Who recorded it first

Louie Louie

Not a Kingsmen original — a 1957 Richard Berry song

Almost everyone takes ‘Louie Louie’ for a Kingsmen original, but the Kingsmen’s 1963 version is a cover. The song was written and first recorded by Richard Berry in 1957 on Flip Records — released as a B-side. Berry sold his rights early for $750 and spent decades all but uncredited in the public mind, while a garage-rock cover turned his song into an American institution.

The record

Who recorded it first

Original recording
Richard Berry, 1957
Written by
Richard Berry
First released
April 1957 (Flip Records) — B-side of ‘You Are My Sunshine’
Made famous by
The Kingsmen, 1963 (US No. 2)

How we traced it

The song was written by Richard Berry and first recorded by him with the Pharaohs in 1957 for Flip Records, released as a B-side to ‘You Are My Sunshine’ Wikipedia ↗.

Berry sold his songwriting and publishing rights for $750 to help pay for his wedding — a routine deal at the time, but one that would cost him a fortune once the song took off Richard Berry ↗.

The Kingsmen cut their raucous version in Portland in 1963; re-issued on Wand Records, it climbed to No. 2 and became so ubiquitous that most listeners assumed the song began with them — not with a 1957 B-side SecondHandSongs ↗.

SecondHandSongs — the original and every cover
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Fact-check

The attribution problem

This is a classic cover-eclipse with a sting in the tail: the Kingsmen’s 1963 record is a masterpiece of garage rock, but it is a cover, and the man who wrote and first recorded the song had already signed away his rights for pocket change.

The beliefcover, not original

‘It’s a Kingsmen song’

The Kingsmen’s 1963 version is a cover. The song was written and recorded six years earlier, in 1957, by Richard Berry the history ↗.

The originalwrote it and recorded it first

Richard Berry, 1957

Berry’s Flip single was a B-side and a regional hit — never the national phenomenon the cover became, which is exactly why the cover could overshadow it so completely.

The rightsuncredited for decades

Sold for $750

Berry sold his songwriting and publishing rights early to pay for his wedding, and only regained royalties through a mid-1980s settlement — long after the song had become an American standard under someone else’s name the settlement ↗.

Written and first recorded by Richard Berry in 1957, and made famous — but not originated — by The Kingsmen in 1963 the record ↗.

Context

Why the cover ate the original

A cover eclipses its original most completely when the original never had a national moment. Richard Berry’s 1957 ‘Louie Louie’ was a West Coast B-side, admired locally but far from a hit; there was no famous first record standing in the way when the Kingsmen’s version exploded in 1963.

The cruelty is in the paperwork. Berry had sold his rights for $750 before the song was worth anything, so as the cover turned it into one of the most-recorded songs in rock, the money and the credit flowed everywhere but to him. He was living on welfare when a licensing deal in the mid-1980s finally reopened his claim — the rare misattribution that was also, for years, a financial one.

The record, and the rights, in order
  • Richard Berry writes ‘Louie Louie’ and records it first (1957, Flip Records) as a B-side.
  • Berry sells his songwriting and publishing rights for $750 to fund his wedding.
  • The Kingsmen cover it in Portland, 1963; re-issued on Wand, it reaches US No. 2.
  • The muddy Kingsmen recording triggers a months-long FBI investigation into its lyrics, which concludes they are simply unintelligible.
  • A mid-1980s licensing deal reopens Berry’s claim; the settlement finally makes him a millionaire.
The man who wrote it sold his rights for $750, then watched everyone else get the credit.

The writer and original recording artist

Richard Berry

1935–1997 · American singer and songwriter

Richard Berry (1935–1997) was an American singer and songwriter who both wrote ‘Louie Louie’ and recorded it first, in 1957 for Flip Records. He sold his rights to the song for $750 to fund his wedding, and for decades watched it become one of the most-recorded songs in rock while his own name faded from public memory. In the mid-1980s a licensing deal reopened his claim and a settlement finally made him a millionaire — late vindication for the man who invented the thing everyone else got credit for.

Popularly credited as the original

The Kingsmen

American garage-rock band · formed 1959, Portland, Oregon

The Kingsmen were a Portland garage-rock band whose 1963 cover of ‘Louie Louie’ reached No. 2 and became the version burned into the public ear — famously so muddy that the FBI spent months investigating whether the lyrics were obscene, and concluded they were simply unintelligible. Their record is a genuine landmark of American rock; the only error is chronological, the assumption that a song this iconic must have started with them. It started six years earlier, with Richard Berry.