{"id":476,"date":"2008-10-13T00:23:15","date_gmt":"2008-10-13T07:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/?p=476"},"modified":"2008-10-13T00:30:16","modified_gmt":"2008-10-13T07:30:16","slug":"the-kingsmen-without-jack-ely-louie-of-the-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/?p=476","title":{"rendered":"The Kingsmen (without Jack Ely) – LOUIE of the Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been giving Jack Ely<\/strong> a lot of attention to this blog lately, so I thought I’d give some attention to the band that parted ways with him.<\/p>\n

The Kingsmen<\/strong> had the big hit with “LOUIE LOUIE” in 1963, but they never actually toured with the original singer. There was a big argument between Lynn Easton<\/strong> and Jack Ely<\/strong>, and things were never the same after that particular confrontation. Jack quit the band, and tried to rejoin the band a few months later, after discovering that their $$38 recording of the song somehow became a big hit on the national charts. Lynn decided he never wanted to work with Jack again, and leaped into the limelight as the leader and primary singer for the Kingsmen. <\/p>\n

Things got a pretty ugly between the two parties. The Kingsmen became very successful, releasing more records, touring all over the country, and appearing on various television shows, lip-synching to their big hit. Jack decided he wanted to get a piece of the action, so he went out on the road as “Jack Ely & the Kingsmen<\/strong>,” often performing in the same town the other Kingsmen were scheduled to play, creating a bit of chaos for the fans.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Jack was sued by the Kingsmen, and forbidden by court order to use the “Kingsmen” name. The Kingsmen were also ordered by the court to stop lip-synching to the original recording. If the Kingsmen were to perform “LOUIE LOUIE” on any television show, they could no longer use Jack Ely’s voice as part of the performance.<\/p>\n

This week’s LOUIE OF THE WEEK is a rare television clip of the Kingsmen performing “LOUIE LOUIE” live in the TV studio without any lip-synching. Lynn Easton is doing all the singing, and it’s quite different from the original version with Jack Ely’s voice. Even the keyboards sound different, as Barry Curtis<\/strong> had replaced Don Gallucci<\/strong> as the keyboardist.<\/p>\n

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In spite of the personnel changes, the Kingsmen had a very good run with their career, and they still continue to perform today. In 1964, they had a big hit with a semi-original song “Jolly Green Giant”, which made it to #4 on the Billboard charts. In 1965, they appeared in a beach party movie called \u201cHow To Stuff A Wild Bikini.\u201d The Association of Promoters and Ballroom Operators<\/strong> voted the Kingsmen as \u201cNumber One Touring Act in 1965.\u201d In the course of their career, they released at least seven different albums (not including compilations). <\/p>\n

Of course, the Kingsmen did very well by becoming the first recording act to successfully sue for ownership of their recordings for lack of royalty payments.<\/p>\n

They had quite a legacy, and I’m looking forward to sharing more stories about them in my upcoming documentary. <\/p>\n

In the meantime, you can find out more about this iconic band by going to their official website at: LouieLouie.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been giving Jack Ely a lot of attention to this blog lately, so I thought I’d give some attention to the band that parted ways with him. The Kingsmen had the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,42,2,33,22,20,7,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-garage-rock","category-jack-ely","category-kingsmen","category-louie-of-week","category-louie-universe","category-old-versions","category-pacific-northwest","category-tv-shows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}