Stuck in the Psychedelic Era # 2452 (starts 12/23/24)

https://exchange.prx.org/p/555413 

    Once upon a time there was an angry rebellious music called rock 'n' roll. But then the music factories got hold of it and filtered out everything that was angry and rebellious about it. But then the British came up with their own brand of angry and rebellious rock 'n' roll and invaded the entire world with it, which prompted a lot of angry and rebellious teenagers to do the same in their own garages and basements, creating what soon became known as the psychedelic era. This time it was the musicians themselves that sucked the angry rebelliousness out of rock 'n' roll (it's hard to be angry and rebellious when you're making money hand over fist), until a new generation of angry rebellious young people started calling themselves punk rockers. This week, in our first hour, we check out a sampling of punk and what is now called post-punk (but was known as "new wave" at the time). For our second hour we have our first ever Battle of the Songs, featuring several different versions of two of the most covered songs of the psychedelic era. Happy New Year!

Artist:    Iggy And The Stooges
Title:    Search And Destroy
Source:    CD: No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion (originally released on LP: Raw Power)
Writer(s):    Pop/Williamson
Label:    Rhino (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1973
    Raw Power, the third album by the Stooges, saw the addition of James Williamson on guitar, with Ron Asheton moving over to bass to replace the departing Dave Alexander. Williamson also co-wrote all the songs on Raw Power with vocalist Iggy Pop. The album's opening track, Search And Destroy, has been called "an archetype for punk rock" and has been covered by numerous bands over the ensuing years.

Artist:    Modern Lovers
Title:    Roadrunner
Source:    CD: No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion (originally released on LP: The Modern Lovers)
Writer(s):    Jonathan Richman
Label:    Rhino (original label: Beserkley)
Year:    Recorded 1972, released 1976
    In April of 1972 20-year-old Jonathan Richman and his band, the Modern Lovers, made a trip to Los Angeles to record a demo tape with producer John Cale (formerly of Velvet Underground). The tape sat on a shelf for several years as the band went through both artistic and personnel changes, finally surfacing (along with a few tracks recorded with different producers) in 1976 as an album called The Modern Lovers on Matthew "King" Kaufman's new Beserkley label. By then Richman had changed his style considerably and did not acknowledge The Modern Lovers as his first LP. Nonetheless, the album, featuring tracks like Roadrunner, was a critical success and has been cited as an influence by punk rock bands such as the Sex Pistols.

Artist:    Ramones
Title:    Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
Source:    CD: No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Joey Ramone
Label:    Rhino (original label: Sire)
Year:    1977
    The Ramones are often cited as the first true punk-rock band. Formed in the New York City borough of Queens in 1974 by four guys with no familial relation to each other who, inspired by Paul McCartney's practice of using the alias Paul Ramon when checking into hotels, all took the last name Ramone. Their 1977 single Sheena Is A Punk Rocker was one of the first songs to actually use the term punk rock in the lyrics.

Artist:    Runaways
Title:    Cherry Bomb
Source:    CD: No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion (originally released
Writer(s):    Jett/Fowley
Label:    Rhino (original label:
Year:    1976
    In early 1975 Hollywood hustler Kim Fowley decided that what the world needed was an all-female rock band. As one of the most well-connected people in town, he managed to find guitarist Joan Jett, drummer Sandy West and vocalist/bassist Micki Steele within a few months, officially forming the Runaways in August of 1975, their first gig was at the Whisky a Go Go the following month, opening for another Fowley creation, the Hollywood Stars (by then known as the Stars). After a few personnel changes, the band ended up as a quintet featuring Jett, West, lead guitarist Lita Ford, bassist Jackie Fox and lead vocalist Cherie Currie by the end of the year. Fox, however, at the insistence of Fowley, who had become the group's manager, did not play on the first Runaways album. Instead, all the bass part were played by Nigel Harrison. The song Cherry Bomb was actually written quickly by Jett and Fowley specifically for Currie to use as an audition song when joining the band. It went on to become one of the group's best-known tunes.

Artist:    Sex Pistols
Title:    Anarchy In The UK
Source:    British import LP: Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Lydon/Jones/Cook/Matlock
Label:    Virgin (original label: EMI)
Year:    1976
    Anarchy In The UK is the first single released by the Sex Pistols, and the only song on their album to feature original bassist Glen Matlock. The song, described by Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren as "a call to arms to the kids who believe that rock and roll was taken away from them", was the only Sex Pistols song issued on the EMI label, which dropped the band from its roster after band members used profanity on a live television broadcast. The Sex Pistols are credited with initiating the punk movement in the UK.

Artist:    Clash
Title:    White Riot
Source:    CD: The Singles (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Strummer/Jones
Label:    Epic (original UK label: CBS)
Year:    1977
    The most commercially successful of the original English punk rock bands, the Clash released their debut single, White Riot, in March of 1977. The song was immediately denounced by some critics as racist, but vocalist/guitarist Joe Strummer angrily responded that the song was actually a call to white youth to do the same as inner city black youth were doing and fight back against poverty and police brutality, implying that the two groups actually had a common enemy. The Clash were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.

Artist:    Adverts
Title:    One Chord Wonders
Source:    CD: No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion (originally released
Writer(s):    T.V. Smith
Label:    Rhino (original label:
Year:    1977
    The Adverts were formed in London in 1976 by T.V. Smith and Gaye Advert, the latter often cited as the first female punk rocker. The two had both recently arrived in the Smoke from small towns in the English county of Devon. After being joined by guitarist Howard Pickup and drummer Laurie Driver they became one of the first bands to play the Roxy in its first 100 days, appearing there nine times between January and April of 1977. Their self-descriptive debut record, One Chord Wonders, released on April 22, 1977, was the 13th single released on the Stiff label.

    By 1978 a new wave of bands started showing up in London clubs that began to expand upon the basic punk sound to create something that was originally called new musick, but in recent years has come to be known as post-punk or early alternative rock.

Artist:    Gang Of Four
Title:    Love Like Anthrax
Source:    CD: No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Gang Of Four
Label:    Rhino (original label: Fast Product)
Year:    1978
    Taking their name from the notorious Chinese political cadre, Gang Of Four was one of the first post-punk bands to emerge in the UK. Formed in Leeds by singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bass guitarist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham, the band took a more experimental approach to punk rock, as can be heard on the B side of their debut single, Love Like Anthrax. A considerably longer version of the song appeared on their 1979 LP Entertainment! using the title Anthrax.

Artist:    Magazine
Title:    Shot By Both Sides
Source:    CD: No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Devoto/Shelley
Label:    Rhino (original label: Virgin)
Year:    1978
    Buzzcocks were formed in Manchester, England in 1976 by Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto. Although the two wrote several songs together, Devoto left the band to form Magazine with guitarist John McGeoch before the Buzzcocks made any recordings. Magazine's first single was Shot By Both Sides, a song based on a guitar riff by Shelley, which was released in January of 1978. Buzzcocks used the same riff in the song Lipstick, released as a B side later the same year.

Artist:    Buzzcocks
Title:    Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)
Source:    CD: No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Pete Shelley
Label:    Rhino (original label: United Artists)
Year:    1978
    Buzzcocks made a name for themselves by releasing a steady series of singles that have been described as a synthesis of punk and pop until their breakup in 1980. The most successful of these was Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've), which hit #12 on the British top 40 chart in 1978. The song's lyrics were inspired by a line from the 1955 film version of Guys And Dolls, which Shelley was half paying attention to in a hotel room. When he heard Adelaide say the line "Wait till you fall in love with someone you shouldn't have" he thought it was a good idea for a song, and wrote one the next day.

Artist:    Talking Heads
Title:    Psycho Killer
Source:    CD: No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion (originally released on LP: Talking Heads: 77)
Writer(s):    Byrne/Frantz/Weymouth
Label:    Rhino (original label: Sire)
Year:    1977
    At its core, punk-rock is a blue-collar kind of music with lower class sensibilities. The new wave of post-punk bands, however, tended to be a bit more sophisticated. For example, the three original members of Talking Heads, David Byrne, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, met while they were all students at the Rhode Island School of Design; it's hard to imagine Sid Vicious sitting in a college classroom. The band actually turned down their first offers from record labels, feeling that they needed to improve musically before entering a recording studio, something no original punk band would even give a second thought to. Their fourth member, Jerry Harrison (formerly of Modern Lovers), waited until Talking Heads had a recording contract before agreeing to join the band; as a result he was not on their first single at all. Talking Heads' first major hit was Psycho Killer, released as their third single in late 1977. Although some critics linked the song with the Son Of Sam killings of 1976-1977, the band had actually been performing the song since 1975. Talking Heads went on to become one of the most popular and influential bands in rock history.

Artist:    Elvis Costello
Title:    Alison
Source:    Stereo British import 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Elvis Costello
Label:    Stiff
Year:    1977
    When I started thinking about doing this week's show I knew that there was no way I could do it without including something from Elvis Costello. Born Declan Patrick MacManus in West London to a record shop worker and a jazz musician from Liverpool, Costello was exposed to a wide variety of music growing up, and as an adolescent became a fan of British beat groups like the Kinks and the Who. He also had a liking for reggae and Motown soul, and after moving back to Liverpool in the late 1960s started getting into California bands like the Byrds and the Grateful Dead, and even country music. McManus taught himself to play guitar at age 14, and before moving back to London had become a member of a local folk-rock band called Rusty. At age 19 he realized that to achieve his musical ambitions he would have to return to London, taking on the stage name Declan Costello. In 1973 he formed a band called Flip City, playing the London pub-rock circuit until 1975. By 1976 he was performing as a solo artist under the name D.P. Costello while making demo tapes to send to various record labels. Among those receiving demos were Charlie Gillett, owner of Oval Records and, more importantly for Costello's career, a disc jockey on Radio London. After Gillett played several of the songs from the demo on his weekly show, Costello began to get offers from several labels, eventually signing with the new Stiff label, which seemed, in Costello's opinion, to be prepared to move the fastest. Over a period of several weeks, working with a country-rock band named Clover from Marin County, California, he recorded the songs that made up his debut album, My Aim Is True. The album's title was taken from the song Alison, which, although not a hit single at the time, has gone on to achieve classic status. Around this same time his managers gave him a new stage name, Elvis Costello. The rest is history.

Artist:    Police
Title:    Roxanne
Source:    LP: No Wave (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Gordon Sumner
Label:    A&M
Year:    1978
    Stewart Copeland was already an experienced drummer, having been a member of the second incarnation of Curved Air from 1975 through 1976, when the band quietly dissolved. It turns out that was a good thing for Copeland, though, as it led to him forming a new band with vocalist/bassist Gordon Sumner, who went by the stage name of Sting, in early 1977. They soon recruited guitarist Henry Padovani as the band's guitarist and third member. In May of that year Sting was invited by former Gong member Mkke Howlett to participate in a band project called Strontium 90. As the original drummer for the project was unavalable, Sting brought Copeland with him. The fourth member of the project was a guitarist named Andy Summers, who was considerably older than the other band members. Strontium 90 ended up playing only a couple gigs (one under a different name), and Sting invited Summers to replace Padovani as the guitarist for the Police. The other band members, however, voted to keep both guitarists in the band, but after a couple of gigs Padovani was let go, and the Police remained a trio for the rest of its existence. With Summers, who had previously recorded with Kevin Ayers and Eric Burdon & The Animals, now in the band, some on the punk scene saw the Police as posers, and the group struggled to gain street cred (while at the same time quietly moonlighting as art rockers). Among the skeptics were Copeland's older brother Miles, who was nonetheless persuaded to finace the band's first album Outlandos d'Amour. Upon hearing the song Roxanne for the first time, Miles Copeland became a convert, using his contacts to get the Police a contract with A&M Records and eventually becoming the band's manager. The Roxanne single, released in February of 1978, did not initially chart, having been passed over by the BBC, possibly due to the song's subject matter, but after doing well in the US, it was re-released in the UK the following year, eventually peaking in the #12 spot. From that point on the Police were a first-tier mainstream rock band on both sides of the Atlantic.

Artist:    Joe Jackson
Title:    It's Different For Girls
Source:    7" box set: I'm The Man
Writer(s):    Joe Jackson
Label:    A&M
Year:    1979
    Although he is known to American audiences for jazz-inspired songs like Steppin' Out and Breaking Us In Two, Joe Jackson first made his mark as part of the British New Wave scene with his debut album Look Sharp! getting rave reviews from the rock press. His biggest British hit was It's Different For Girls from the album I'm The Man, which peaked at #12 on the UK charts. Jackson is considered a key artist of the so-called Second British Invasion of the 1980s.

Artist:    Joy Division
Title:    Love Will Tear Us Apart
Source:    Stereo 45 RPM single (reissue)
Writer(s):    Hook/Curtis/Sumner/Morris
Label:    Cleopatra (original label: Factory)
Year:    1980
    Originally known as Warsaw, Joy Division was formed in 1976 by Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook, who were inspired by seeing the Sex Pistols perform and realized that they could do it too. Neither of the two owned or played a musical instrument at the time, but they soon recruited another audience member, Terry Mason, to form a band, then all three went out and bought instruments, learning to play them over the next few months. They still needed a singer, however, and after placing an ad for a vocalist at a local music shop hired Ian Curtis without an audition because, as Sumner would later say, they "knew he was all right to get on with and that's what we based the whole group on. If we liked someone, they were in." Mason eventually became the bands manager, and after going through a couple of personnel changes they finally settled on Stephen Morris as the band's permanent drummer. Curtis, however, had deep mental and emotional problems, and committed suicide at age 23 the night before the band was scheduled to fly to the US to begin a tour. The following month Love Will Tear Us Apart was released as a single, becoming Joy Division's biggest hit. The remaining band members, honoring a pact they had made to change the band name if any member ever left the group, became known as New Order and in 2023 were nominated along with Joy Division as a single act for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Artist:    Adam And The Ants
Title:    Press Darlings
Source:    LP: Kings Of The Wild Frontier (originally released in UK as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Adam Ant
Label:    Epic (original UK label: CBS)
Year:    1980
    By the 1970s the practice of reordering and omitting songs from British albums for their US release was a thing of the past, yet once in a while there were exceptions. All of the songs on the original British version of the second Adam And The Ants album, Kings Of The Wild Frontier, we co-written by guitarist Marco Pirroni, who had joined the band after the release of the band's debut LP, Dirk Wears White Sox. For the US release of Kings Of The Wild Frontier, however, two songs, (You're So) Physical and Press Darlings, that had been written before Pirroni joined the band and previously released in the UK as B sides, were included on the album, replacing a song called Making History. Press Darlings is a somewhat satirical look at the band's own success.

    The second half of the show is our first ever Battle Of The Songs, featuring two of the songs most performed by garage bands in the 1960s.

Artist:    Richard Berry And The Pharaohs
Title:    Louie Louie
Source:    LP: The Best Of Louie Louie (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Richard Berry
Label:    Rhino (original label: Flip)
Year:    1957
    Hard to believe that the greatest party song of all time started off as a lowly B side. Even more ironic is the fact that Berry sold the songwriting and publishing rights to Louie Louie and four other songs to Max Fiertag, the head of Flip Records, for a grand total of $750 to pay for his upcoming wedding. Nearly 30 years later, however, Berry was visited by a lawyer who mentioned the possibility of taking court action to gain Berry the rights to Louie Louie. As he was living on welfare at the time, Berry figured there was nothing to lose by trying, and he ended up dying a millionaire in 1997.

Artist:    Leaves
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Rhino (original label: Mira)
Year:    1966
    In 1966 there were certain songs you had to know how to play if you had any aspirations of being in a band. Among those were Louie Louie, Gloria and Hey Joe. The Byrds' David Crosby claims to have discovered Hey Joe, but was not able to convince his bandmates to record it before their third album. In the meantime, several other bands had recorded the song, including Love (on their first album) and the Leaves. The version of Hey Joe heard here is actually the third recording the Leaves made of the tune. After the first two versions tanked, guitarist Bobby Arlin came up with the idea of adding fuzz guitar to the song. It was the missing element that transformed a rather bland song into a hit record (the only national hit the Leaves would have). As a side note, the Leaves credited Chet Powers (aka Dino Valenti) as the writer of Hey Joe, but California-based folk singer Billy Roberts had copyrighted the song in 1962 and had reportedly been heard playing the tune as early as 1958.

Artist:     Kingsmen
Title:     Louie Louie
Source:     Mono CD: Nuggets-Original Artyfacts from the Psychedelic Era (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer:     Richard Berry
Label:     Rhino (original labels: Jerden/Wand)
Year:     1963
     Although Paul Revere and the Raiders had recorded the song just a few days earlier, the version of Louie Louie that is remembered as the greatest party song of all time came from another Portland, Oregon band, the Kingsmen. With its basic three-chord structure and incomprehensible lyrics, the most popular song to ever come out of the Pacific Northwest was considered a must-learn song for garage bands everywhere. The fact that the FBI actually launched an investigation into the possibility that the lyrics were obscene just made the recording that much more popular.

Artist:    Tim Rose
Title:    Hey Joe (You Shot Your Woman Down)
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Billy Roberts
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    The folk music revival of the late 50s and early 60s is generally thought of as an East Coast phenomena, centered in the coffee houses of cities such as New York, Boston and Philadelphia. California, though, had its share of folk music artists, especially in the San Francisco area, where the beatniks espoused a Bohemian lifestyle that would pave the way for the Hippy movement centered in the city's Haight-Ashbury district. Among the California folkies were Billy Roberts, who copyrighted the song Hey Joe in 1962, and Tim Rose, who (along with the Music Machine's Sean Bonniwell) came up with a slower version of the song. Rose's version, released as a single in mid-1966, got considerable airplay on San Francisco radio stations and was the inspiration for the more famous Jimi Hendrix version of the song that made the British top 10 toward the end of the year. Rose's version was not widely available until 1967, when his debut LP for Columbia was released. By then, however, the Hendrix version was all over the progressive FM airwaves in the US, and the Rose version (now in stereo) remained for the most part unheard.

Artist:    Sonics
Title:    Louie Louie
Source:    Mono LP: The Best Of Louie Louie (originally released as 45 RPM single B side)
Writer(s):    Richard Berry
Label:    Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year:    1965
    Of course, being from the Pacific Northwest, the Sonics had to record their own version of Louie Louie. This one rocks out harder than most.

Artist:    Byrds
Title:    Hey Joe (Where You Gonna Go)
Source:    LP: Fifth Dimension
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1966
    David Crosby always claimed that he was the one who first discovered and popularized this tune on the LA club scene, but that resistance from other band members kept the Byrds from recording the song until after versions by the Leaves, Love, Tim Rose and the Music Machine, among others, had already been released. Crosby would later say that recording the song with the Byrds was probably a mistake, but at the time he was quite incensed that other groups had beaten him to the punch with a song he had come to regard as his own, being under the assumption that it was a traditional folk song. As it turns out the song had been copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singler Billy Roberts, although at least half the recorded versions had credited the song to other writers, particularly Dino Valenti.

Artist:    Sandpipers
Title:    Louie Louie
Source:    LP: The Best Of Louie Louie (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Richard Berry
Label:    Rhino (original label: A&M)
Year:    1966
    The Sandpipers were an easy listening vocal group best known for their 1966 hit version of the Cuban patriotic song Guantanamera. They followed it up possibly the least likely song to be done in an easy listening style: Louie Louie.

Artist:    Love
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    German import CD: Love
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Elektra
Year:    1966
    There are contradictory stories of the origins of the song Hey Joe. Some say it's a traditional folk song, while others have attributed it to various songwriters, including Tim Rose and Dino Valenti (under his birth name Chet Powers). As near as I've been able to determine the song was actually written by an obscure California folk singer named Billy Roberts, who reportedly was performing the song as early as 1958. The song circulated among West Coast musicians over the years and eventually caught the attention of the Byrds' David Crosby. Crosby was unable to convince his bandmates to record the song, although they did include it in their live sets at Ciro's on L.A.'s Sunset Strip. One of the Byrds' roadies, Bryan Maclean, joined up with Arthur Lee's new band, Love, and brought Crosby's version of the song (which had slightly different lyrics than other, more popular versions) with him. In 1966 Love included Hey Joe on their debut album, with Maclean doing the vocals. Meanwhile another L.A. band, the Leaves, recorded their own version of Hey Joe (reportedly using misremembered lyrics acquired from Love's Johnny Echols) in 1965, but had little success with it. In 1966 they recorded a new version of the song, adding screaming fuzz-drenched lead guitar parts by Bobby Arlin, and Hey Joe finally became a national hit. With two other L.A. bands (and Chicago's Shadows Of Knight) having recorded a song that David Crosby had come to regard as his own, the Byrds finally committed their own version of Hey Joe to vinyl in late 1966 on the Fifth Dimension album, but even Crosby eventually admitted that recording the song was a mistake. Up to this point the song had always been recorded at a fast tempo, but two L.A. songwriters, Sean Bonniwell (of the Music Machine) and folk singer Tim Rose, came up with the idea of slowing the song down. Both the Music Machine and Tim Rose versions of the songs were released in 1966. Jimi Hendrix heard the Rose recording and used it as the basis for his own embellished version of the song, which was released as a single in the UK in late 1966 (although it did not come out in the US until the release of the Are You Experienced album in 1967). Yet another variation on the slow version of Hey Joe was released by Cher in early 1967, which seems to have finally killed the song, as I don't know of any major subsequent recordings of the tune (unless you count the Mothers Of Invention's parody of the song, Flower Punk, which appeared on the album We're Only In It For The Money in 1968).

Artist:    Paul Revere And The Raiders
Title:    Louie Louie
Source:    Mono LP: Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Richard Berry
Label:    Columbia (original label: Sande)
Year:    1963
    The greatest party song of all time came from the pen of Richard Berry, a west coast singer/bandleader who released his original "soft" version of the song in 1957. In 1963 two west coast bands, the Kingsmen and Paul Revere And The Raiders, recorded competing versions of the song within days of each other. The Kingsmen version, with its raw sound and unintelligible lyrics, became popular on the east coast, while the better-produced (and more professionally performed) Raiders version quickly went to the top of the charts on the west coast and Hawaii. Columbia Records picked up the band's contract and re-released the single nationally. Columbia's top A&R man, Mitch Miller, however, was a notorius rock and roll hater (as a listen to one of his old Sing Along With Mitch TV shows proves) and refused to promote the record. Eventually the Kingsmen version of Louie Louie went gold while the Raiders version has become little more than a footnote (although the band itself has always championed their recording of the song).

Artist:    Jimi Hendrix Experience
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    LP: Smash Hits (originally released in US on LP: Are You Experienced?)
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1966
    The first track recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was Hey Joe, a song that Hendrix had heard Tim Rose perform in Greenwich Village before relocating to London to form his new band. Hendrix's version, released as a single in the UK and Europe in late 1966, is a bit heavier than Rose's and leaves off the first verse ("where you going with that money in your hand") entirely. The song itself was copyrighted in 1962 by California folk singer Billy Roberts and a much faster version by the Leaves had hit the US charts in early 1966.

Artist:    Rockin' Robin Roberts
Title:    Louie Louie
Source:    Mono LP: The Best Of Louie Louie (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Richard Berry
Label:    Rhino (original label: Etiquette)
Year:    1961
    rockin' Robin Roberts's  version of Louie Louie starts off exactly like the Paul Revere And The Raiders version and has the same guitar solo (note for note) as the Kingmen version. Both of those were recorded and released in 1963, while Roberts's came out in 1961. Hmmm.

Artist:    Shadows Of Knight
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    LP: Back Door Men
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Dunwich)
Year:    1966
    Possibly the greatest garage-rock album of all is the second Shadows Of Knight LP, Back Door Men. Released in 1966, the album features virtually the same lineup as their debut LP, Gloria. Unlike many of their contemporaries, the Shadows were capable of varying their style somewhat, going from their trademark Chicago blues-influenced punk to what can only be described as early hard rock with ease. Like many bands of the time, they recorded a fast version of Billy Roberts' Hey Joe (although they credited it to Chet Powers on the label). The Shadows version, however, is a bit longer than the rest, featuring an extended guitar break by Joe Kelley, who had switched from bass to lead guitar midway through the recording of the Gloria album, replacing Warren Rogers, when it was discovered that Kelley was by far the more talented guitarist (Rogers was moved over to bass). Incidentally, despite the album's title and the Shadows' penchant for recording classic blues tunes, the band did not record a version of Howlin' Wolf's Back Door Man. The Blues Project and the Doors, however, did.
    
Artist:    Black Flag
Title:    Louie Louie
Source:    LP: The Best Of Louie Louie (originally released as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s):    Richard Berry
Label:    Rhino (original label: Posh Boy)
Year:    1981
    Of course Black Flag did a hardcore punk version of Louie Louie. How could they not?

Artist:    Patti Smith
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    Mono 45 RPM single
Writer(s):    Billy Roberts (spoken intro written by Patti Smith)
Label:    Mer
Year:    1974
    Before signing with Arista Records in 1975, the Patti Smith group recorded a 1974 single for the independent Mer label. Financed by art collector/curator Sam Wagstaff, the record featured Smith's version of Hey Joe, with a spoken introduction concerning Patty Hearst, who had been kidnapped by, and subsequently became a member of, a radical group calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army that year.

Artist:    The Last
Title:    Louie Louie
Source:    LP: The Best Of Louie Louie (originally released in France on LP: Painting Smiles On A Dead Man)
Writer(s):    Richard Berry
Label:    Rhino (original label: Lolita)
Year:    1983
    Formed somewhere in Southern California in 1976 by Joe Nolte, Vitus Mataré and Dave Harbison, The Last by 1978 included brothers Mike and David Nolte as well. Their sound was billed as a mix of garage rock, surf rock, folk rock and psychedelic rock (sounds like a perfect candidate for a future Advanced Psych segment...anyone have a copy of any of the records they released on a variety of labels over a ten year period they can send me?) In 1983 the band was on the verge of collapse, but then came a ray of hope. In the words of Joe Nolte "Vitus had hooked up an 8 Track setup at the Venice garage we practiced in, and I had gotten word that Rhino was planning a "Best of Louie Louie" album. The perverse idea of doing to "Louie Louie" what we'd done to "Be Bop A Lula" seemed irresistible, so we inaugurated the new machine with a gothic, dirge like version. It made the album. Appropriately, it's the Last version of Louie Louie to be heard this week.

Artist:    Cher
Title:    Hey Joe
Source:    LP: Cher's Golden Greats (originally released on LP: With Love, Cher and as 45 RPM single)
Writer:    Billy Roberts
Label:    Imperial
Year:    1967
    Considering that Cher's first major hit as a solo artist was Bang Bang, a song about shooting one's lover, it was probably inevitable that she would record her own version of the venerable Hey Joe, which deals with the same subject. Also, given Cher's established style with Bang Bang, it is no surprise that she chose to go with the slowed-down arrangement first used by Tim Rose and popularized in England by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. What may come as a surprise, however, is that Cher's 1967 version of Hey Joe actually did better on the US charts than any other version except the Leaves' fast-tempo hit from 1966.

    And that wraps up our first (and probably last) Battle of the Songs. Who won? Who knows? Who cares? It was fun listening to all these different versions of Louie Louie and Hey Joe, and that's what counts, right?