“Proud Mary” by CCR in 1969 was such a good song to peak at #2 it took two songs to keep it there, first it was “Everyday People” by Sly and the Family Stone and next week it was “Dizzy” by Tommy Roe.
The words and music were written by John Fogerty who between 1968 and 1972 would write more that 40 songs and 20 of them hits for CCR (Creedence Clearwater Revival). I believe CCR still holds the record at five songs for the most #2 songs on the Hot 100 without ever reaching #1. This didn’t stop them from selling 50 million records worldwide. Including his solo career Fogerty’s songs have sold an estimated 100 million records.
Helping to sell those records was the million selling cover of “Proud Mary” by Ike and Tina Turner released in 1970. The song would hit #4 on the Hot 100 and #5 on the R&B charts in 1971 and win a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group in 1972.
There are currently 381 versions of “Proud Mary” and it may surprise you to hear that there were over 40 versions recorded between the original and the Ike and Tina cover.
The legendary Solomon Burke (1969) was the third to cover the song and he improvised an introduction as well as a slight change to the lyrics.
A total of 70 songs John Fogerty wrote, 65 of them as a solo writer have been covered and all tolled there are well over 1,000 versions of his songs that have been recorded.
The band Steppenwolf with a song some consider to be the first “Heavy Metal” tune, “Born to be Wild” peaked at #2 in 1968 for three weeks. The song was written by Mars Bonfire (Dennis Edmonton but born Dennis Eugene McCrohan). The Canadian songwriter and musician was in The Sparrows with his brother Jerry Edmonton who were from Dave’s (A Sound Day) hometown of Oshawa, Ontario. And a story there as well!
Jerry and other members of The Sparrows that also included lead singer John Kay and Goldy McJohn went on to form Steppenwolf. Kay, McJohn and Edmonton had moved from Oshawa to LA, placed an ad in the paper and recruited American guitar players Michael Monarch and Rushton Moreve. They formed the band without Mars Bonfire who went for a solo career, but they liked his song and I think he probably did all right with the royalty cheques.
Now the five piece band was complete and over the next five years they would sell 25 million records and post 13 songs on the Hot 100. The only other song in the top 10 was “Magic Carpet Ride” at #3. That and “Born to be Wild” both hit #1 in Canada.
They may have been born to be wild but it seems that “People Got to be Free”! Steppenwolf were stopped by the group know as The Rascals, who were #1 with that song for five weeks in 1968. That would be the last of three #1 hits for the Young Rascals/Rascals who posted several top 20 and top 100 hit songs from 1965 up to 1971.
Mars Bonfire would be the next to record “Born to be Wild” that has an impressive 150 versions.
The most recent cover is from Brat Pack in 2022.
Perhaps the most surprising cover is by the great Wilson Pickett from 1969.
“Louie, Louie” by The Kingsmen is a cult cover song if ever there was one, controversial for the silliest of reasons, the somewhat unintelligible lyrics got it banned at many ‘puritan’ Radio Stations. And investigated by the FBI, though that claim is a tad over blown. That did not stop it from climbing the charts in 1963, yet somewhat ironically a ‘banned’ song was to be stopped at #2, by ‘The Singing Nun’ with “Dominique“. “The Devils Music” indeed! If ever there was a convergence …(A book by Randall J Stephens)
The Kingsmen were the third band to cover the song and the only one I could find that charted it, that’s when all the hype started. It was written and first released by Richard Berry in 1957. And there’s more of a story there as well.
I am sure many of you have read about “Louie, Louie” as the story is widely available ad nauseum. I do however want to talk about claims about the cover versions. I have (as some of you have as well) seen several numbers about the total cover versions out there. Wikipedia says up to 2,000 but the references supplied were articles that quoted numbers without any supporting facts at all. I guess that is my issue, we know there are a lot of versions of the song but I have seen some pretty wild claims in publications that should know better. I’m no journalist but at least I do a little research.
If someone can provide me some empirical date to support any such claims, please do pass it along and I’ll eat or maybe just ‘garble’ my words!
One reference I found to 5,000 versions quoted it as “FACT”, this led me to some sources (I downloaded the available pdf’s) with one that barley listed a hundred versions. There was another one that attempted to give every song with “Louie” in the title, seemingly from every country/language it could find and that was barely maybe a few hundred let alone 5,000. I’ve seen plenty of references to bar bands, live in concert versions and marching bands doing the song, but unless they are recorded and released, these are not “covers”.
There are some songs/artists that have their own sort of ‘committed group’ that researches covers and some are at least plausible, JoniMitchell.com has one for example and it is quite credible. But I have not found one such source for “Louie Louie” except for my go to of Secondhandsongs.com. They list 190 versions that have been documented and over a dozen more listed as “unverified” that they are still investigating. Do I think there are likely more than that? Yes I do. I don’t know what the number is and from what I have seen, some people just like to make one up.
“19th Nervous Breakdown”, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
While Dylan was singing “like a rolling stone” the group, The Rolling Stones were having their “19th Nervous Breakdown”. While Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” was parked at #2 in May of 1966, The Rolling Stones had peaked in March. They got stuck for three weeks at #2 behind “The Ballad Of The Green Berets” Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler.
Like Dylan, The Rolling Stones would have two songs stall at #2 when “Start Me Up” peaked on October 31, 1981.
The first of 50 cover versions of “19th Nervous Breakdown” was by The Standells, released in May of 1966.
Richard Penniman was born in Macon Georgia, on December 5th, 1932, and since my blog was first posted he has since passed on May 9, 2020 at age 87. He grew up with 11 brothers and sisters and learned music from family, friends and at Church. By 1951 he had a contract with RCA Victor and cut some tracks in Atlanta. Here is his first song “Taxi Blues“. He doesn’t sound like the Little Richard we have come to know, but very few artists find their ‘voice’ on the first attempt. And so there was an evolution to his style, in 1952 he was starting to Rock it up with “Get Rich Quick“. By 1953 he was still recording more traditional blues and some new material from other songwriters, such as “Ain’t That Good News” credited as ‘Duces Of Rhythm & Tempo Toppers’ (with lead Little Richard)”.
But he still had not released his flashy and flamboyant style, even though his live performances were getting fairly raucous compared to the toned down records. He would have seven single releases from 1951-54 before hitting the charts.
Sometime in mid 1952, Little Richard would meet Eskew Reeder and his musical future would start to change. Eskew who’s stage name is Esquerita, was a couple years younger than Richard but a gifted self taught piano player with a flamboyant style and a voice to match. Over a period of time he would tutor Richard and would have a tremendous effect on his music.
He is older here as pictured, but it has been documented that this was essentially Esquerita’s ‘look’ when they met. He was already a traveling stage performer at that time, before he met Little Richard. It certainly appears to me this is where Richard got some of his image and musical stylings. If you listen to this audio I think there is some revisionist history going on in Richard’s recollections of their relationship. While Esquerita’s recordings post date Little Richard’s initial success, his musical style was already there to be observed by Richards.
I’ve read several proclamations from Little Richard saying things as quoted here from Rolling Stone Magazine, “I am the architect” (of Rock and Roll) and how he believes “…from the bottom of my heart, I am the inventor” (of Rock and Roll). Well if that’s true, then Esquerita is the inventor of Little Richard. If we know anything about Rock and Roll it is that no one person or even a small group ‘invented’ it. Was Little Richard a big part of that? Yes absolutely. Was he insanely talented? Of course.
To be fair, Sam Phillips and a few others (Ike Turner comes to mind) also made similar claims. But when did this R&R thing really start to happen? What we know as Rock and Roll music was in little pieces around the US, but it’s real genesis was in the Southern States which of course includes Richards home state of Georgia. Certainly from the late 1940’s and early 50’s there were plenty of opportunities for Richard to pick things up from artists other than Esquerita to help him develop his music and modus operandi. Lest we forget the great Sister Rosetta Tharpe who gave Little Richard his first on-stage opportunity.
The song that launched him into being the Little Richard we know was called “Tutti Frutti” (October 1955). Not uncommonly there is still some dispute as to who actually wrote the song, credited as co-writer Dorothy LaBostrie claims she mostly wrote the whole song. Richard says he did and there is good evidence he had played at least parts of it in prior live performances, so at the very least the genesis of the song and melody is certainly his. Richards could most definitely write and he has many single and co-writing credits on a couple dozen songs and a few of them were his big hits. Joe Lubin also shares a credit on “Tutti Frutti” solely I believe for helping on the ‘cleaning up’ of some of the lyrics and technical composition (as it was not an uncommon practice), Lubin’s seasoned songwriting talent would lie more with Pat Boone and Doris Day stuff than Little Richard.
Regardless, it is one heck of a Rock and Roll song and it really did have a huge impact on the type of songs and performance styles of the day. The tune combines boogie-woogie piano, blues, gospel, creative lyrics and along with the inspired delivery it’s earned the #43 spot on Rolling Stone Magazines The 500 Greatest Songs of all Time. In 1956 it rose to #2 on the R&B chart and contrary to what I’ve seen written that it reached #17 (Biography.com among others) it actually peaked at #21 for the week ending February 8, 1956 on precursor to the Billboard Hot 100 and #18 on another chart. There are 172 versions of the song covered by 162 artists. Say what you will about it but (with an amended version) it was first covered by Pat Boone in January 1956, followed by Elvis Presley. Little Richard himself said those covers helped him out. Here is a live performance by Queen from the Wembley Stadium shows in 1986.
Richards was on a hot streak in 1956, songs making it huge on Billboard’s two charts; on the Hot 100/R&B were “Long Tall Sally” #13/#1, “Slippin’ and Slidin‘” at #33/#1, “Rip it Up” at #27/#1, “Ready Teddy” at #44/#1. Out of five songs he had four that went to #1 on the R&B charts and the only reason “Tutti Frutti” got stalled at #2 is because “Great Pretender” by ‘The Platters’ would not budge from the #1 spot from the beginning of January through to the week ending March 10. Richards would not ever gain a #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, nor did Chuck Berry for that matter, until 1972 with the novelty song “My Ding-a-Ling”.
Just to put things into perspective, Little Richard was a dynamic performer and although he did develop his own style he did not always present himself on stage with his signature pompadour and glitzy outfits. In part that was due to requirements of TV show hosts and producers. We should remember Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley had already started recording at the same time and had established their own sound and style prior to the release of “Tutti Frutti”, and any opportunity to see him perform in person. There is no evidence that happen in either case prior to 1956.
So any claims or even opinions that support Richards ‘inventing’ R&R and his impact have to be tempered just a bit. Even Jerry Lee Lewis who released his first record late in 1956 had already started to develop his wild style and reputation during stage performances, again without the benefit of seeing Little Richard in person. As had James Brown, though that was a slow build. James Brown who was strongly influenced by Richard would emulate him in some ways and take it a step further by recording a live album at the Apollo.
What Little Richard did that few others could is bring the energy and excitement of the live performance to the recording studio and have that come out of your radio or record player. He was the one to popularize this type of recording, so to me this is Little Richard’s biggest contribution to R&R.
I don’t want you to think I’m down on Little Richard but some of his statements and support requires a bit of balance. These inventing R&R assertions really have done a disservice to his reputation as he has been at times written off and his importance watered down as a result. You need only watch some of these clips of Little Richard to see and hear he was a tremendous talent, a truly groundbreaking performer that opened the door for Rock and Roll to really spread its wings and show it’s wild side. The man is truly a Rock and Roll Legend. Of course today the stuff he did does not seem to be very controversial, but at the time his exciting performances pushed boundaries. He was also quite a brave person as he had to deal with many issues as a gay black man performing in the 1950’s.
His life and career would have it’s challenges, musical tastes are a fickle thing and after three years in the limelight and topping the charts, by 1958 all that would start to slowly disappear, though he did have a couple songs enter the charts in the UK up to 1964. He ‘found’ religion and continued to perform and record and his legend earned him a revered spot in the hearts and minds of those who understood his talent and the importance of his contributions. For example there is a great live version of “Rip it Up” with Little Richard on the ‘Tom Jones Show’ from 1970.
“Jenny, Jenny” #2 R&B, #10 Hot 100 and #11 UK was a reworking of this song, “Johnny, Johnny” by Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers with Mari Jones. (yep Johnny and three guys all wearing you guessed it, blazers! Oh yes and one Mari, pretty sure she wore a dress.
“Keep A-Knockin’” #2 R&B, #8 Hot 100 and #21 UK was a very pumped up cover of this song from 1928 “Keep a Knockin’ and You Can’t Get In” by “Boodle It” Wiggins. There is a bridge version or two such as from Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra, Vocals by Helen O’Connell (1939).
In all Little Richard would cover about 60 songs excluding the times he covered his own songs for his collaboration album, ‘Little Richard Meets Masayoshi Takanaka’. Other than the above mentioned I’m not aware of any of his covers that made the charts in a big way except “Baby Face” from July of 1958 which was his highest charting song in the UK at #2, #12 R&B and #41 Hot 100. The original is from Jan Garber and His Orchestra in 1926, written by Harry Akst and Benny Davis it was a #1 hit at the time and in total covered over100 times, Richard was about the twentieth artist to record it.
Mostly Music Covers 