http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6Hxthr4m5M

On Sunday night in California, Monday afternoon in Australia, a very special interview took place for the LOUIE documentary project.

For years, I’ve been in touch with Ross Wilson. I knew about his history with him being one of, if not THE first musician in Australia to record Richard Berry‘s now-iconic melody. Ross was 16 years old at the time in 1965, and he not only had the foresight to not only record the song, but also create his own record label, releasing his unique rendition of LOUIE LOUIE with the Pink Finks on his own Mojo record company. Since that pivotal moment in time, Ross has a substantial musical career as a singer, song-writer, and producer in Australia.

Over the years, he’s fronted a handful of bands as well as Pink Finks, including The Party Machine, Procession, Sons of the Vegetal Mother, Daddy Cool and Mondo Rock. With his band Daddy Cool, he scored a nationwide #1 hit in Australia in mid-1970 with the single “Eagle Rock” and their debut LP, Daddy Who?, Daddy Cool, also set a new record as the biggest selling Australian album to that time. In 1974, Wilson took time off from Daddy Cool and worked with an up-and-coming band known as Skyhooks, producing their debut album Living in the Seventies, which overtook Daddy Cool’s spot as the biggest-selling Australian LP of the time.

Ross was individually inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 1989 and again as a member of Daddy Cool in 2006. Ross Wilson was also featured as a judge on the Seven Network celebrity reality singing competition television show “It Takes Two” in both 2006 and 2007 series.

As I was fascinated by Ross’ career, and Ross is a big fan of Richard Berry music, we connected via cyberspace about ten or so years ago. I’ve never been able to make it to Australia, and his visits to the United States seemed few and far between, but I’ve always had full intentions of conducting a proper interview with Ross.

Last night, we finally did our interview, thanks to my friend/co-collaborator Alison Victor, and the ingenious web service known as SKYPE. A couple of years ago, Alison and I actually co-produced a short documentary on a blind sailor that used SKYPE services to “see,” which turned out to be a film that was showcased on the Oprah Winfrey TV show.

Alison was visiting Australia, so we thought…. “Why not interview Ross via Skype?”

And so we did…

It was pretty darned exciting, being able to interview Ross, on the other side on the world, using SKYPE technology to do a teleconference, using pre-existing broadband connections on our respective laptop devices. I was able to talk with Ross, and see images of what Alison was shooting. I continue to blown away by this modern technology, and how easy it’s become to use on a regular basis.

With all the tools in 2010, it’s so easy to share things around the world. Sharing video is where it really gets exciting. Back in the day, if I wanted to see Ross’ latest video, I’d have to get a Betacam or VHS dub, which would have to be converted from PAL to NTSC so I could watch it in the United States. Now anybody can post their video to one of the various video-sharing services, and see it instantly.

It’s such a treat to see stuff like Ross’ latest video “I Come in Peace,” featuring a message I never get tired of….

Thank you Ross!
Thank you Alison!

I think we’ve made some serious history today, and I’m feeling quite good about that!

For more information about these talented people that have contributed a unique chapter this ambitious LOUIE project of mine, please visit their websites at:

RossWilson.com.au
AV Multimedia

… and if you want to see Alison perform a killer mash-up of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Godzilla” with her old band, please click here.

This week, I’d like to introduce the world to someone that was closely involved with the 1983 Rhino record known as THE BEST OF LOUIE LOUIE, a release that was one of the catalysts, along with the KFJC radio marathon, that directly inspired behind this LOUIE LOUIE documentary project. It was the synergy of a little college radio station working closely together with an innovative then-new record label that created the event that brought me to Richard Berry, Jack Ely, and the amazing story that is LOUIE LOUIE.

Here’s an interview I did with him, conducted via email….

1.) How did you ever link up with Rhino Records?
I have a friend –Jim Terr – who met Richard Foos, co-founder of Rhino Records at a NAIRD convention about 32 years ago. (NAIRD was the National Association of Independent Record Distributors and is no longer in operation.)
I had just opened my first recording studio at the time (late 1970’s) and was about to relocate from my parents house to a garage in Weschester…a suburb of Los Angeles. As luck would have it, Richard was looking for a facility to finish up his current Rhino project “Circus Royale”.
I met Richard and we hit it off right away. He and his partner Harold Bronson were real record / music fans and were having success releasing vinyl such as Wildman Fisher out of the back of Rhino Records, a small retail record shop on Westwood Blvd. near UCLA.

2.) What was your first record with this label?
As mentioned above, it was “Circus Royale”, a follow-up album to “Rhino Royale”. Both albums were compilation of comedy/novelty recordings. I recorded and co-produced most of Circus Royale with Foos and Bronson.

3.) What type of recordings did you do with Rhino?
Mostly novelty Dr. Demento type material similar to the stuff that I had done before my work with Rhino … “Hamster Love”…a take off on “Muskrat Love” by The Captain and Tennille…was one of our most successful pre-Rhino songs and still gets Demento airplay! I think that my initial work with the label was because of this recording among others done for Dr. Demento.
After a few years, I formed the band Big Daddy which over the years has released five albums (four on Rhino). We also had a top 20 single in the UK… our version of Brucie’s “Dancing In the Dark”.

4.) How did the Best of LOUIE LOUIE record come together?
I got a call from Richard (Foos) in regard to the Best of Louie Louie (I also worked on the Best of La Bamba a few years later in 1988). They wanted to re- record Richard Berry’s version of the song because getting rights to the original master was too expensive. I also recorded and produced another cut from the Rhino Louie album by Les Dantz and His Orchestra with Big Daddy member Tom Lee singing the lead.

5.) When you recorded Richard Berry re-doing LOUIE LOUIE, what type of session was it?
I approached it in a similar way to the way I prefer to record to this day…..Full band rhythm section recorded live with a reference lead vocal. Then overdubs on lead and back up vocals, horns or other sweetening instruments.

6.) Was there a conscious effort to make it sound like the original Flip Records recording?
Yes absolutely! Foos wanted the tempo and instrumentation to be as close to the original as possible. We listened closely to the original flip version and copied the arrangement. We must have done a good job because, along with Richard Berry’s amazing vocal recreation of the original vocal, Max Feirtag accused us of using the original version when he heard the Best of Louie, Louie record!…but in fact our re-recording was the one used on the album.
….As a side note, one of Richard Berry’s teenage daughters sang back up vocals along with members of Big Daddy on the “Louie” track.

7.) Did you ever meet Max & Lillian Feirtag?
Yes I did….Just by coincidence, my parents were aquainted with the Feirtags through Bobbie Pargman (first cousin of Lillian Feirtag). I had met them on several social occasions many years before going into the music business.

8.) Was there any personal connection with the Flip Records empire?
Bobbie Pargman’s son Neil was a childhood friend of mine and he and his mom had been given the original Flip Records master tapes by Max and Lillian. This included all of the Richard Berry material on Flip. Neil had me archive them to digital tape and CD for safe keeping about 10 or 15 years ago…a very smart idea as analog tapes deteriorate with age.

9.) Besides Richard Berry’s version of LOUIE LOUIE, were there any other recordings on this Best of LOUIE that you participated in?
Yes…Les Dantz spoof on David Bowie…see above answer to question #4.

10.) What’s the story behind this Big Daddy band? Who was in this band, and how long did it last?
I’ll give you the short version here…for the long version go to the linear notes written by bandmate Marty Kaniger on “The Best of Big Daddy” which was released a few years ago (in 2000) on Oglio Records licensed through Rhino.
The short version goes as follows…Richard Foos and I were both fans of an album from the early 1970’s called “Take A Sad Song” by Godfrey Daniel. They took late 1960’s and early 70’s hits and turned them into styles from the 1950s…mostly R & B and Boogie Woogie.
We wanted to recreate this concept but expand the styles to include DoWop, Rock-a-billy, and 50’s pop music. We also wanted to have a back story to explain why the contemporary songs of that era would be done in 1950’s styles. The story that we settled on involved and 1950s band on a USO Tour of Southeast Asia being captured in Laos and held captive during the entire evolution of Rock & Roll.
When the band was finally freed by US Forces in 1982, we were given sheet music so we could learn the “new” music of the time. But we learned the songs without hearing the hit recordings…….the first Big Daddy Album…What Really Happened To The Band Of ’59? was the result.
The concept had a very long run – from 1982 until about three years after the release of “Big Daddy’s Sgt. Peppers” in 1992. It included five albums, a very elaborate live show that toured Australia once and Europe three times. There were also countless songs that were written and/or recorded for film, video, and compilation CD’s.

11.) What sort of projects are you doing at Sunburst Recording these days?
The studio is a full service audio facility that records all formats of audio for records, film, audio narration and books and audio archiving for educational institutions and private collectors.
We are currently recording three Jazz albums, archiving a vast collection of Aldous Huxley interviews, lectures & radio programs and involved in a number of film projects.
We have recorded three Firesign Theatre albums for Rhino, two Cesar Millan (The Dog Whisperer) audio books box sets and many other noted artists such as Adam Sandler, Steve Allen, Micky Dolenz, Richie Havens, Plas Johnson (who played tenor sax solos on many Flip Records tracks), Fishbone and El Chicano.
We’ve also had our recordings in feature films such as “Swingers” and “Election”.

12.) What does the song LOUIE LOUIE mean to you?
Its one of the great party songs of all time…easy to learn and fun to play. It never fails to get a crowd into a party mood. Richard Berry’s version is hands down the best of them all!

You learn more about what Bob Wayne and his company Sunburst Recording by visiting his official website at:
http://www.sunburstrecording.com

Here they are performing live at Angi’s Birthday Bash, Dreikönigskeller, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The Copy Cats began in 1991 in the town of Frankfurt. Members of the band include Silke, lead vocals (ex-Machotoys), Mülli, guitar & vocals (ex-Ten Buck Fuck), Heiko – bass & vocals and Tommy Gun, drums (ex-Glamour Ghouls, Nerds, Sys Of Choi, Lilien and currently Monkeysuite, The Big Heat).

Want to learn about these Cats? Go to:
http://www.copycats.de/main.html

“Dominique” by the Singing Nun was the big roadblock that stood in the way of LOUIE LOUIE.

As it turns out, there’s now a new film about her life.

The (UK) Guardian had a nice write-up about this project:

She was the bespectacled nun who beat the Beatles to the top of the US charts, sparking a worldwide craze for singers in wimples before either the Sound of Music or TV’s the Flying Nun.

Now the tragic story of Jeannine Deckers, known as the Singing Nun, has been reclaimed by her native Belgium.

A new film, released tomorrow, tells the painful tale of the naive young sister from a Brussels suburb who eventually left her convent and took her own life.

The story of her rise from an awkward convent novice to the Grammy award-winning guitar-strummer known as Belgium’s “Elvis Presley in a habit” inspired numerous stage and screen interpretations.

In 1966, at the height of Deckers’ success, Debbie Reynolds starred in a saccharine, Oscar-nominated Hollywood musical version of her life story.

The producers weren’t to know how things would later end: with Deckers depressed, destitute and dependent on alcohol and tranquillisers, killing herself with her lesbian partner in 1985.

New York stage plays, a British radio play and a cameo in the Simpsons followed in later years.

The author of a French fictional autobiography, published this year, compared Deckers’ life to that of a true rock star rollercoaster story such as that of Nirvana‘s Kurt Cobain.

The new Belgian film, Soeur Sourire – Sister Smile – faced an almost decade-long battle for funding and was finally made as a French co-production.

For more information about this project, you can visit the MVD SeaofSound.com page, where you can pre-order the DVD.

On Monday, we lost Dave McElhatton, a news anchorman for KPIX Channel 5, the San Francisco CBS affiliate. I never met the man, but I’d heard a lot of stories about about a decent human being he was. Dave retired from broadcasting in 2000 after nearly 50 years on the airwaves at KCBS radio and KPIX television.

I’ll say one thing about the guy: He knew about the important stories. Here’s a still image from a VHS tape of the news coverage of the infamous KFJC LOUIE LOUIE Marathon of 1983.

We’re going to miss you, Dave.

You can read more about his career by visiting the CBS5.com website.

Live from Sacramento, California at some kind of private party that I missed on August 4, 2010, it’s Mark Lindsay singing Richard Berry‘s most famous melody. Two out of four Monkees, namely Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork, are along for this rather momentous occasion.

Here’s the Underdogs doing a LOUIE LOUIE-Wild Thing medley sometime in 1988. The Underdogs are Adam Warnock, John Cunningham, Don Mclean, and Julian Ardas.

Ian Lloyd was the lead singer for the Stories, which eventually was renamed as Ian Lloyd and the Stories. A couple of weekends ago, he was one of the guests at the National Rock Con 2010 in New Jersey, a big rock and roll music festival that featured lots of musicians, including some other folks familiar to these pages such as Phil “Fang” Volk of Paul Revere & the Raiders, the Smithereens, Denny Laine of Wings, among others.

If you visit YouTube, you can find a lot of great performances from this event, captured for posterity by Sue Glenwood, who did an excellent job of documenting this show.

Thanks to her efforts, we get to see Ian Lloyd performing “Brother Louie” as a duet with Mary Wilson of the Supremes.

Their band for this features John Ford (of The Strawbs), Rich Ranno (Stories / Starz), John Hawkin (Strawbs / Nashville Teens), Jon Ihle (Ian Lloyd’s Stories), Danny Solazzi and Craig Colandro.

UPDATE for Tuesday, August 17th:

DON’T FORGET TO WATCH TWO BACK TO BACK EPISODES OF LOUIS CK’s HIT CABLE COMEDY SHOW “Louie” TONIGHT 11PM on FX NETWORK
It’s my FAVORITE NEW SHOW !
[of course I'm biased because I'm singing the theme song!!!!!!]

HOPE EVERYONE IS HAVIN’ A ROCKIN’ SUMMER!

IAN LLOYD

Mitch Miller, the man who popularized sing-along performances before the invention of karaoke, has passed away at the age of 99 years old. He was was an American musician, singer, conductor, record producer, A&R man and record company executive. He was considered one of the most influential figures in American popular music during the 1950s and early 1960s.

My dad loved this guy’s music. I used to hear Mitch Miller music all the time when I was growing up. It used to drive me up the wall, actually.

While Mitch Miller was very successful in the music industry, he just didn’t understand rock & roll music. He called it “musical illiteracy.” In fact, when he was in charge of A&R at Columbia Records, he turned down a chance to sign Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. It was something of a miracle that Columbia Records signed Paul Revere & the Raiders to the label. The biggest record label in the world was slow to the party, and Paul Revere & company were the first to break the glass ceiling, so to speak.

In 1996, he told the Boston Globe, “I can’t get interested in people who can only sing songs with three chords in them.”

I’m sure LOUIE LOUIE was on the top of the list of songs that he hated. It certainly wasn’t his idea of a “party song.”

Rest in peace, Mitch.

POST-NOTE: Truth be told, I do love the idea that Mitch Miller talked Frank Sinatra into recording the song “Mama Will Bark,” with TV actress-comedian Dagmar. It’s a classic number that must be heard to be believed!