Rock 'n' Roll in Orange County

by Chris Epting

  Inspired by the tune’s infectious and simple rhythm, Berry went backstage after performing the song with the Rhythm Rockers and, while waiting to go back up and sing, decided to finish up a song that he had been writing. He would soon record a version of it but it wasn’t until another band, the Kingsman, covered Berry’s song that much of the world would first become aware of “Louie, Louie.”

  Barry Rillera, who still plays guitar around Orange County with his own band today, remembers the night well:

  When I went backstage and Richard played me what he was working on, I kind of laughed. I mean, he basically just adapted part of “El Loco Cha-Cha” and turned it into “Louie Louie.” That’s fine, of course. A lot of songs are born after getting inspired by things that already exist. I just thought it was funny that he was so intrigued by what he just performed with us. And we just had no idea that night that what he created would go on to become such a rock ’n’ roll classic. That’s the first song every band would ever learn together in a garage.

  Rock journalist Dave Marsh wrote an entire book about the song called Louie Louie: The History and Mythology of the World’s Most Famous Rock ’n’ Roll Song. The Publisher’s Weekly review is a testament to the staying power of the song:

  In a vigorous discourse combining shrewd criticism and a conversational tone, Marsh (Glory Days) traces the evolution of one durable song from ’50s cha-cha to ’90s frat anthem. “Louie, Louie,” in his estimation, is an archetype whose infectious “duh duh duh, duh duh” chorus bewitches teenage garage bands and major-label rockers alike. Inspired by a riff from Rene Touzet’s “El Loco Cha Cha,” “Louie” was written in 1956 by Richard Berry, who imagined a Jamaican sailor telling Louie, a bartender, that he’s leaving to meet his girl (“Louie, Louie/Me gotta go”). “Louie” later achieved a cult following in the Pacific Northwest, and in 1963 a version by the Kingsmen became a national hit. Its slurred, indecipherable lyrics (the singer wore braces at the time) led to individual interpretations and an FBI obscenity investigation. Marsh closes the book on “Louie”—for now, anyway—with a lengthy discography listing “Louie” performers from Ike and Tina Turner to Frank Zappa to grunge band Nirvana. Crammed with trivia and wit, this text convincingly argues in mock-profound terms its thesis that “Louie” is a melodic phenomenon far bigger than the mere mortals who perform it.

  The modern-day site of where the rock ’n’ roll classic “Louie, Louie” was written in 1955. Author’s collection.

  Like the site of the Rillera home, today where Louie Louie was born, there is an industrial park with no marker of any sort to claim the rock ’n’ roll history that took place there. For Barry and his brothers, though, it would hardly be the last time they would brush up against history.

  According to Bill Medley—who, with Bobby Hatfield, formed the Righteous Brothers—were it not for Barry Rillera, the Righteous Brothers may not even have existed.

  Back in the early 1960s, Bobby, who had gone to Anaheim High School, had a group called the Variations, and I had a group called the Paramours. In a sense, we were like the only two real rock ’n’ roll bands in Orange County. But that’s really kind of relative. Because what Ricky Rillera and his brothers in the Rhythm Rockers were doing was sort of beyond where rock ’n’ roll was at that point. They were just so ahead of their time. They were so revolutionary, I’m still not sure anybody knows just how influential they were and how they moved everything forward. They blended Hispanic music with rhythm and blues in a whole bunch of other ethnic influences that made them just the hottest band in the area. And so what happened was, Barry was playing guitar in both Bobby’s group and in my group in between what he was doing with his brothers. They were just so legitimate, those guys. In fact, the very first time I sang on stage for real was when I got up to do a B.B. King song called “Sweet Little Angel” with the Rillera brothers. That’s what showed me where I wanted my life to go. So anyway, Barry is working with both of our bands, and he told me all about Bobby and that we should try singing together, so we did.

  An early promotional shot of the Righteous Brothers. Author’s collection.

  After the Righteous Brothers were born, Rillera and his brothers would remain a fixture as part of their touring band for many years. As to how they received their name, it happened in 1962 during a Paramours gig when an audience member stood up and shouted, “That was righteous, brothers!” which prompted the two singers to adopt that name.

  The Righteous Brothers first started playing at the Rendezvous Ballroom on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach in the early 1960s. At one time, the Rendezvous had featured all the famous big bands, but by the late 1950s, the place had been shut down. That changed in 1959 when guitarist Dick Dale performed his first show there. The ballroom would soon become a hotbed of surf music, but it was also where the Righteous Brothers first connected with an Orange County audience.

  As Bill Medley recalled:

  Thank god our friend Mike Patterson convinced us to go down and play at the Rendezvous. It was just perfect for us, and the timing was right. We had just recorded a song that I wrote called “Little Latin Lupe Lu,” which was about a girl I had gone to Santa Ana High School with. I’ll never forget driving down to the Rendezvous with Bobby and hearing that song for the very first time on the radio. It was an out-of-body experience when that happened. Just unbelievable. Then all of a sudden, all the seventeen and eighteen-year-old kids at the Rendezvous went out and bought that record, and we were off and running. I remember when we were up there being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I just thought back about how it felt hearing that record on the radio for the first time and how much it meant to us.

  The Rendezvous Ballroom was destroyed in a fire 1966. Today, at the site, there is a historic marker.

  Looking back on growing up in Orange County, Medley fondly recalls what life was like 1940s and ’50s:

  Santa Ana back then was just like the ’50s always look on television. We had all the malt joins, and it was kind of like paradise. When you see movies about the 1950s in America, that’s really how it was around us, all of the good sides of it. It was total innocence, the perfect 1950s experience. And you had a great diversity of cultures, which many people don’t realize. Santa Ana in particular was just an amazingly diverse place. For Bobby and me, growing up in Orange County, we were influenced by our neighborhoods but also by all of the great Los Angeles radio stations. You never forget the first time you heard Little Richard and Chuck Berry and all that kind of stuff. It was the black performers that really made us open our eyes. But for all those really famous influences that we got over the radio, I will always say that Barry Rillera is the person more people should know about. You have to remember, he was the guy that Jimi Hendrix was talking about when he said that the Righteous Brothers had a guitar player who was way ahead of his time. And it was his group, the Rhythm Rockers, that inspired the Chantays to form at Santa Ana High School in 1961. A year later they released their classic instrumental “Pipeline” and then would even tour with us a short while later. The Chantays are a great part of Orange County music history. But back to Barry, I can never forget what it was like being on that very first Beatles tour when George Harrison would come back to us to ask who was playing certain solos. He just couldn’t believe what he was hearing backstage through the speakers. We would just tell him, it’s Barry, and his jaw would drop. He just couldn’t believe one person could be that innovative.

  Rillera also has his own memories of being around the Beatles.

  Paul McCartney sat down next to me on the plane and asked me how I got that sound out of the guitar. I explained to him how I bent the strings when I played, which nobody was really doing back then, and he said he was anxious to go explain what I was talking about to George. That first Beatles tour was a real experience for all of us. Often times, the kids in the audience were not aware that there were any opening acts before the Beatles. And so during many of our shows, all we could hear wer
e kids screaming for John, Paul, George and Ringo.

  And then there was that guitar sound that Rillera achieved, bending his notes by pushing up on the strings:

  In many of the arenas where we played, the Beatles could sit backstage and here our set through a little speaker in their dressing room. I guess they liked the sound of my guitar that they would hear each night, and that’s why Paul tracked me down on the plane. A few years later when I heard that beautiful George Harrison song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and I heard him bending those strings, I remember smiling.

  After that memorable tour, Rillera would go on to play hundreds of important recording sessions with producers such as Phil Spector, and he toured with Ray Charles and many other notable musicians. He was even performing the night of June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. That’s the night Bobby Kennedy was shot in the same building. “That’s one night that stands out to me more than any of the others. I remember all of the excitement in the building from all the Kennedy supporters. But then I remember the moment just after we all learned what happened. Everything changed so quickly. It was just such a tragic night, and the way the mood turned is something I’ll never forget.” (On a side note, Roy Lee Ferrell, father of actor and Orange County native Will Ferrell, played organ and saxophone for the Righteous Brothers for about thirty years).

  A Beach Boys promo shot from the early 1960s. Author’s collection.

  Back in Orange County in the early to mid-1960s, in addition to the rising popularity of the Righteous Brothers, there were many other musical breakthroughs happening as well.

  The aforementioned Dick Dale and the Del-Tones were helping to invent surf culture at the Rendezvous Ballroom along with other surf acts, including the Bel Airs, the challengers and Eddie and the showman (who featured Dick Dodd, later of the Standells and “Dirty Water” fame). In late 1961, the Beach Boys had their first chart hit, “Surfin’”; a year later they released “Surfin’ Safari.”

  There were a variety of other venues in Orange County that hosted surf bands back then, including the Chatterbox in Garden Grove and Retail Clerks Auditorium in Buena Park, where the Beach Boys played a memorable show in July 1963.

  This early 1960s ad is from a show that took place at Retail Clerks Auditorium in Buena Park. Author’s collection.

  In addition to Orange County becoming a hotbed of surf music and rhythm and blues, folk music had also taken root throughout the county. Clubs such as the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach (which would soon morph into a venue for many kinds of music), Cosmos and the Rouge et Noir in Seal Beach, the Paradox in Tustin, the Prison of Socrates on Balboa Island, the Mecca in Buena Park and the White Room (named after the famous Cream song) in Buena Park all featured many well-known and up-and-coming folk artists of the day.

  Retail Clerks Auditorium in Buena Park was the scene of many surf music shows in the early 1960s. Van Halen also played here in 1977. Author’s collection.

  An ad for both the Cosmos folk club and the Prison of Socrates. Author’s collection.

  One of those artists was Tim Buckley, who attended Loara High School in Anaheim. After quitting the football team, he started focusing on music and, while in school, formed two groups, the Bohemians and the Harlequin 3. After graduating high school, he spent a scant two weeks at Fullerton College but then dropped out to devote himself completely to music. In 1965, Cheetah magazine designated Buckley a star on the rise, one of the “Orange County three,” along with fellow folkies Steve Noonan and Jackson Browne.

  Jackson Browne attended Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton. Author’s collection.

  Before dying from an overdose of heroin in 1975, Buckley built a career as a folk musician who also easily incorporated elements of jazz, funk, soul and avant-garde into his progressive sound. While Buckley never found big commercial success, other musicians’ critics have long admired his innovation as both a player and a singer.

  Another of the Orange County three, Steve Noonan, has had a respectable career as a singer-songwriter. But it was the last in the trio, Jackson Browne, who would go on to become one of the most well known an artistic success stories from Orange County.

  Born Clyde J. Browne, he arrived in Fullerton at age twelve and graduated from Sunny Hills High School in 1966 at age seventeen. He started writing songs a couple of years earlier and would spend time at the Paradox, a tiny coffeehouse in Tustin where he could see touring folk music stars in the flesh who no doubt inspired him. It was also at the Paradox where the Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band first attracted a following. Brown spent time in the band for a few months in 1966 before heading off to Los Angeles to launch what would soon become one of the most vaunted musical careers of his generation.

  But it all started for him in Orange County, in a tiny little club where he could go see such performers as Jack Elliott, Sonny Terry, Hoyt Axton, Tim Buckley and even comedians like Steve Martin and Pat Paulsen.

  Closer to the ocean, club owner Theodore “Ted” Nikas ran the Golden Bear, the Prison of Socrates, the Rouge et Noir and Cosmos in Seal Beach.

  A tragic story that took place in 1966 is attached to the Cosmos club. The popular African American gospel folk duo Joe and Eddie (Joe Gilbert and Eddie Brown) had finished a show at the club on August 6. On the way home, Gilbert was killed in a car accident. He left behind a wife and two sons, and Eddie Brown continued as a solo act.

  Back in the 1960s, this was the location of Cosmos folk club in Seal Beach. Author’s collection.

  The ruins of the Marina Palace in Seal Beach. Author’s collection.

  Just a few blocks away from Cosmos was the Marina Palace, a converted Quonset Hut that in the mid-to late ’60s hosted such headliners as Ike and Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, Little Richard and then later in the ’60s, the Seeds, Strawberry Alarm Clock and early appearances by Alice Cooper and Van Morrison, among other shows.

  Opened originally by Bill Robertson as the Airport Club in 1950, it was a haven for gamblers who were drawn to the bingo and draw poker tables, which were then legal in California. Once those games were outlawed, the club went out of business, but it was soon reopened by Robertson. Renamed the Marina Palace in the early 1960s, the club was originally supposed to be the first of Bob Eubanks’s Cinnamon Cinder clubs, but that never happened. In addition to big-name touring acts, many local bands like Hot Sauce and Things to Come regularly performed there. In 1974, the Marina Palace went out of business, though some of the ruins still remain today on Pacific Coast Highway in Seal Beach.

  Starting in the 1940s, with Leo Fender and following up to the ’60s with the birth of surf music, the Righteous Brothers, “Louie Louie” and a host of legendary clubs, Orange County was soon poised for the next chapter of its music history. And soon, concerts would start moving beyond just the clubs and into theaters and arenas. As well, one of the most famous rock festivals in history would happen in Orange County.

  One particular venue that helped prove that Orange County could indeed support popular acts was the Melodyland Theater, which opened just across Harbor Boulevard from Disneyland in 1963. With a seating capacity of 3,200, Melodyland catered to an older crowd with popular performers such as Johnny Carson, Andy Devine, Jack Palance, Liza Minnelli and Bill Cosby. But it also hosted James Brown, the Dave Clark Five and other, somewhat more hip acts than the standard, middle-of-the-road pop and comedy performers.

  There were other venues as well that helped solidify Orange County as a must-consider place to stop for some of the most famous rock ’n’ roll acts in the world.

  Before we get to those things, though, it’s worth looking back at what started this chapter off: Rickenbacker guitars. As mentioned previously, it wasn’t until the explosion of rock ’n’ roll that the Santa Ana–based company really made a name for itself. It’s impossible to know if Adolph Rickenbacker and George Beauchamp, the two men who founded the company in order to sell electrical whining guitars, could ever have imagined where that might lead.

&
nbsp; An aerial view of the Melodyland Theater in Anaheim. Author’s collection.

  Made in Orange County for their entire existence, Rickenbacker guitars gained popularity in the early 1960s after John Lennon purchased a Rickenbacker 325 Capri in Germany. He played the guitar on the Ed Sullivan Show when the Beatles made their debut in 1964 and then began collecting the guitars shortly after. George Harrison had also purchased a Rickenbacker during a brief visit to the United States in 1963 to visit his sister. A representative from Rickenbacker met with the band in New York City in February 1964 and gave Harrison a model 360/12, the second electric twelve-string built by Rickenbacker. This guitar became an essential part of the Beatles’ sound on their Hard Day’s Night album and many other Beatles tunes through late 1964. All of those Beatles guitars from 1964 on were manufactured in Orange County.

  Some information from the Rickenbacker website:

  Paul McCartney used a Hofner bass in the early years of Beatlemania but soon had a Fireglo twin-pickup Rick bass, an early Model 4001S with dot inlays and no bindings. Its features closely resembled those of the Rose, Morris Model 1999 later played and made even more famous by Chris Squire of Yes. These solid body basses—which seemed so modern in the 1960s—used horseshoe pickups in the bridge position, thus proving the validity of Beauchamp’s original 1930s design. Good ideas are timeless.

  While Paul’s Rick bass surged like an undertow, George Harrison’s double-bound 360/12 (the second one made by the company) defined a new tone at the other end of the audio spectrum. Its ringing sound embellished “You Can’t Do That,” “Eight Days a Week,” and “A Hard Day’s Night,” to name just three 12-string cuts from the 1964–65 period. Thus the Beatles created unprecedented, international interest in Rickenbackers, which many fans actually believed came from Britain.