Did Bob Dylan ever record Louie Louie

Cafe Society
1

He performed it at Farm Aide in ‘86 but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Many, many years ago a local station had a Louie Louie marathon. All day long, just cover versions of the song. I taped a few hours it. And I swear I remember hearing a Bob Dylan version. It was quite a bit slower than the original and it was kind of slurry.

I was trying to find it online but couldn’t turn up any mention of it. Even Second Hand Songs didn’t list it. I’m hoping someone with better google-fu than I, could turn it up?

2

To my knowledge that rehearsal with Tom Petty is the only recorded performance of Louie Louie by Bob Dylan. It was included on the 2005 DVD release So Many Directions Home Vol. 2.

3

I’m a big Bob Dylan fan, have all his official releases including all his studio albums, live albums and the complete Bootleg Series and also have read a ton of books about him and his songs and recordings, and I’ve never heard about a studio version of “Louie Louie”. But what do I know, before this thread I didn’t know that this rehearsal version existed, so maybe in somebody’s basement there may be an old tape with that song…

4

I’m going to defer to EinsteinsHund here, but it must have been a joke played on the listeners. I’m sure they said it was Dylan but maybe it was some slowed down version of another cover. But I can hear it clearly in my mind. Me and my brother joked about it for years.

5

However, all the other versions were real.

6

KFJC’s Maximum Louie Louie Playlist August 19-22 1983 I see two Dylan parody tracks (by Juan Sana & the Hot Rocks and S. Ronan) but none by Bob himself.

7

I come at from the opposite direction: I’m an enormous fan of Louie Louie; it’s the greatest pop/rock song ever written IMO. I have several hundred versions of it on cassette, LP, CD and mp3.

And that live rehearsal is, as I said, the only recording of Dylan playing LL that I know of.

8

Living in San Jose at the time I remember that but confess I didn’t hear the whole set.

I feel so ashamed.

9

Follow up question: did any of The Beatles ever record a cover of Route 66?

10

I f**king searched news outlets and what not to try to find out if Bob Dylan has died. Why did you write “Did Bob Dylan ever record Louie Louie” instead of “Has Bob Dylan ever record Louie Louie”?

11

Putting it down to laziness.

12

Totally off-topic but England cricket captain Joe Root’s shirt number is 66.

13

Dylan listened to the Kingmen’s version and thought “If anybody can make this less intelligible it’s me”