Richard Berry Bio - Biography

Name Richard Berry
Height
Naionality African American
Date of Birth 11-April-1935
Place of Birth Louisiana, United States
Famous for Singing
Richard Berry was an African American singer, songwriter and musician, who performed with many Los Angeles doo-wop and close harmony groups in the 1950s, including The Flairs and The Robins.

He is best known as the composer and original performer of the rock standard "Louie Louie". The song went on to be a hit for The Kingsmen becoming one of the most recorded songs of all time, however Berry received little financial benefit for writing it until the 1980s, having signed away his rights to the song in 1959.
He began singing and playing in local doo-wop groups, recording with a number of them including The Penguins, The Cadets and the Chimes, the Crowns, the Five Hearts, the Hunters, the Rams, the Whips, and the Dreamers, an otherwise all-female quartet from Fremont High. He then joined The Flairs (who also recorded as the Debonaires and the Flamingoes) in 1953.

The Flairs’ 1953 record "She Wants To Rock", on Modern Records, featured Berry’s bass vocals, and was an early production by Leiber and Stoller. A few months later, when the producers needed a bass voice for The Robins’ "Riot In Cell Block #9" on Spark Records, they recruited Berry to provide the menacing introduction to the song – uncredited, as he was contracted to Modern. The Robins would later become The Coasters.

Berry’s voice was also used at Modern, again uncredited, as the counterpoint to Etta James on her first record and big hit, "The Wallflower (Dance with Me, Henry)", and several of its less successful follow-ups. Berry also recorded with several other groups on the Modern and Flair labels, including Arthur Lee Maye and the Crowns, and the Dreamers (who later became The Blossoms). By the end of 1954, Berry left the Flairs to form his own group, the Pharaohs, while also continuing to work with other groups as a singer and songwriter.