While not at all minimizing the contributions of the legends that I have discussed thus far, my own nominee for the man who most directly congealed a variety of musical ingredients into what we know today as rock and roll is Chuck Berry. Berry’s classics like “Maybellene” (1955), “Rock and Roll Music” (1957) and “Johnny B. Goode” (1958) sound as fresh to my ears today as they did the first time I heard them more than 50 years ago. His 1956 hit “Roll Over Beethoven” – “Roll Over Beethoven” also might be my very favorite Beatles cover song – contains a truly delicious song lyric: “Roll over [in your grave], Beethoven / And tell Tchaikovsky the news”.
Chuck Berry grew up in a middle-class family in St. Louis and began working as a musician in local nightclubs in the early 1950’s. Influenced by the guitar stylings and showmanship of Texas bluesman T-Bone Walker, he was performing with the Johnnie Johnson Trio by early 1953. As Wikipedia tells it: “[Chuck ]Berry’s calculated showmanship, along with mixing country tunes with R&B tunes, and singing in the style of Nat King Cole to the music of Muddy Waters, brought in a wider audience, particularly affluent white people.”
Chuck Berry met Muddy Waters on a trip to Chicago in May 1955, who suggested that he contact Leonard Chess of Chess Records. (The story of Chess Records and their musical roster is told in the 2008 film, Cadillac Records). To Berry’s surprise, Leonard Chess was most interested not in his blues material, but in his performance of a traditional country song called “Ida Red” (as recorded in 1938 by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys). The song was rewritten by Chuck Berry and was released on May 21, 1955 as the million seller “Maybellene”.
The hits continued for Chuck Berry through the end of the 1950’s and are available in the essential collection, The Great Twenty-Eight – Rolling Stone magazine ranks this retrospective album #21 on its list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”. Just for fun, try to count up how many other rock bands and artists recorded a group of songs that could justifiably be described as “the great 28”.
Chuck Berry also starred in two early rock and roll movies, Rock Rock Rock (1956) and Go, Johnny, Go! (1959, with the film name taken from a line in “Johnny B. Goode”). In the latter film, Berry appeared with the early rock and roll DJ and impresario Alan Freed. I believe I saw Go, Johnny, Go! many years ago, and I recall (perhaps incorrectly) that Berry was the only African-American in the whole movie, though he never looked out of place.
Chuck Berry had previously been a part of Alan Freed’s touring “Biggest Show of Stars for 1957” that had a truly amazing lineup: Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, LaVern Baker, Eddie Cochran, the Spaniels, the Drifters, Clyde McPhatter, Paul Anka, Frankie Lymon, and others.
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Chuck Berry has continued recording over the years and scored his only #1 hit with his double-entendre–loaded “My Ding-a-Ling” in 1972. I have picked up several of the more recent Chuck Berry albums over the years, and I have never heard a song of his that I didn’t like. Unlike nearly all of the other pioneers of rock and roll (who are mostly long since deceased), Chuck Berry is still touring at the age of 86. Don’t miss seeing him if you get a chance.
It is well known that Keith Richards heavily borrowed his guitar style from Chuck Berry. Richards told Best of Guitar Player in a 1992 interview: “Chuck was my man. He was the one who made me say ‘I want to play guitar!’ . . . Suddenly I knew what I wanted to do.”
A 1987 Taylor Hackford documentary, Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll was made to honor Chuck Berry on his 60th birthday. In this film, Eric Clapton says: “If you wanna play rock and roll – or any upbeat number – and you wanted to take a guitar ride, you would end up playing like Chuck [Berry] . . . because there is very little other choice. There’s not a lot of other ways to play rock and roll other than the way Chuck plays it; he’s really laid the law down.”
John Lennon was even more blunt: “If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry’.” Ted Nugent has said: “If you don’t know every Chuck Berry lick, you can’t play rock guitar.”
Berry’s influence also shows up in places that you might not expect. I once saw an interview with Joni Mitchell on VH1 where she said that her 1970 hit song “Big Yellow Taxi” was “pure Chuck Berry” to her.
In 2003, Chuck Berry was listed #6 among “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” by Rolling Stone magazine; Time magazine put him at #7 on their list of the “10 Greatest Electric-Guitar Players”. Six of Berry’s songs made the 2004 list of Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”; “Johnny B. Goode” was ranked #7, and it topped Rolling Stone’s 2008 list of “100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time”.
In addition, Chuck Berry received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984 and was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000.
(June 2013/1)
