Linfielder Jerry Dennon of
'Louie, Louie' by the Kingsmen fame died Jan. 30, 2017. Read his obituary:
Originally posted 8/11/2012. Reposted 12/28/2013. Updated 12/23/2017.
Rolling Stone
Magazine (Sept. 7, 1988) calls the Kingsmen’s 1963
recording of “Louie Louie” the “undisputed garage-band anthem of the rock &
roll generation.”
Many Baby Boomers have lost track of how many times
they’ve heard the song.
You may know the Kingsmen hailed from Portland. You may know how high the
recording made it up the Billboard and Cashbox charts.
You may know many things about the Kingsmen and
“Louie Louie,” but did you know the band and the song have a Linfield College Wildcats
connection?
That connection is through Gerald “Jerry” Dennon, who attended Linfield 1955-1956.
Dennon is
"one of the legendary personalities of early Northwest rock – not as a
musician, but as a record promoter who played a key role in making the
Kingsmen’s version of “Louie Louie” a huge success," according to Gene Stout, former pop music critic for
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
He received a “No. 1” record award in 1964 from Billboard Magazine for promoting “Louie Louie” after releasing it on his Jerden label. Later, Dennon produced other records by the Kingsmen, and for the Brothers Four, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Sonics, Ian Whitcomb, Springfield Rifle and more.
Born in Astoria, he grew up in Cannon Beach and
Seaside. He was always busy. Throughout his time at Seaside High School, he was
a paid sports correspondent for the Oregonian,
Astoria Budget, Seaside Signal and other newspapers and had a weekly radio
show “Seaside Hi-Lites” on
KAST-AM Radio in Astoria. Seaside High’s 1954-1955 student body president, he
graduated from the school in 1955.
Dennon received a scholarship to attend Linfield in
recognition of his writing ability. Credit the scholarship in part to Paul Durham, then Linfield’s athletic
director and football coach, who was sports editor of the McMinnville News-Register. “He was aware of my sports writing
skills and friends connected us,” Dennon told Wildcatville in July 2012.
Because he was to cover Linfield football pre-season
practices for the Oregonian, in August
1955, 16-year-old Dennon moved from Seaside to McMinnville.
That put him on the Linfield campus before the
Wildcats’ first football game of the season Sept. 17 in Ashland versus Southern
Oregon, before his 17th birthday on Sept. 18, and before Linfield
fall semester classes started Sept. 22.
Thus, before
classes began, Dennon and Linfield football players, including Howard Morris, moved into Memorial Hall.The college describes
the then men-only dormitory as “uniquely designed” and “tucked within the
stands of the Linfield football stadium.”
Dennon’s Memorial
Hall roommate was Morris. It was on “on the second floor of the stadium in an
end room with entry to the fire escape,” Morris told Wildcatville in July 2012.
“Those who wanted to avoid the house mom chose to enter via our room. We would
be invaded at all hours. One time it was to smuggle a girl into a guy’s room.”
Dennon can’t
remember if he and football players ate in the Linfield cafeteria, then located
in Pioneer Hall. But, he does recall he “hated the cafeteria food.” And, he
recalls being able to buy five hamburgers at “some drive-up spot for $1. I
think we all lived there.”
As a Linfield student, a journalism major with a
speech minor, Dennon joined Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.
Sports editor of the Linfield Review, he wrote a sports column, “Cat Tracks.” In
addition, Dennon covered football and men’s basketball for Linfield and the
other Northwest Conference schools for the Oregonian.
At Durham’s behest, the News-Register hired
Dennon part-time, working primarily on weekends covering local high school
sports.
But, he started to “burn out” with sports writing.
“My interests had shifted to broadcasting and my goal was to become a disc jockey,”
Dennon said. “At Linfield, I had hoped to immediately get involved with the
student radio station.” Ken Holmes,
dean of men/history professor/swim team coach said no. He told Dennon working
at the station would have to wait until he was an upperclassman.
Holmes’ edict “did not settle well with me,” Dennon
said. After spring semester 1956, Dennon left Linfield and enrolled at
Northwest School of Broadcasting in Portland. Concurrently, he started looking
for work, submitted a job application to Portland’s KOIN-TV and was “hired
within 24 hours, working days and attending broadcast school at night.”
Initially working in KOIN-TV’s continuity
department, after six months, he was moved to promotions and became assistant
promotion manager for KOIN-TV and AM and FM radio. “It was my college
education,” Dennon said.
While with KOIN, Dennon was moonlighting for TV Prevue Magazine, a magazine similar
to TV Guide which was distributed
through the Sunday Oregonian. He
wrote a column on music happenings called "On The Recordbeat." It focused
on recording artists and newly released records. “That was the embryo that
eventually took me into the record business.
I moved from Portland to Seattle in 1959 and the rest is history,” he
said.
Read some of that history:
- TV Prevue Magazine (circa 1957): “On the Recordbeat with Jerry Dennon”
POSTSCRIPT – Dennon:
- lives on Bainbridge Island, Wash., just a quick Puget Sound ferry ride from downtown Seattle. He operates two businesses from the island, SoundWorks which produces and markets spoken word and music products and Montcalm, a boutique media brokerage and investment banking firm.
- has only returned to McMinnville and Linfield once since 1956. About 20 years ago he visited Memorial Stadium/Hall.
- is author of “The Salmon Cookbook,” (1978, Pacific Search Press). There’s a copy in Linfield’s Nicholson Library.
- and the Brothers Four (American folk singing group, founded in 1957 in Seattle) were business partners when they co-owned KSWB-AM radio in Seaside.
………….
Photos with this story show Jerry Dennon in 1963 and
part of a Jerry Dennon bylined story from the Sept. 30, 1955, Oregonian.
.....................
Story below by Jerry Dennon and Pat Frizzell is titled “Big Leagues.” About Linfielders Bob Martyn (Twin Falls, Idaho) and Del Coursey (Elmira, Ore.), it appeared in Northwest Rotogravure Magazine of Sunday (April 15, 1956) Oregonian. Note that Linfielder Roy Helser is also mentioned.
Story below by Jerry Dennon and Pat Frizzell is titled “Big Leagues.” About Linfielders Bob Martyn (Twin Falls, Idaho) and Del Coursey (Elmira, Ore.), it appeared in Northwest Rotogravure Magazine of Sunday (April 15, 1956) Oregonian. Note that Linfielder Roy Helser is also mentioned.
