Jack Ely obituary

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/apr/29/jack-ely

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As vocalist on the Kingsmen’s 1963 recording of Louie Louie, Jack Ely, who has died aged 71, understood better than most what it means to be a one-hit wonder. By the time the single had climbed to No 2 in the US charts, he had been ousted from the band.

Ely had begun singing and playing the guitar in his teens, and at school in Portland, Oregon, met Lynn Easton, who had a band called the Journal Juniors; when their guitarist failed to turn up for a gig, Ely stepped in. Easton and Ely subsequently performed as a duo, with Easton on drums, then recruited the guitarist Mike Mitchell and bass player Bob Nordby. When another local group called the Kingsmen split up, Easton’s parents arranged for their son’s crew to take over the name.

Ely fitted in studies at Portland State University while the new Kingsmen began to build a reputation for playing instrumentals and R&B. In 1962, the lineup was augmented by Don Gallucci on keyboards, from another local band, Gentleman Jim and the Horsemen.

They first heard Louie Louie, written by Richard Berry in 1956, playing on a jukebox in a version credited to Rockin’ Robin Roberts (though in fact it was performed by a band from Tacoma, Washington, called the Wailers, with whom Roberts was the vocalist), and began playing it in their live show. It became their most popular song, the crowd’s enthusiasm sometimes prompting them to stretch it out to exorbitant lengths. Ken Chase, a club owner and programme director of the radio station KISN, had become the Kingsmen’s manager, and in April 1963 he booked the group into the Northwestern Recording Studio in Portland to record the song.

Ely sang lead vocals, apparently being the only band member who knew the words, but the group were unhappy with the crude one-take recording, even if their manager deemed himself satisfied. Ely had just had the braces on his teeth tightened, could not enunciate properly, and had to sing into a microphone suspended from the ceiling. “I stood there and yelled while the whole band was playing and when it was over, we hated it,” Ely said later. “We thought it was a totally non-quality recording.”

In August 1963, Easton declared that he wanted to step out from behind the drum kit and become the Kingsmen’s vocalist, so Ely would have to be the drummer. He got his way as he was officially registered as the owner of the band’s name. The disgruntled Ely decided to quit, along with Nordby. When Louie Louie climbed up the Billboard chart, Ely tried to rejoin, unsuccessfully. By December, the single had reached No 2 – it would sell over a million copies – and the Kingsmen appeared on TV with Easton miming to Ely’s vocals.

It has become part of the Louie Louie mythology that Ely’s barely comprehensible vocals contained hidden obscenities. Matthew Welsh, the governor of Indiana, declared it “pornographic” and asked the state’s radio stations to ban it. The FBI’s 455-page report on the song concluded that it was “unintelligible at any speed”.

Ely was born in Portland, the son of parents who had both majored in music at the University of Oregon. His father, Ken, died when Jack was four, and his mother remarried. Jack made prodigious progress on the piano as a child, and was playing recitals in the Portland area by the time he was seven. He was derailed from a possible classical career by the arrival of Elvis Presley. After seeing the King on TV, Ely promptly dropped piano and took up guitar.

With the success of Louie Louie, in early 1964 he went on the road as Jacky Ely and the Kingsmen, and also released Love That Louie on RCA Records. After some legal wrangling, Ely was paid $6,000 in royalties, was credited as vocalist on future pressings of Louie Louie, and agreed to stop calling his group the Kingsmen. He formed a new band, the Courtmen, but their 1966 releases Louie Louie ’66 and Ride Ride Baby went nowhere. Ely was conscripted into the army, which took him to Vietnam for the next two years and ended his pop star ambitions.

He spent a period contending with drug and alcohol addiction, then became an advocate for performers’ rights. In 1998, the Kingsmen won a lawsuit to recover decades of lost royalties for Louie Louie and other songs. “There are a lot of one-hit wonders out there just like me who deserve compensation,” said Ely.

Latterly, he lived with his second wife on a farm in Terrebonne, Oregon, where he worked as a horse trainer. A devout Christian, he released the gospel album Love Is All Around You Now in 2012.

He had two sons from his first marriage, which ended in divorce.

• Jack Ely, musician, born 11 September 1943; died 27 April 2015