Louie, Louie, The Kingsmen, and the F.B.I. [VIDEO]

I'm pretty sure we've all heard Louie,Louie at one time or another. I call it the ultimate party song because it was played alot at parties, and every band on the planet knew how to play it. Did you ever wonder how that song got to be as popular as it was? here's the answer.

The Kingsmen formed around 1963, however a couple band members soon got drafted, so the band went shopping for replacements which wasn't difficult at all. Back then everybody wanted to be in a band. The group didn't make much money, actually they were little more than a garage band, playing at car dealer and grocery store openings, and small parties.

The lead singer of the Kingsmen was Lynn eaton, and his dad hooked them up with a sweet gig on a cruise liner.The owner of the cruise line dug their music, and offered to financially back them if they would make a record. In the recording studio they went, and cut four or five songs, one being Louie, Louie. The vocals were bad, the sound mix wasn't good, and they played some wrong chords, but they did the song in two takes. The second take is the one you hear on the radio today.

When the song was released it was pretty much a local hit, with just a little national air play. Apparently, the song was heard by more than teenagers, as one day Lynn received a knock on his door from the F.B.I.  The problem the F.B.I. had with the song was dirty lyrics, and accused the band with corruption of American youth. The song was banned form the airwaves, and little more than two months after the ban took effect, the song has risen to the number two song in the nation!

If you tell somebody they can't have it, they want it, and that's exactly what happened to the Louie, Louie. Even though the kids couldn't hear it on radio, they could buy the song in the record stores. Immediately the Kingsmen became extremely popular, and the gigs came one after another. The funny thing is, the F.B.I. were attending the gigs as well, keeping a watchful on on both the band and America's youth.  The F.B.I. were easily spotted in their matching black suits, so they weren't fooling anybody as they stood out from the teenage crowd like a sore thumb. The F.B.I. even accused the Kingsmen of wrapping themselves in saran wrap and wearing jock straps on stage! Of course as that spread, the record sales jumped even higher.

That's pretty much the story in a nutshell of a how a garage band hit the big time. The song was eventually removed from the  banned list, when a judge ruled the song was unintelligible, meaning the words could not be understood. The F.B.I. did not challenge the ruling.