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
Released Released April 1957 on Flip Records as the B-side of ‘You Are My Sunshine’, credited to Richard Berry and the Pharaohs
Charted A regional West Coast hit; it did not become a national chart record in its own right
Hear Richard Berry and the Pharaohs's 1957 Flip original youtube.com · Richard Berry artist channel — auto-generated upload of the Flip master, released April 1957 Then compare The Kingsmen’s April 1963 Portland recording — the famously murky take that drew a two-year FBI investigation into lyrics nobody could make out. www.youtube.com · Auto-generated upload on “THE KINGSMEN - Topic”: “Provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises”, ℗ 1963 Kingsmen International Licensing, Inc. (with a separate ℗ 2005 line for the compilation, The Best of The Kingsmen). Runtime 165s (2:45), inside the MusicBrainz cluster of 2:39-2:50, with most entries at 2:43-2:47. I checked the band-owned ℗ holder because it could have signalled a re-recording: Peterson v. Highland Music (9th Cir. 1998) confirms the court ordered Gusto/GML to hand the Wand-era masters to the group, so a Kingsmen-owned entity holding a ℗ 1963 sound-recording line is consistent with the genuine 1963 master rather than a later re-cut.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 coverKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
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.
‘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 ↗.
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.
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.