Born into a middle-class black family in St. Louis, Berry had an interest in music from an early age and gave his first public performance at Sumner High School. While still a high school student, he was convicted of armed robbery and was sent to a reformatory, where he was held from 1944 to 1947. After his release, Berry settled into married life and worked at an automobile assembly plant. By early 1953, influenced by the guitar riffs and showmanship techniques of the blues musician T-Bone Walker, Berry began performing with the Johnnie Johnson Trio.[3] His break came when he traveled to Chicago in May 1955 and met Muddy Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess, of Chess Records. With Chess, he recorded "Maybellene"—Berry's adaptation of the country song "Ida Red"—which sold over a million copies, reaching number one on Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart.[4]
By the end of the 1950s, Berry was an established star, with several hit records and film appearances and a lucrative touring career. He had also established his own St. Louis nightclub, Berry's Club Bandstand.[5] He was sentenced to three years in prison in January 1962 for offenses under the Mann Act—he had transported a 14-year-old girl across state lines for the purpose of having sex.[3][6][7] After his release in 1963, Berry had several more successful songs, including "No Particular Place to Go", "You Never Can Tell", and "Nadine". However, these did not achieve the same success or lasting impact of his 1950s songs, and by the 1970s he was more in demand as a nostalgia performer, playing his past material with local backup bands of variable quality.[3] In 1972, he reached a new level of achievement when a rendition of "My Ding-a-Ling" became his only record to top the charts. His insistence on being paid in cash led in 1979 to a four-month jail sentence and community service, for tax evasion.
Berry was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on its opening in 1986; he was cited for having "laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance."[8] Berry is included in several of Rolling Stone magazine's "greatest of all time" lists; he was ranked fifth on its 2004 and 2011 lists of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and 2nd greatest guitarist of all time in 2023.[9][10] The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll includes three of Berry's: "Johnny B. Goode", "Maybellene", and "Rock and Roll Music".[11] "Johnny B. Goode" is the only rock-and-roll song included on the Voyager Golden Record.[12]
Charles Edward Anderson Berry was born on October 18, 1926, in St. Louis, the youngest child of Henry William Berry and Martha Bell Berry (née Banks).[13] He grew up in the north St. Louis neighbourhood known as the Ville, an area where many middle-class people lived. His father, Henry (1895–1987) was a contractor and deacon of a nearby Baptist church; his mother, Martha (1894–1980) was a certified public school principal.[14] Berry's upbringing allowed him to pursue his interest in music from an early age. He gave his first public performance in 1941 while still a student at Sumner High School in St. Louis;[15] he was still a student there in 1944, when he was arrested for armed robbery after robbing three shops in Kansas City, Missouri, and then stealing a car at gunpoint with some friends.[16][17] Berry's account in his autobiography is that his car broke down and he flagged down a passing car and stole it at gunpoint with a non-functional pistol.[18] He was convicted and sent to the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men (now the Algoa Correctional Center) in Jefferson City, Missouri,[13] where he formed a singing quartet and did some boxing.[16] The singing group became competent enough that the authorities allowed it to perform outside the detention facility.[19] Berry was released from the reformatory on his 21st birthday in 1947.
On October 28, 1948, Berry married Themetta "Toddy" Suggs, who gave birth to Darlin Ingrid Berry on October 3, 1950.[20] Chuck supported his family by taking various jobs in St. Louis, working briefly as a factory worker at two automobile assembly plants and as a janitor in the apartment building where he and his wife lived. Afterwards, he trained as a beautician at the Poro College of Cosmetology, founded by Annie Turnbo Malone.[21] He was doing well enough by 1950 to buy a "small three room brick cottage with a bath" on Whittier Street,[22] which is now listed as the Chuck Berry House on the National Register of Historic Places.[23]
Career
1952–1955: Music career beginnings
By the early 1950s, Chuck Berry was working with local bands in clubs in St. Louis as an extra source of income.[22] He had been playing blues since his teens, and he borrowed both guitar riffs and showmanship techniques from the blues musician T-Bone Walker.[24] He also took guitar lessons from his friend Ira Harris, which laid the foundation for his guitar style.[25] By early 1953, Berry was performing with Johnnie Johnson's trio, starting a long-time collaboration with the pianist.[26][27] The band played blues and ballads as well as country. Berry wrote, "Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering 'who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?' After they laughed at me a few times, they began requesting the hillbilly stuff and enjoyed dancing to it."[13]
In 1954, Berry recorded the tracks "I Hope These Words Will Find You Well" and "Oh, Maria!" with the group Joe Alexander & the Cubans. The songs were released as a single on the Ballad label.[28] Berry's showmanship, along with a mix of country tunes and R&B tunes, sung in the style of Nat King Cole set to the music of Muddy Waters brought in a wider audience, particularly affluent white people.[3][29]
1955–1962: Signing with Chess: "Maybellene" to "Come On"
In May 1955, Berry traveled to Chicago, where he met Muddy Waters who suggested he contact Leonard Chess, of Chess Records. Berry thought his blues music would interest Chess, but Chess was a larger fan of Berry's take on "Ida Red".[30] On May 21, 1955, Berry recorded an adaptation of the song "Ida Red", under the title "Maybellene", with Johnnie Johnson on the piano, Jerome Green (from Bo Diddley's band) on the maracas, Ebby Hardy on the drums and Willie Dixon on the bass.[31] "Maybellene" sold over a million copies, reaching number one on Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart and number five on its Best Sellers in Stores chart for September 10, 1955.[13][32] Berry said, "It came out at the right time when Afro-American music was spilling over into the mainstream pop."[33]
When Berry first saw a copy of the Maybellene record, he was surprised that two other individuals, including DJ Alan Freed had been given writing credit; that would entitle them to some of the royalties. After a court battle, Berry was able to regain full writing credit.[34][35]
At the end of June 1956, his song "Roll Over Beethoven" reached number 29 on the Billboard's Top 100 chart, and Berry toured as one of the "Top Acts of '56". He and Carl Perkins became friends. Perkins said that "I knew when I first heard Chuck that he'd been affected by country music. I respected his writing; his records were very, very great."[36] In late 1957, Berry took part in Alan Freed's "Biggest Show of Stars for 1957", touring the United States with the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and others.[37] He was a guest on ABC's Guy Mitchell Show, singing his hit song "Rock 'n' Roll Music". The hits continued from 1957 to 1959, with Berry scoring over a dozen chart singles during this period, including the US Top 10 hits "School Days", "Rock and Roll Music", "Sweet Little Sixteen", and "Johnny B. Goode". He appeared in two early rock-and-roll movies: Rock Rock Rock (1956), in which he sang "You Can't Catch Me", and Go, Johnny, Go! (1959), in which he had a speaking role as himself and performed "Johnny B. Goode", "Memphis, Tennessee", and "Little Queenie". His performance of "Sweet Little Sixteen" at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 was captured in the motion picture Jazz on a Summer's Day.[38]
Berry in a 1958 publicity photo
The opening guitar riff of "Johnny B. Goode"[39] is similar to the one used by Louis Jordan in his "Ain't That Just Like a Woman" (1946).[39] Berry acknowledged the debt to Jordan and several sources have indicated that his work was influenced by Jordan in general.[40][41][42]
By the end of the 1950s, Berry was a high-profile established star with several hit records and film appearances and a lucrative touring career. He had opened a racially integrated St. Louis nightclub, Berry's Club Bandstand, and invested in real estate.[43] But in December 1959, he was arrested under the Mann Act after allegations that he had had sex with a 14-year-old Apache waitress, Janice Escalante,[44] whom he had transported across state lines to work as a hatcheck girl at his club.[45] After a two-week trial in March 1960, he was convicted, fined $5,000, and sentenced to five years in prison.[46] He appealed the decision, arguing that the judge's comments and attitude were racist and prejudiced the jury against him. The appeal was upheld[6][47] and a second trial was heard in May and June 1961,[48] resulting in another conviction and a three-year prison sentence.[49] After another appeal failed, Berry served one and one-half years in prison from February 1962 to October 1963.[50] He continued recording and performing during the trials, but his output had slowed as his popularity declined; his last single released before he was imprisoned was "Come On".[51]
1963–1969: "Nadine" and move to Mercury
Berry and his sister Lucy Ann, 1965
When Berry was released from prison in 1963, his return to recording and performing was made easier because British invasion bands—notably the Beatles and the Rolling Stones—had sustained interest in his music by releasing cover versions of his songs,[52][53] and other bands had reworked some of them, such as the Beach Boys' 1963 hit "Surfin' U.S.A.", which used the melody of Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen".[54] In 1964 and 1965 Berry released eight singles, including three that were commercially successful, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard 100: "No Particular Place to Go" (a humorous reworking of "School Days", concerning the introduction of seat belts in cars),[55] "You Never Can Tell", and the rocking "Nadine".[56] Between 1966 and 1969, Berry released five albums for Mercury Records, including his second live album (and first recorded entirely onstage), Live at Fillmore Auditorium; for the live album he was backed by the Steve Miller Band.[57][58]
Although this period was not a successful one for studio work,[59] Berry was still a top concert draw. In May 1964, he had made a successful tour of the UK,[55] but when he returned in January 1965, his behavior was erratic and moody, and his touring style of using unrehearsed local backing bands and a strict nonnegotiable contract was earning him a reputation as a difficult and unexciting performer.[60] He also played at large events in North America, such as the Schaefer Music Festival, in New York City's Central Park in July 1969, and the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival in October.[61]
1970–1979: Back to Chess: "My Ding-a-Ling" to White House concert
Berry helped give life to a subculture... Even "My Ding-a-Ling", a fourth-grade wee-wee joke that used to mortify true believers at college concerts, permitted a lot of twelve-year-olds new insight into the moribund concept of "dirty" when it hit the airwaves...
Berry returned to Chess from 1970 to 1973. There were no hit singles from the 1970 album Back Home, but in 1972, Chess released a live recording of "My Ding-a-Ling", a novelty song that he had recorded in a different version as "My Tambourine" on his 1968 LP From St. Louie to Frisco.[63] The track became his only number-one single. A live recording of "Reelin' and Rockin'", issued as a follow-up single in the same year, was his last Top 40 hit in both the US and the UK. Both singles were included on the part-live, part-studio album The London Chuck Berry Sessions (other albums of London sessions were recorded by Chess's mainstay artists Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf). Berry's second tenure with Chess ended with the 1975 album Chuck Berry, after which he did not make a studio record until Rockit for Atco Records in 1979, which would be his last studio album for 38 years.[64]
In the 1970s, Berry toured on the strength of his earlier successes. He was on the road for many years, carrying only his Gibson guitar, confident that he could hire a band that already knew his music no matter where he went. AllMusic said that in this period his "live performances became increasingly erratic,... working with terrible backup bands and turning in sloppy, out-of-tune performances" which "tarnished his reputation with younger fans and oldtimers" alike.[43] In March 1972, he was filmed, at the BBC Television Theatre in Shepherds Bush, for Chuck Berry in Concert,[65] part of a 60-date tour backed by the band Rocking Horse.[66] Among the many bandleaders performing a backup role with Berry in the 1970s, were Bruce Springsteen and Steve Miller when each was just starting his career. (Springsteen related in the documentary film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll that Berry did not give the band a set list and expected the musicians to follow his lead after each guitar intro. Berry did not speak to the band after the show. Nevertheless, Springsteen backed Berry again when he appeared at the concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.) At the request of Jimmy Carter, Berry performed at the White House on June 1, 1979.[58]
Berry's touring style, traveling the "oldies" circuit in the 1970s (often being paid in cash by local promoters), added ammunition to the Internal Revenue Service's accusations that Berry had evaded paying income taxes. Facing criminal sanction for the third time, Berry pleaded guilty to evading nearly $110,000 in federal income tax owed on his 1973 earnings. Newspaper reports in 1979 put his 1973 joint income (with his wife) at $374,982.[67] He was sentenced to four months in prison and 1,000 hours of community service—performing benefit concerts[failed verification]—in 1979.[68]
Berry continued to play 70 to 100 one-nighters per year in the 1980s, still traveling solo and requiring a local band to back him at each stop. In 1986, Taylor Hackford made a documentary film, Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, of a celebration concert for Berry's sixtieth birthday, organized by Keith Richards.[69]Eric Clapton, Etta James, Julian Lennon, Robert Cray, and Linda Ronstadt, among others, appeared with Berry on stage and in the film. During the concert, Berry played a Gibson ES-355, the luxury version of the ES-335 that he favored on his 1970s tours. Richards played a black Fender Telecaster Custom, Cray a Fender Stratocaster and Clapton a Gibson ES 350T, the same model that Berry used on his early recordings.[16]
In the late 1980s, Berry bought the Southern Air, a restaurant in Wentzville, Missouri.[70] In 1982, Berry performed a television special at The Roxy in West Hollywood with Tina Turner as his special guest. The concert was released a year later on home video.[71] In November 2000, Berry faced legal issues when he was sued by his former pianist Johnnie Johnson who claimed that he had co-written over 50 songs, including "No Particular Place to Go", "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Roll Over Beethoven", that credit Berry alone. The case was dismissed when the judge ruled that too much time had passed since the songs were written.[72]
In 2008, Berry toured Europe, with stops in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Poland, and Spain. In mid-2008, he played at the Virgin Festival in Baltimore.[73] During a concert on New Year's Day 2011 in Chicago, Berry, suffering from exhaustion, passed out and had to be helped off stage.[74]
Berry lived in Ladue, Missouri, approximately 10 miles (16km) west of St. Louis. He also had a home at "Berry Park", near Wentzville where he lived part-time since the 1950s and was the home in which he died. The home with the guitar-shaped swimming pool, is seen in scenes near the end of the film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll.[75] When Berry performed he often required payment up front in a paper bag which he transferred to an attaché case, PBS on In Their Own Words, relates. He gave interviews where he talked about having been ripped off during his early career. Thus he protected his own interests.[76]
He regularly performed one Wednesday each month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bar located in the Delmar Loop neighborhood of St. Louis, from 1996 to 2014. Berry announced on his 90th birthday that his first new studio album since Rockit in 1979, entitled Chuck, would be released in 2017.[77] His first new record in 38 years, it includes his children, Charles Berry Jr. and Ingrid, on guitar and harmonica with songs "covering the spectrum from hard-driving rockers to soulful thought-provoking time capsules of a life's work" and dedicated to his wife Toddy.[78]
Death and funeral
On March 18, 2017, Berry was found unresponsive at his home near Wentzville. Emergency workers called to the scene were unable to revive him, and he was pronounced dead by his personal physician.[79][80]TMZ posted an audio recording on its website in which a 911 operator can be heard responding to a reported cardiac arrest at Berry's home.[81]
Berry's funeral was held on April 9, 2017, at The Pageant, in Berry's home town of St. Louis.[82][83] He was remembered with a public viewing by family, friends, and fans in The Pageant. He was viewed with his cherry-red Gibson ES-335 guitar bolted to the inside lid of the coffin[84] and with flower arrangements that included one sent by the Rolling Stones in the shape of a guitar. Afterwards a private service was held in the club celebrating Berry's life and musical career, with the Berry family inviting 300 members of the public into the service. Gene Simmons of Kiss gave an impromptu, unadvertised eulogy at the service, while Little Richard was scheduled to lead the funeral procession but was unable to attend due to an illness. The night before, many St. Louis area bars held a mass toast at 10 pm in Berry's honor.[85]
One of Berry's attorneys estimated that his estate was worth $50 million, including $17 million in music rights. Berry's music publishing accounted for $13 million of the estate's value. The Berry estate owned roughly half of his songwriting credits (mostly from his later career), while BMG Rights Management controlled the other half; most of Berry's recordings are currently owned by Universal Music Group.[86] In September 2017, Dualtone, the label which released Berry's final album, Chuck, agreed to publish all his compositions in the United States.[87]
Berry is interred in a mausoleum in Bellerive Gardens Cemetery in St. Louis.[88]
Controversies
In 1987, Berry was charged with assaulting a woman at New York's Gramercy Park Hotel. He was accused of causing "lacerations of the mouth, requiring five stitches, two loose teeth, [and] contusions of the face." He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of harassment and paid a $250 fine.[89] In 1990, he was sued by several women who claimed that he had installed a video camera in the bathroom of his restaurant. Berry claimed that he had the camera installed to catch a worker who was suspected of stealing from the restaurant. Although his guilt was never proven in court, Berry opted for a class action settlement. One of his biographers, Bruce Pegg, estimated that it cost Berry over $1.2 million plus legal fees.[16] His lawyers said he had been the victim of a conspiracy to profit from his wealth.[16]
Reportedly, according to Rolling Stone, a police raid on his house found intimate videotapes of women. Also found in the raid were 62 grams of marijuana. Felony drug charges were filed and Berry agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor possession of marijuana. He was given a six-month suspended jail sentence, placed on two years unsupervised probation, and was ordered to donate $5,000 to a local hospital.[90]
Legacy
While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Chuck Berry comes the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together. It was his particular genius to graft country & western guitar licks onto a rhythm & blues chassis in his very first single, "Maybellene".
A pioneer of rock and roll, Berry was a significant influence on the development of both the music and the attitude associated with the rock music lifestyle. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics successfully aimed to appeal to the early teenage market by using graphic and humorous descriptions of teen dances, fast cars, high school life, and consumer culture,[3] and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.[2] Thus Berry, the songwriter, according to critic Jon Pareles, invented rock as "a music of teenage wishes fulfilled and good times (even with cops in pursuit)."[93] Berry contributed three things to rock music: an irresistible swagger, a focus on the guitar riff as the primary melodic element and an emphasis on songwriting as storytelling.[94] His records are a rich storehouse of the essential lyrical, showmanship and musical components of rock and roll. In addition to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, a large number of significant popular-music performers have recorded Berry's songs.[3] Although not technically accomplished, his guitar style is distinctive—he incorporated electronic effects to mimic the sound of bottleneck blues guitarists and drew on the influence of guitar players such as Carl Hogan,[95] and T-Bone Walker[3] to produce a clear and exciting sound that many later guitarists would acknowledge as an influence in their own style.[90] Berry's showmanship has been influential on other rock guitarists,[96] particularly his one-legged hop routine,[97] and the "duck walk",[98] which he first used as a child when he walked "stooping with full-bended knees, but with my back and head vertical" under a table to retrieve a ball and his family found it entertaining; he used it when "performing in New York for the first time and some journalist branded it the duck walk."[99][100]
On July 29, 2011, Berry was honored in a dedication of an eight-foot, in-motion Chuck Berry Statue in the Delmar Loop in St. Louis right across the street from Blueberry Hill. Berry said, "It's glorious—I do appreciate it to the highest, no doubt about it. That sort of honor is seldom given out. But I don't deserve it."[101]
Rock critic Robert Christgau considers Berry "the greatest of the rock and rollers",[102] and John Lennon said, "if you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'."[103]Ted Nugent said, "If you don't know every Chuck Berry lick, you can't play rock guitar."[104]Bob Dylan called Berry "the Shakespeare of rock 'n' roll".[105]Bruce Springsteen tweeted, "Chuck Berry was rock's greatest practitioner, guitarist, and the greatest pure rock 'n' roll writer who ever lived."[106] When asked what caused the explosion of the popularity of rock 'n roll which took place in the 1950s, with him and a handful of others, mainly him, Berry said, "Well, actually they begin to listen to it, you see, because certain stations played certain music. The music that we, the blacks, played, the cultures were so far apart, we would have to have a play station in order to play it. The cultures begin to come together, and you begin to see one another's vein of life, then the music came together."[107]
Chuck Berry wearing the Kennedy Center Honors, 2000
Berry is included in several of Rolling Stone magazine's "Greatest of All Time" lists. In September 2003, the magazine ranked him number 6 in its list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".[113] In November his compilation album The Great Twenty-Eight was ranked 21st in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[114] In March 2004, Berry was ranked fifth on the list of "The Immortals– The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Joe Perry wrote in tribute, "As a songwriter, Chuck Berry is like the Ernest Hemingway of rock & roll. He gets right to the point. He tells a story in short sentences. You get a great picture in your mind of what's going on, in a very short amount of space, in well-picked words... kids today are playing the same three chords, trying to play in that same style. Turn the guitars up, and it's punk rock. It's the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. I hear it in the White Stripes, too. People will always cover Chuck Berry songs. When bands go do their homework, they will have to listen to Chuck Berry. If you want to learn about rock & roll, if you want to play rock & roll, you have to start there."[9][115] In December 2004, six of his songs were included in "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time": "Johnny B. Goode" (#7), "Maybellene" (#18), "Roll Over Beethoven" (#97), "Rock and Roll Music" (#128), "Sweet Little Sixteen" (#272) and "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" (#374).[116] In June 2008, his song "Johnny B. Goode" was ranked first in the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time".[117] In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Berry at number 96 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.[118]
The journalist Chuck Klosterman has argued that in 300 years Berry will still be remembered as the rock musician who most closely captured the essence of rock and roll.[119]Time magazine said, "There was no one like Elvis. But there was 'definitely' no one like Chuck Berry."[120]Rolling Stone called him "the father of rock & roll" who "gave the music its sound and its attitude, even as he battled racism—and his own misdeeds—all the way," reporting that Leonard Cohen said, "All of us are footnotes to the words of Chuck Berry."[121] Kevin Strait, curator of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, said that Berry is "one of the primary sonic architects of rock and roll."[122]
According to Cleveland.com's Troy L. Smith, "Chuck Berry didn't invent rock and roll all by his lonesome. But he was the man who took rhythm and blues and transformed it into a new genre that would ever change popular music. Songs like 'Maybellene,' 'Johnny B. Goode,' 'Roll Over Beethoven' and 'Rock and Roll Music' would showcase the core elements of what rock and roll would become. The sound, the format and the style were built on the music Berry created. To some extent, everyone who followed was a copycat."[123]
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, singer and record producer who is an original member, guitarist, secondary vocalist, and co-principal songwriter of the Rolling Stones. His songwriting partnership with the band's lead vocalist Mick Jagger is one of the most successful in history. His career spans over six decades, and his guitar playing style has been a trademark of the Rolling Stones throughout the band's career. Richards gained press notoriety for his romantic involvements and illicit drug use, and he was often portrayed as a countercultural figure. First professionally known as Keith Richard, by the early 1970s he had fully asserted his family name.
Johnnie Clyde Johnson was an American pianist who played jazz, blues, and rock and roll. His work with Chuck Berry led to his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for breaking racial barriers in the military as a Montford Point Marine, where he endured racism and inspired social change while integrating the previously all-white Marine Corps during World War II.
"Johnny B. Goode" is a song by American musician Chuck Berry, written and sung by Berry in 1958. Released as a single in 1958, it peaked at number two on the Hot R&B Sides chart and number eight on its pre-Hot 100 chart. The song remains a staple of rock n' roll music.
"Starman" is a song by the English musician David Bowie. It was released on 28 April 1972 by RCA Records as the lead single of his fifth studio album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Co-produced by Ken Scott, Bowie recorded the song on 4 February 1972 at Trident Studios in London with his backing band known as the Spiders from Mars – comprising guitarist Mick Ronson, bassist Trevor Bolder and drummer Mick Woodmansey. The song was a late addition to the album, written as a direct response to RCA's request for a single; it replaced the Chuck Berry cover "Round and Round" on the album. The lyrics describe Ziggy Stardust bringing a message of hope to Earth's youth through the radio, salvation by an alien "Starman". The chorus is inspired by "Over the Rainbow", sung by Judy Garland, while other influences include T. Rex and the Supremes.
"Roll Over Beethoven" is a 1956 song written by Chuck Berry, originally released on Chess Records, with "Drifting Heart" as the B-side. The lyrics of the song mention rock and roll and the desire for rhythm and blues to be as respected as classical music. The song has been covered by many other artists, including the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. Rolling Stone magazine ranked it number 97 on its 2004 list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
"Maybellene" is a rock and roll song by American artist Chuck Berry, adapted in part from the western swing fiddle tune "Ida Red". Released in 1955, Berry’s song tells the story of a hot rod race and a broken romance, the lyrics describing a man driving a V8 Ford and chasing his unfaithful girlfriend in her Cadillac Coupe DeVille. It was released in July 1955 as a single by Chess Records, of Chicago, Illinois. Berry's first hit, "Maybellene" is considered a pioneering rock and roll song. Rolling Stone magazine wrote of it, "Rock & roll guitar starts here." The record was an early instance of the complete rock and roll package: youthful subject matter; a small, guitar-driven combo; clear diction; and an atmosphere of unrelenting excitement.
Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll is an album by Chuck Berry and soundtrack to the eponymous film, which was released in 1987 under record label, MCA. The album was recorded live at the Fox Theatre, St Louis, Missouri, and Berry Park, Wentzville, Missouri, in October 1986. The event was held to celebrate Berry's 60th birthday and it included several special guests. The album does not include the Berry song "School Days", which includes the line the album's title is derived from.
Concerto in "B Goode" is the thirteenth studio album by Chuck Berry, released in 1969 by Mercury Records. The title song is an extended instrumental interpolation of a wide range of themes pioneered in Berry's classic 1957-62 period, running approximately 18 minutes and taking up the entire second side of the record; this is Berry embracing the emerging preference in the rock genre for extended numbers. The title refers to Berry's semi-autobiographical song "Johnny B. Goode."
Chuck Berry Live in Concert is a live album by Chuck Berry. It was released in 1978, nine years after it was recorded at the 1969 Rock and Roll Revival concert at Varsity Stadium in Toronto, Canada.
"Sweet Little Sixteen" is a rock and roll song written and first recorded by Chuck Berry, who released it as a single in January 1958. His performance of it at that year's Newport Jazz Festival was included in the documentary film Jazz on a Summer's Day. It reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100, one of two of Berry's second-highest positions—along with Johnny Rivers cover of "Memphis, Tennessee"—on that chart. "Sweet Little Sixteen" also reached number one on the R&B Best Sellers chart. In the UK, it reached number 16 on the UK Singles Chart. Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song number 272 on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004. He used the same melody on an earlier song, "The Little Girl From Central" recorded on Checkmate in 1955.
Chuck Berry's Golden Decade is a compilation of music by Chuck Berry, released in three volumes in 1967, 1973, and 1974. Covering the decade from 1955 to 1964, each volume consists of a two-LP set of 24 songs recorded by Berry. The first volume reached number 72 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. The second volume peaked at number 110. The third volume, which included only two hit singles among its tracks, did not chart.
"Let It Rock" is a song written and recorded by rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry. Chess Records released it as single, which reached number 64 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in February 1960. Chess later added it to Berry's album Rockin' at the Hops (1960). In 1963, Pye Records released it as a single in the UK, where it reached number six.
The Chess Box is a compact disc box set compilation by Chuck Berry. It is one in a series of box sets issued by MCA/Chess in the late 1980s. The Chuck Berry set is the most prominent of these, having won a Grammy Award for Best Historical Album in 1989. Berry's Chess Box was reissued on vinyl in 1990.
"Ain't That Just Like a Woman (They'll Do It Every Time)" is a 1946 song written by Claude Demetrius and Fleecie Moore and recorded by Louis Jordan and Tympany Five. The song reached number one on the R&B Jukebox chart for two weeks and peaked at number seventeen on the pop chart. Chuck Berry, who acknowledged the influence of both Louis Jordan and Carl Hogan, copied the latter's guitar intro to the song for his 1958 classic "Johnny B. Goode".
"Wee Wee Hours" is a song written and recorded by Chuck Berry in 1955. Originally released as the B-side of his first single, "Maybellene", it went on to become a hit, reaching number 10 in the Billboard R&B chart.
Billy Peek is an American rock and roll and blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, composer, producer. Billy Peek has recorded, toured and played as lead guitarist for rock icon Rod Stewart for five years. Billy Peek has recorded, toured and performed with rock legend Chuck Berry and was in the backing band for Chuck Berry's European tour. Peek continuously performs with his own band throughout the U.S.
The Chuck Berry House is the former home of American rock and roll musician Chuck Berry in St. Louis, Missouri located at 3137 Whittier Street. The house was Berry's home when he wrote and first performed the majority of songs with which he is identified, including "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Too Much Monkey Business" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957), "School Day" (1957), "Sweet Little Sixteen" (1958), and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958).
Chuck Berry's Golden Hits is the tenth studio album by Chuck Berry, released in 1967 by Mercury Records, his first for that label. It consists of new recordings of songs he had recorded for Chess Records and one new song, "Club Nitty Gritty". The re-recordings were performed with faster tempos and recorded in stereo. While the rest of Berry's albums for Mercury rest in obscurity, Golden Hits is still available. In 1989 the CD issue of the collection was augmented with several tracks that were left off the original album.
The Return of Rock is the fourth album by Jerry Lee Lewis released on the Smash label in 1965.
Chuck is the eponymous twentieth and final studio album by American rock and roll singer and guitarist Chuck Berry, released in June 2017. Berry died between the announcement of its recording on his 90th birthday in October 2016 and its release. It posthumously became his first UK Top 10 chart entry since 1977, debuting at No. 9. This is the first Berry studio album to be released in almost four decades. It was positively received by critics who considered it a return to form and a poignant last statement.
↑ Gates, Henry Louis Jr.; Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks (April 29, 2004). African American Lives. Oxford University Press. p.71. ISBN9780199882861. Archived from the original on February 16, 2021. Retrieved March 21, 2017.
↑ Weinraub, Bernard (February 23, 2003). "Sweet Tunes, Fast Beats and a Hard Edge". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 13, 2009. Retrieved December 11, 2007. A significant moment in his early life was a musical performance in 1941 at Sumner High School, which had a middle-class black student body.
↑ Weinraub, Bernard (October 14, 1999). "The Man Who Knew It Wasn't Only Rock 'n' Roll". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 8, 2021. Retrieved February 4, 2021. Mr. Jackson, who wrote the Freed biography, said that two members of the virtuoso group the Moonglows told him that Mr. Freed had no involvement with their big hit Sincerely yet took a writing credit for it and received the royalties. Maybelline .... Mr. Berry went to court eventually and succeeded in having Mr. Freed's name removed as co-writer.
↑ Perkins, Carl; McGee, David (1996). Go, Cat, Go!. Hyperion Press. pp. 215, 216. ISBN0-7868-6073-1.
↑ Schinder, Scott; Schwartz, Andy (2008). Icons of Rock. ABC-CLIO. p.86. ISBN9780313338465. Archived from the original on June 27, 2014. Retrieved February 6, 2014.
↑ Higginbotham, Aloysius Leon (1998). Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process. Oxford University Press. p.150. ISBN978-0-19-512288-6.
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