Giants That Came Before Us
” I met up with The Fabulous Wailers at a Tacoma tavern where they broadcast the Wailer’s House Party rock & roll hour live to AM radio every Saturday. They started out in the late 50’s and never, ever stopped working gigs and recording their music. They wrote the signature beat that became the anthem of rock and roll forever. The Fabulous Wailers put ‘Louie Louie’ into the galactic hall of fame. These guys are the heart of rock and roll.
I was invited to a couple of recording sessions and joined the staff of the legendary music festive “LouieFest“. We hung around for years. I will always call them friends and mentors and damn good musicians. ” MAKI
The Fabulous Wailers
America’s First Rock And Roll Garage Band
The Wailers, often credited as The Fabulous Wailers, were an American rock band from Tacoma, Washington. formed in the late 1950s. Their first big hit was “Tall Cool One”, released in 1959. They have been credited as being “one of the very first, if not the first, of the American garage bands.
The FABULOUS WAILERS are a blue collar power house rock & roll band. They are the creators of the original rock version of ‘Louie Louie’ that is to this day hailed as the international anthem of rock & roll. They have been performing live all these decades and never lost their touch.
‘Louie Louie’ will live on forever and so will The Fabulous Wailers who just recently played their last concert. I am honored to call Buck Ormsby (bass) and Kent Morrill (keyboards/vocal) my friends, during the 3 years I spent as filmmaker and associate producer of the LouieFest concert series. I will miss them greatly.
ETIQUETTE RECORDS was the first indie self-publishing record label in the nation at that time. Others soon followed. Etiquette recorded and published notable Northwest music stars such as the “Sonics”. They produced top ten singles nation wide played by the hottest AM radio stations. .
LOUIEFEST is the original music festival dedicated to anyone who can sing, play or air-guitar to ‘Louie Louie’ which they do in unison for the grande finale at the main stage. During the 2007 festival main event we hooked up a simulcast with the ‘Muddy Waters’ nightclub in Osla, Norway.
The Fabulous Wailers and the staff at LOUIEFEST put together a promotion video featuring their varied talents as they strummed. sang, hummed and gargled their way through ‘Louie Louie’. Just to prove the point that everyone can plug-in to LouieFest. Two rare promo videos pulled from the LouieFest archives.
