RIP Mike Mitchell, Kingsmen guitarist on ‘Louie Louie’

Above : The Kingsmen, circa 1970, with Mike Mitchell (far right). (Photo/Michael Ochs archives)

Mike Mitchell died last Friday.

That name doesn’t mean much to most people. It certainly didn’t mean anything to me … until I read that Mitchell had been the lead guitarist of The Kingsmen.

And then I recalled afternoons in high school, when a neighbor kid and I would sit in his bedroom and play the rock group’s most famous song, a cover version of Richard Berry ’s tune “Louie Louie,” over and over. Our intent was to try and figure out what the group’s lead singer – Jack Ely, another unfamiliar name – was actually saying.

We’d been told that the song’s lyrics were really dirty. And we wanted to see ourselves. Despite our best efforts, though – and trust me we must have listened dozens of times – we never really were able to figure out just exactly what was being sung.

Turns out we weren’t alone. As the story goes, even the FBI couldn’t prove that the group’s version of the song was anything other than an indecipherable rendering, caused mostly by poor recording equipment, of Berry original lyrics – which you can read here.

But as with all stories that capture the public’s imagination, the idea that The Kingsmen version is profane endures. Myth is almost always more popular than the truth.

It’s kept this little song, as performed by an otherwise minor Portland garage band, alive going on 60 years now. That, of course, and its infectious beat.

And as a tribute, to the band, to the late Berry and to the late Mitchell as well, it deserves another hearing.

So click here. And rock on.