The Kingsmen

The Kingsmen, formed in Portland, Oregon in 1959, cut a raw, clattering, gloriously sloppy version of Richard Berry's R&B number "Louie Louie" in 1963, and the world hasn't stopped dancing badly to it since. It parked at number two on the Billboard charts for six weeks, and it has become a party-starting standard, frat rock at its most gleefully ragged.

Their ranks included Jack Ely, Lynn Easton and guitarist Mike Mitchell, who stuck with the band from 1959 right through to 2021, with Don Gallucci on keyboards in 1962 and 1963. Barry Curtis, Norm Sundholm, Turley Richards and Freddie Dennis all passed through over the years. The records came out on Jerden.

They were far from a one-shot novelty. Between 1963 and 1968 they got 13 singles onto the charts, along with five albums in a row from 1963 to 1966. The first, The Kingsmen in Person, refused to leave the Billboard Top LPs chart, clinging on for 131 weeks between January 1964 and August 1966, and their early albums were shipped as far afield as Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Mexico, South Africa and Taiwan.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.