Rockin' At the Hops

Chuck Berry came of age at a time when his upbeat songs defined the term "rock ’n’ roll" and his slower tunes were still considered blues. Rock ’n’ roll had yet to define itself as an album-oriented music like jazz; it was largely a singles market aimed at suburban teenagers. The two- to three-minute single was tops, and Berry wrote them better than nearly anyone else. That said, this studio album from 1960 shows the diversity to be found in Berry’s music. The Rolling Stones officially covered four songs that appear here (Don Raye’s “Down the Road Apiece,” Walter Brown’s “Confessin’ the Blues,” and Berry’s own “Bye Bye Johnny” and “Let It Rock”), and they surely learned their lessons in musicianship and vocal phrasing from the music here. (Early Keith Richards guitarwork is pure Berry.) “Let It Rock” showed that Berry never tired of writing potential anthems for the new music, while his version of Major "Big Maceo" Merriweather’s “Worried Life Blues” showed his blues chops were a natural fit for the "old" Chess Records. This album is satisfying snapshot of Berry at work before the anthologies pulled his songs out of their natural order.