Mike Mitchell was the guitarist for the Kingsmen, best known for playing the iconic solo on the 1963 hit song “Louie Louie.”Mitchell was one of the founding members of the Kingsmen in 1957, when he was still a teen.
The group found their greatest success with their 1963 cover of “Louie Louie.” Recorded in a single take, which the band thought was a practice run, the song is sloppy and all but unintelligible, and therein lies its charm.
It rose to No. 2 on the Billboard chart and became highly influential on rock music even as it was investigated by the FBI for pornographic content.
Banned in Indiana and on various radio stations across the U.S., the song turned out to have innocuous lyrics that were simply easy to misinterpret.
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