The Ubiquitous "Countdown Media"
Version of Louie Louie

As part of trying to collect or document the more than 2,000 different recordings of Louie Louie, one occasionally comes across versions by unknown studio musicians.  These are often found on exercise tapes, karaoke recordings (some of which contain both vocal and instrumental versions), or inexpensive compilations containing cover versions of popular songs.   In some cases, these recordings do not name an artist at all.  In other cases, a band name is given, usually in small print somewhere on the back, but no individual musicians are identified. 

Among these recordings, one version seems to appear over and over again, but under several different band names.  Among these band names are The Beat Street Band, Flavor, The Hit Crew, The House of Fun All-Stars, The Celebrity All-Star Jam, the Countdown Singers, and the Countdown Players.  However, despite the different band names, these are not different versions.  In fact, as shown in the chart below, this single version has appeared on a dozen different CDs (and probably many more) under at least seven different band names. 

The owner of this recording is a company called Countdown Media, a wholly owned subsidiary of Madacy Entertainment.  As described on its website, "Countdown Media, with offices in Hamburg, Germany and Nashville, Tennessee, USA, has been the world's leading supplier of high quality cover music recordings for over 25 years."  This company licenses their recording for inclusion on various CDs and tapes, and for television commercials, film soundtracks, and other uses.

I've also found two other versions of the the song that also appears on inexpensive compilations of cover songs, attributed to different band names.   

And here is a very short version (31 seconds) that appears on two identical albums, credited to two different artists.

According the the liner notes on the Maximum Party Band CD, the tracks were licensed by Gama Musikverlags GmbH, were produced for Gama by Jean-Pierre Garattoni at Neckarsound Studios (Tübingen, Germany), and were recorded and mixed by Gerd Waiblinger.  Note: the Maximum Party Band album is also available as an mp3 download on Amazon.com under the title "Volume 2" (Music4License, 2004, ASIN: B0011XEQ64).

I'd still like to find out who the actual musicians are that recorded these versions.  Also, I'd like to make these lists as complete as possible.  So if you think you know of another appearance of either of these versions, or have any other information about them, please let me know.