy Tiger, Smash, others [1] |
Richard Berry, Jr. (April 11, 1935 – January 23, 1997) was an American singer, songwriter and musician, who performed with many Los Angeles doo-wop and close harmony groups in the 1950s, including The Flairs and The Robins.
He is best known as the composer and original performer of the rock standard "Louie Louie". The song became a hit for The Kingsmen and others, and it is one of the most recorded songs of all time; however, Berry received little financial benefit for writing it until the 1980s, having signed away his rights to the song in 1959. In the same year, he wrote and released "Have Love, Will Travel", which has been recorded by many other artists.
Berry was born in Extension, south of Monroe, Louisiana, and moved with his family to Los Angeles as a baby. As a child, he suffered a hip injury and had to walk on crutches until he was six. [2] His first instrument was the ukulele, which he learned when attending a summer camp for crippled children. [3]
Berry attended Jefferson High School in Los Angeles, and with many other pupils practiced singing vocal harmonies in the corridors. [4]
He began singing and playing in local doo-wop groups, recording with a number of them including The Penguins, The Cadets and the Chimes, the Crowns, the Five Hearts, the Hunters, the Rams, the Whips, and the Dreamers, an otherwise all-female quartet from Fremont High. [5] He then joined The Flairs (who also recorded as the Debonaires and the Flamingoes) in 1953.
The Flairs' 1953 record "She Wants to Rock" on Modern Records featured Berry's bass vocals, and was an early production by Leiber and Stoller. A few months later, when the producers needed a bass voice for The Robins' "Riot In Cell Block #9" on Spark Records, they recruited Berry to provide the menacing lead vocal on the song – uncredited because he was contracted to Modern. [6] The Robins later split. Three members remained with the Robins and two went to New York with Leiber & Stoller to form the Coasters. The Robins continued to record (with two new members) in California for other labels, including Whippet, Lavender, Arvee, and others.
Berry's voice was used at Modern, again uncredited, as the counterpoint to Etta James on her first record and big hit "The Wallflower (Dance with Me, Henry)" and several of its less successful follow-ups. [6] Berry also recorded with several other groups on the Modern and Flair labels, including Arthur Lee Maye and the Crowns, and the Dreamers (who later became The Blossoms). [1] By the end of 1954, Berry left the Flairs to form his own group, the Pharaohs, as well as continued to work with other groups as a singer and songwriter.
One of the groups Berry played with after leaving the Flairs was Rick Rillera and the Rhythm Rockers, a Latin and R&B group. In 1955, Berry was inspired to write "Louie Louie", [6] a calypso-style song, based on the Rhythm Rockers' version of René Touzet's "El Loco Cha Cha", as well as influenced by Chuck Berry's "Havana Moon". Berry also stated he had Frank Sinatra's "One for My Baby" in mind when writing the lyrics. One night waiting backstage at the Harmony Club Ballroom, Berry took the rhythm of "El Loco Cha Cha" and began to add lyrics, writing them on toilet paper. [7]
Richard Berry and the Pharaohs recorded and released the song as the B-side to his cover of "You Are My Sunshine" on Flip Records in 1957. [8] It became a minor regional hit, selling 130,000 copies. It was re-released as an A-side, and when the group toured the Pacific Northwest, several local R&B bands began to adopt the song and established its popularity. "Louie Louie" finally became a major hit when The Kingsmen's raucous version – with little trace of its calypso-like origins other than in its lyrics – became a national and international hit in 1963. [6] Paul Revere & the Raiders also recorded the tune in the same studio the week after the Kingsmen, but their version was not a hit. The nearly unintelligible (and innocuous) lyrics were widely misinterpreted as obscene, and the song was banned by radio stations and even investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. [6]
The song has been recorded over 1,000 times. However, Berry received little financial reward for its success for many years, having sold the copyright for $750 in 1959 to pay for his wedding. Berry said in 1993 "Everybody sold their songs in those days. I never was bitter with the record companies. They provided a vehicle for five young black dudes to make a record." [9]
Berry continued to write and record into the early 1960s, including "Have Love, Will Travel" (which later became a local hit for The Sonics), but with little commercial success, and also continued as a performer. Other songs included "Crazy Lover", recorded by the Rollins Band and "Oh! Oh! Get Out of the Car", covered by The Treniers.
For Rhino's 1983 The Best of Louie, Louie compilation album, [10] Berry created a note-for-note re-recording of "Louie Louie" because licensing could not be obtained for the original version. [11] [12] Backup vocals were provided by doo wop revival group Big Daddy. [13] The original version was not legitimately re-released until the Ace Records Love That Louie compilation in 2002. [14]
In the mid-1980s, Berry was living on welfare at his mother's house in South Central Los Angeles. Drinks company California Cooler wanted to use "Louie Louie" in a commercial, but discovered it needed Berry's signature to use the song. The company asked the Artists' Rights society to locate him, and a lawyer visited Berry. The lawyer mentioned the possibility of Berry's taking action to gain the rights to his song. The publishers settled out of court, making Berry a millionaire. [9]
In the early 1980s, Berry recorded a duet with his ex-wife Dorothy titled 'The World Needs Peace'. He re-recorded it a few years later in a gospel version retitled "What We Need", with his six children providing backup harmony vocals. [15]
During the 1980s, "Louie Louie" received a number of accolades, with hundreds of cover versions issued on CD compilations and played on radio marathons. He continued to play shows and in 1993 played two sets at the 100 Club in London. [4]
In February 1996, Berry performed for the final time, reuniting with the Pharaohs and the Dreamers for a benefit concert in Long Beach, California. His health declined shortly after this, and he died of heart failure in 1997. He was interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.
"Louie Louie" is the most recorded rock song of all time, [16] and was ranked at No. 54 on Rolling Stone magazine's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". [17]
Berry married Dorothy Adams, a girl with whom he attended high school, in 1957, and they had two children, Pam and Marcel. They divorced in 1968. Dorothy pursued a music career, recording for Garpax Records, Challenge Records, Little Star Records and Tangerine. She was a Raelette for Ray Charles until the early 1980s. [15]
Berry had six children in total, Pamela, Richard Marcel, Stephani, Karen, Linda and Christy. [18] Christy, who was born in 1969, handled his career in his later years. Marcel played bass on stage with his father in the 1980s.
Recordings with Richard Berry credited as the main artist
Recordings where Richard Berry appears uncredited or as part of a group With the Flairs
With Arthur Lee Maye & The Crowns
With The Robins
With Jennell Brown (Ricky and Jennell)
With the Rams (Richard Berry, Arthur Lee Maye and Johnny Coleman
With Etta James
"Louie Louie" is a rhythm and blues song written and composed by American musician Richard Berry in 1955, recorded in 1956, and released in 1957. It is best known for the 1963 hit version by the Kingsmen and has become a standard in pop and rock. The song is based on the tune "El Loco Cha Cha" popularized by bandleader René Touzet and is an example of Afro-Cuban influence on American popular music.
The Kingsmen are a 1960s rock band from Portland, Oregon, United States. They are best known for their 1963 recording of R&B singer Richard Berry's "Louie Louie", which held the No. 2 spot on the Billboard charts for six weeks and has become an enduring classic.
Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era is a compilation album of American psychedelic and garage rock singles that were released during the mid-to-late 1960s. It was created by Lenny Kaye, who was a writer and clerk at the Village Oldies record shop in New York. He would later become the lead guitarist for the Patti Smith Group. Kaye produced Nuggets under the supervision of Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman. Kaye conceived the project as a series of roughly eight LP installments focusing on different US regions, but Elektra convinced him that one double album would be more commercially viable. It was released on LP by Elektra in 1972 with liner notes by Kaye that contained one of the first uses of the term "punk rock". It was reissued with a new cover design by Sire Records in 1976. In the 1980s, Rhino Records issued Nuggets in a series of fifteen installments, and in 1998 as a 4-cd box set.
Many musical styles flourished and combined in the 1940s and 1950s, most likely because of the influence the radio had in creating a mass market for music. World War II caused great social upheaval, and the music of this period shows the effects of that upheaval.
Flair Records was an American record label owned by the Bihari brothers, launched in the early 1950s. It was a subsidiary of Modern Records. Its most famous artist were Elmore James, who released ten singles with this label, Richard Berry, and Ike Turner who was a session musician and also released a single on the label. Flair is believed to have issued 80 singles total between 1953 and 1955.
The Flairs were an American doo-wop group known for their 1961 hit "Foot Stompin', Pt. 1." Based in Los Angeles, they went through several lineup changes during their existence. Their notable members included Richard Berry and Cornell Gunter, who would go on to be a member of the Coasters.
Arthur Lee Maye was an American Major League Baseball player. He played eleven seasons in the majors as an outfielder for the Milwaukee Braves (1959–1965), Houston Astros (1965–1966), Cleveland Indians (1967–1969), Washington Senators (1969–1970), and Chicago White Sox (1970–1971).
"Have Love, Will Travel" is a 1959 song written and recorded by Richard Berry. While the song may have been recorded before the end of 1959, the correct release date appears to be January, 1960. The title is based on a popular television/radio western serial Have Gun, Will Travel.
Richard Barrett, also known as Richie Barrett, was an American singer, record producer, and songwriter.
"Gee", is a song by American R&B and Doo-wop group the Crows, released in June 1953. The song has been credited as the first rock and roll hit by a rock and roll group. It is a doo-wop song, written by William Davis and Viola Watkins, and recorded by the Crows on the independent label, Rama Records, at Beltone Studios in New York City in February 1953. It charted in April 1954, one year later. It took a year to get recognized on Your Hit Parade. It landed No.2 on the rhythm and blues chart and No. 14 on the pop chart. It was the first 1950s doo-wop record to sell over one million records. Recorded on an independent label, it was one of the first such R&B records to crossover to the wider pop market. In fact, some, including Jay Warner, consider it as the first of the "rock n' roll records".
Prentice Moreland was an American R&B and doo wop singer of the 1950s and early 1960s.
The Valentines were one of the most highly regarded American doo-wop groups from the mid-1950s.
Ulysses B. "Bobby" Nunn Sr. was an American R&B singer with the musical groups The Robins and original bass vocalist of The Coasters. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, United States, and died of heart failure in Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cornell Gunter was an American rhythm and blues singer, most active in the 1950s and 1960s. He was born in Coffeyville, Kansas, and died in Las Vegas, Nevada, after being shot in his automobile. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 as a member of The Coasters.
The Blossoms are an American girl group that originated from California. During their height of success in the 1960s, the group's lineup most famously consisted of Darlene Love, Fanita James, and Jean King.
Tommy Hunt is an American soul/northern soul singer, and a 2001 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee as a member of famed R&B group The Flamingos.
Ronald David Bright was an American R&B and doo-wop singer of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He was born in New York City.
Jack Brown Ely was an American guitarist and singer, best known for singing the Kingsmen's version of "Louie Louie". Classically trained in piano, he began playing guitar after seeing Elvis Presley on television. In 1959, he co-founded the Kingsmen and with them recorded "Louie Louie" in 1963; Ely's famously incoherent vocals were partly the result of his braces and the rudimentary recording method. Before the record became a hit Ely was forced out of the group and began playing with his new band, the Courtmen. Ely died in Terrebonne, Oregon, on April 28, 2015 at age 71.
Jennell Ruth Hawkins was an American R&B singer and musician who recorded in the 1950s and early 1960s and had a Top 50 chart hit in 1961 with "Moments to Remember".
The Revels were an American doo-wop group formed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1954. At first, the group bounced around different record labels earnings regional hits with tunes such as "Cha-Cha Toni" and "False Alarm", but national success initially eluded them. In 1959, however, the Revels charted at number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Midnight Stroll"—the act's only Top 40 hit.