Chuck Berry
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Biography
[Edit]Of all the early breakthrough rock & roll artists, none is more important to the development of the music than Chuck Berry. He is its greatest songwriter, the main shaper of its instrumental voice, one of its greatest guitarists, and one of its greatest performers. Quite simply, without him there would be no Beatles, Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, nor a myriad others. There would be no standard "Chuck Berry guitar intro," the instrument's clarion call to get the joint rockin' in any setting. The clippety-clop rhythms of rockabilly would not have been mainstreamed into the now standard 4/4 rock & roll beat. There would be no obsessive wordplay by modern-day tunesmiths; in fact, the whole history (and artistic level) of rock & roll songwriting would have been much poorer without him. Like Brian Wilson said, he wrote "all of the great songs and came up with all the rock & roll beats." Those who do not claim him as a seminal influence or profess a liking for his music and showmanship show their ignorance of rock's development as well as his place as the music's first great creator. Elvis may have fueled rock & roll's imagery, but Chuck Berry was its heartbeat and original mindset.
He was born Charles Edward Anderson Berry to a large family in St. Louis. A bright pupil, Berry developed a love for poetry and hard blues early on, winning a high school talent contest with a guitar-and-vocal rendition of Jay McShann's big band number, "Confessin' the Blues." With some local tutelage from the neighborhood barber, Berry progressed from a four-string tenor guitar up to an official six-string model and was soon working the local East St. Louis club scene, sitting in everywhere he could. He quickly found out that black audiences liked a wide variety of music and set himself to the task of being able to reproduce as much of it as possible. What he found they really liked — besides the blues and Nat King Cole tunes — was the sight and sound of a black man playing white hillbilly music, and Berry's showmanlike flair, coupled with his seemingly inexhaustible supply of fresh verses to old favorites, quickly made him a name on the circuit. In 1954, he ended up taking over pianist Johnny Johnson's small combo and a residency at the Cosmopolitan Club soon made the Chuck Berry Trio the top attraction in the black community, with Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm their only real competition.
But Berry had bigger ideas; he yearned to make records, and a trip to Chicago netted a two-minute conversation with his idol Muddy Waters, who encouraged him to approach Chess Records. Upon listening to Berry's homemade demo tape, label president Leonard Chess professed a liking for a hillbilly tune on it named "Ida Red" and quickly scheduled a session for May 21, 1955. During the session the title was changed to "Maybellene" and rock & roll history was born. Although the record only made it to the mid-20s on the Billboard pop chart, its overall influence was massive and groundbreaking in its scope. Here was finally a black rock & roll record with across-the-board appeal, embraced by white teenagers and Southern hillbilly musicians (a young Elvis Presley, still a full year from national stardom, quickly added it to his stage show), that for once couldn't be successfully covered by a pop singer like Snooky Lanson on Your Hit Parade. Part of the secret to its originality was Berry's blazing 24-bar guitar solo in the middle of it, the imaginative rhyme schemes in the lyrics, and the sheer thump of the record, all signaling that rock & roll had arrived and it was no fad. Helping to put the record over to a white teenage audience was the highly influential New York disc jockey Alan Freed, who had been given part of the writers' credit by Chess in return for his spins and plugs. But to his credit, Freed was also the first white DJ/promoter to consistently use Berry on his rock & roll stage show extravaganzas at the Brooklyn Fox and Paramount theaters (playing to predominately white audiences); and when Hollywood came calling a year or so later, also made sure that Chuck appeared with him in Rock! Rock! Rock!, Go, Johnny, Go!, and Mister Rock'n'Roll. Within a years' time, Chuck had gone from a local St. Louis blues picker making 15 dollars a night to an overnight sensation commanding over a hundred times that, arriving at the dawn of a new strain of popular music called rock & roll.
The hits started coming thick and fast over the next few years, every one of them about to become a classic of the genre: "Roll Over Beethoven," "Thirty Days," "Too Much Monkey Business," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," "You Can't Catch Me," "School Day," "Carol," "Back in the U.S.A.," "Little Queenie," "Memphis, Tennessee," "Johnny B. Goode," and the tune that defined the moment perfectly, "Rock and Roll Music." Berry was not only in constant demand, touring the country on mixed package shows and appearing on television and in movies, but smart enough to know exactly what to do with the spoils of a suddenly successful show business career. He started investing heavily in St. Louis area real estate and, ever one to push the envelope, opened up a racially mixed nightspot called the Club Bandstand in 1958 to the consternation of uptight locals. These were not the plans of your average R&B singers who contented themselves with a wardrobe of flashy suits, a new Cadillac, and the nicest house in the black section. Berry was smart with plenty of business savvy and was already making plans to open an amusement park in nearby Wentzville. When the St. Louis hierarchy found out that an underage hat-check girl Berry hired had also set up shop as a prostitute at a nearby hotel, trouble came down on Berry like a sledgehammer on a fly. Charged with transporting a minor over state lines (the Mann Act), Berry endured two trials and was sentenced to federal prison for two years as a result.
He emerged from prison a moody, embittered man. But two very important things had happened in his absence. First, British teenagers had discovered his music and were making his old songs hits all over again. Second, and perhaps most important, America had discovered the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, both of whom based their music on Berry's style, with the Stones' early albums looking like a Berry song list. Rather than being resigned to the has-been circuit, Berry found himself in the midst of a worldwide beat boom with his music as the centerpiece. He came back with a clutch of hits ("Nadine," "No Particular Place to Go," "You Never Can Tell"), toured Britain in triumph, and appeared on the big screen with his British disciples in the groundbreaking T.A.M.I. Show in 1964.
Berry had moved with the times and found a new audience in the bargain and when the cries of "yeah-yeah-yeah" were replaced with peace signs, Berry altered his live act to include a passel of slow blues and quickly became a fixture on the festival and hippie ballroom circuit. After a disastrous stint with Mercury Records, he returned to Chess in the early '70s and scored his last hit with a live version of the salacious nursery rhyme, "My Ding a Ling," yielding Berry his first official gold record. By decade's end, he was as in demand as ever, working every oldies revival show, TV special, and festival that was thrown his way. But once again, troubles with the law reared their ugly head and 1979 saw Berry headed back to prison, this time for income tax evasion. Upon release this time, the creative days of Chuck Berry seemed to have come to an end. He appeared as himself in the Alan Freed bio-pic, American Hot Wax, and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but steadfastly refused to record any new material or even issue a live album. His live performances became increasingly erratic, with Berry working with terrible backup bands and turning in sloppy, out-of-tune performances that did much to tarnish his reputation with younger fans and oldtimers alike. In 1987, he published his first book, Chuck Berry: The Autobiography, and the same year saw the film release of what will likely be his lasting legacy, the rockumentary Hail! Hail! Rock'n'Roll, which included live footage from a 60th-birthday concert with Keith Richards as musical director and the usual bevy of superstars coming out for guest turns. But for all of his off-stage exploits and seemingly ongoing troubles with the law, Chuck Berry remains the epitome of rock & roll, and his music will endure long after his private escapades have faded from memory. Because when it comes down to his music, perhaps John Lennon said it best, "If you were going to give rock & roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'."
Title: Johnny B. Goode/His Complete `50s Chess Recordings
Artist: Chuck Berry
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Rock, Pop, Pop Rock
Title: You Never Can Tell: His Complete Chess Recordings 1960 - 1966 CD4
Artist: Chuck Berry
Genre: Rock & Roll
Title: Rock And Roll Music ~ Any Old Way You Choose It (CD09)
Artist: Chuck Berry
Genre: Rock & Roll
Collections
Title: Big Hits & Highlights of 1958, Vol. 12
Genre: Pop
Title: Greatest Big Hits of 1961, Vol. 30
Genre: Pop
Title: 1958.Made in U.S.A.
Genre: Rock
Title: Boogie Woogie, Vol. 5
Genre: Blues
Title: Doo Wop Dance Classics Vol 4
Genre: Pop
Title: The Party Rockin' Hits of 1958
Genre: Rock
Title: Doo Wop Dance Classics Vol 6
Genre: Pop
Title: Hits We Remember (Pop & Doo Wop), Vol. 3
Genre: Rock
Title: Drift (Music from the Motion Picture)
Genre: Theatre/Soundtrack
Title: Chess Chartbusters, Vol. 6
Genre: Pop
Title: Music Through Time: 70's
Genre: Pop
Title: I Smell a Rat
Genre: Rock
Title: The Greatest Singers of All Time
Genre: Pop
Title: Rockin' Little Christmas
Genre: Rock
Title: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Vol. 2: 1992-1994 (Live)
Genre: Rock
Title: Chess Chartbusters, Vol. 1
Title: Rock & Roll Rumble Volume 1
Genre: Rock
Title: Dance Hits of the 50s & 60s
Genre: Pop
Title: The Chess Blues-Rock Songbook
Genre: Blues
Title: Music & Highlights: Best of Retro
Genre: Pop
Title: Boogie Woogie, Vol. 6
Genre: Blues
Title: The Hits of 1955, Vol. 2
Genre: Pop
Title: Rock & Roll Heaven, Vol. 4
Genre: Rock, Rock & Roll
Title: Heritage of the Blues of 1956, Vol. 1
Genre: Pop
Title: The Influences Behind the Rolling Stones
Genre: Rock
Title: Rockabilly's Finest
Genre: Rock, Rock & Roll
Title: Rockin' and a Rollin'-20 Rock and Roll Classics
Genre: Rock
Title: Doo Wop Dance Essentials Vol 1
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Pop
Title: A Holly Jolly Kids Christmas
Genre: Kids
Title: Greatest Hits of 1960, Vol. 2
Genre: Pop
Title: Heritage of the Blues 1956, Vol. 2
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Blues
Title: The Christmas Album Vol 2.
Genre:
Title: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Vol. 3: 1995 (Live)
Genre: Rock
Title: Rockin' Originals - Original Versions of Famous Songs
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Blues, Rock, Pop
Title: Guitar Legends, Vol.3
Genre: Rock
Title: Guitar Legends, Vol.2
Genre: Rock
Title: Doo Wop Pop Essentials Vol 1
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Pop
Title: Bailes de Salón / Bailes de Salon
Genre: Latin
Title: The Party Rockin' Hits of 1956
Genre: Rock
Title: The Very Best Of Rock Vol 1
Genre: Rock
Title: The Hot Hits of 1958
Genre: Rock
Title: Greatest Hits of 1960, Vol. 23
Genre: Pop
Title: Doo Wop Pop Essentials Vol 2
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Pop
Title: Big Hits & Highlights of 1958, Vol. 10
Genre: Pop
Title: Popular Music Hits Vol 1
Genre: Pop
Title: The Best of Movie Themes
Genre: Theatre/Soundtrack
Title: Greatest R & B Hits of 1960, Vol. 2
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Pop
Title: Songs for the Car
Genre: Kids
Title: Radio Vintage hits USA No. 1
Genre: Rock
Title: Tribute To "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Genre: Pop
Title: Doo Wop Dance Essentials Vol 4
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Pop
Title: Tom Novy Presents Timeless At Sands Beach
Genre: Electronica
Title: Gents of Jazz: Male Jazz Singers, Vol. 5
Genre: Jazz
Title: It's Pop & Doo Wop, Vol. 10
Genre: Pop
Title: Ladies Top Hits (50 Original Songs)
Genre: Pop
Title: Bailes de Salón Vol. 2 / Bailes de Salon Vol. 2
Genre: Latin
Title: Doo Wop Dance Classics, Vol. 2
Genre: Pop
Title: Boogie Woogie Worship
Genre: Blues
Title: 50's Hits Volume 4
Genre: World Music
Title: American R'n'B No. 1 Hits, Vol. 6
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul
Title: Rock Home for Peace
Genre: Rock
Featuring albums
Title: American Graffiti (Soundtrack (Highlights))
Artist: Various Artists
Genre: Theatre/Soundtrack
Title: The Essential NOW That's What I Call Christmas
Artist: Various Artists
Genre: Traditional Pop Music
Title: Keb Darge and Cut Chemist Present - Lost and Found: Rockabilly, Jump and Blues
Artist: Cut Chemist
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Blues, Rock, Rock & Roll, Country, Rockabilly, Pop
Title: Malt Shop Favorites (New Stereo Recordings by the Original Artists)
Artist: Various Artists
Genre: Rock
Title: Best of Rock 'n' Roll Music - 100 Greatest Originals Hits from the 50s & 60s
Artist: Various Artists
Genre: Rock
Title: 22 Great American Classics
Artist: Various Artists
Genre: Theatre/Soundtrack, Vocal & Symphonic
Title: Rock 'N' Roll High School (Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Artist: Various Artists
Genre: Rock
Title: Stone Rock Blues: Original Recordings Of Songs Covered By The Rolling Stones
Artist: Various Artists
Genre: Blues
Title: Hearts in Atlantis - Motion Picture Soundtrack (Edited Version)
Artist: Various Artists
Genre: Classical
Title: 60 Sucessos dos Anos 60, Vol. 2
Artist: Various Artists
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, World Music, Disco