Louie’s Lost World

Every life poses a mystery, and Richard Berry’s life poses several. He died last week, in his own bed in South Los Angeles, at 61. He never left the ‘hood where he grew up.

In South Los Angeles, they say, you get out or you get dead. That’s not entirely true, of course, but there’s some truth in it. Berry did not get out.

Richard Berry, of course, is the writer of “Louie Louie,” the happy, idiotic anthem of rock ‘n’ roll and probably the most recorded song in rock history. He did a thousand gigs in a thousand nightclubs, made lots of money, lost it all, then made some of it back. And through it all, he stayed.

A couple years ago, I went to see Berry, looking for some stories about the beginnings of Los Angeles rock. He was glad to oblige. We sat in the living room of his small house on West 54th Street--it was dark as a cathedral in there--and he talked. He talked about music, but mostly, to my surprise, he talked about the long-disappeared, pre-drug world of South Los Angeles.

“My parents came out from Louisiana. We didn’t have any money or anything. One day, in 1935, we just got on the bus and came to L.A.

“We got a house on 14th Street. It was next to the Coca-Cola factory. And my father got a job. It seemed like the most wonderful thing because nobody had jobs in Louisiana.

“My aunt lived a few blocks down. She bought a piano for her son, but he never played it so I started foolin’ around. It was the beginning of music for me. There was a guy who would come by in the afternoons, and he could play real good. I think he played at one of the nightclubs over on Central Avenue.

“I would watch him play and then copy what he did. He didn’t teach me or anything. I just watched and played, watched and played. Pretty soon I could listen to most any tune and then play it on the piano.”

On Saturday nights, Berry and his friends would walk over to Central Avenue and its strip of jazz joints and R&B; clubs. Their favorite was the 54 Ballroom, at Central and 54th. One night they snuck in and stayed for almost an hour, watching Johnny Ace’s band, before the guards caught them.

In the long afternoons after school, they would meet at Jesse Bellman’s house. Bellman was their hero, a legendary R&B; songwriter who would let them watch while he composed songs on the piano. It was Bellman, Berry said, who first gave them the confidence that they too could write songs.

Pretty soon, they started to write. But they didn’t know diddly squat about singing. None of them had any training. So along came Mr. Larsen.

Mr. Larsen conducted the a cappella choir at Thomas Jefferson High. Everybody knew that Jefferson’s a cappella choir was the best in the city. And everybody knew that Mr. Larsen was tough. When Berry applied to join the choir, he turned him down.

“He told me no. He said I had this reputation as a troublemaker. And it was true. I had a limp because of a bad hip joint, and I figured I had to be bad or I would get pushed around.

“So Mr. Larsen told me I had to change my attitude before he would let me in the choir. Well, all my friends already were in the choir. So I went from being arrogant to this real nice kid in just a few days. And I made sure Mr. Larsen saw me being nice. I was picking up books when people dropped them, everything. And pretty soon he let me into the choir.”

Berry laughed at the memory. From that choir grew one of the minor movements of rock music, what became known as the “Jefferson sound.” It blended the blues with the all-voice harmonies of a cappella. Out of it came West Coast groups such as the Coasters, the Platters, the Penguins, the Flairs, the Meadowlarks, and so on.

Not all the endings were happy ones. After Berry wrote “Louie Louie,” the copyright was lifted from him for $750 and he could only watch as others made millions from his song.

His career spiraled downward and he remembered one night playing in a small California club, wishing he were dead. “I pictured myself falling down on the stage playing a B-flat chord and begging my horn player, ‘Don’t let me die here in this dirty place. Take me out in the parking lot where I can see the moon.’ ”

But he didn’t die there. Eventually he won back the copyright, or at least half of it, and spent his last years in the relative splendor of financial comfort and fame provided by “Louie Louie” concerts, “Louie Louie” festivals and, believe it or not, “Louie Louie” ship cruises.

He owed it all to his neighborhood in South Los Angeles, and he knew it. To his aunt with her piano, to Central Avenue, to Jesse Bellman, to Mr. Larsen and Jefferson High.

So he stayed. Perhaps the neighborhood that fed his talents was now long gone, wiped away under his very eyes. But he could remember. And that was enough.