<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>Courtesy of today's (April 29, 2015) Spokesman-Review.</div><div><br></div><div>--------------------------------------</div><div><h1 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; clear: both; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; line-height: 1.2; font-size: 28px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">Jack Ely, singer of definitive ‘Louie Louie,’ dies at age 71</h1><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">PORTLAND – Jack Ely, the singer known for “Louie Louie,” the low-budget recording that became one the most famous songs of the 20th century, died at his home in Redmond, Oregon, after a long battle with an illness. He was 71. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">His son, Sean Ely, confirmed the death Tuesday. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Because of his religious beliefs, we’re not even sure what (the illness) was,” he said. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Jack Ely was an original member of the Kingsmen, a band formed in 1959 that mostly performed cover versions of songs. Four years later, the group recorded “Louie Louie” at a studio in its home city of Portland. According to lore, it cost $36. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The song was written in the mid-1950s by Richard Berry, a Los Angeles musician with roots in doo-wop music. As he recorded it in 1957, the tune had a calypso feel and described a patron telling the barkeep he had to go, to get back to his girl waiting across the sea in Jamaica. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Louie Louie” has been covered hundreds of times, a three-chord, garage-band classic anybody could play soon after picking up an electric guitar. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Ely and the Kingsmen picked it up along with other Northwest figures such as Rockin’ Robin Roberts and Paul Revere. The Kingsmen’s version was recorded in 1963 and is the definitive version, going from cult classic to rock ’n’ roll standard. It has inspired more than a thousand cover versions and there’s no reliable estimate for how many times it’s been drunkenly sung at parties. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In addition to the song’s fame, Ely’s incoherent singing also made it one of the more misunderstood. The FBI was so mystified by the hard-to-understand lyrics that it conducted an investigation into whether the song was obscene. They found it to be “unintelligible at any speed.” </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Over the years, Ely and other band members attributed the indistinct lyrics to the microphone suspended from the ceiling, forcing Ely to shout up at it. Sean Ely said his father got “quite the kick” out of the FBI’s 455-page investigative report. He said his father certainly knew the words, and wasn’t just slurring nonsense. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Right 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. It’s all of this in a 10-by-10 room with one microphone. I’m standing on my tippy toes yelling into the microphone: Louie Louie! Louie Louie! We gotta go!”’ </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Ely had a falling out with the band shortly after the song was recorded. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">He later trained horses in Central Oregon and, according to his son, was content with his legacy as a one-hit wonder – a massive one-hit wonder, to be precise. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“He wanted to try on different occasions to pursue other endeavors in the music industry, but I think when it was all done and said he was pretty happy that he did ‘Louie Louie.’ ”</span></p></div><div>--------------------------------------</div><div><br></div><div><img src="cid:7CCC9E86-B095-436B-873A-7159D88ABBAB" alt="image1.jpeg" id="7CCC9E86-B095-436B-873A-7159D88ABBAB"></div><div><a href="http://www.tomandrodna.com/Photos/Kingsmen.jpg">http://www.tomandrodna.com/Photos/Kingsmen.jpg</a></div><div><br></div><div>CRANK IT UP and sing along . . .</div><div><br></div><div><b>"Louie Louie"</b> by the Kingsmen (with lyrics)</div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://youtu.be/wx-8_GI4d2c">http://youtu.be/wx-8_GI4d2c</a></span><br><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Rest well, Jack Ely, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares"</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div> </div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>