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Chuck
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Charles Edward Anderson Berry
BORN: October 18, 1926, St Louis, MO
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. ... continue
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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'n'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, Chuck 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
Chuck'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 dee
jay-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 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 world-wide 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, Chuck 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 Chuck 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 biopic, 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 offstage 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'." ~ Cub Koda, All Music Guide
