Key to the Highway
2017-07-09
Chuck
Berry special
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NOTE: Despite
its length, this document is not quite complete but there is a lot of good
material here, although in places it may be a bit disjointed. Of special note
is the fact that the playlist has changed a bit.
In the next segment I put forth to you a pretty darned
good biography of the man, if I must say
so myself, but when Chuck Berry
passed away earlier this year I had already long-known exactly how I wanted to
present a special show in his honor and that then was not the time. Mostly, everywhere else there would be people
extolling his virtues and, mostly, because I wanted to take the time to do it
up right. How can I have two mostlies? Isn't that kind of a mathematical
impossibility? Shouldn't I have said
co-equally? Well, I'm the one writing
this and in all of my arrogance I am just saying it is so. Get over it.
So it is almost time for KKUP's Oldies marathon, and back
when Chuck had passed I asked Jim Thomas (who has so excellently put together
the artwork for our Blues marathons, and others, since our third one in 1994)
if we could put him on our tee shirts for the Blues marathon in June and he
told me he would be putting him on the Oldies shirt, and that is 100%
appropriate and what I was expecting to hear.
But Chuck is still a Blues player in my mind and his backup musicians
even more so: Willie Dixon, Johnnie Johnson, Freddie Below, Lafayette Leake,
Otis Spann and Henry Gray immediately come to mind. I cannot count the times I have expressed
that I give the Blues a pretty broad berth; after all, Chuck Berry didn't say
Roll over Beethoven, dig this Rock and Roll - it was rhythm and BLUES!
I am an album guy.
I have bought maybe a dozen 45s in my lifetime, but when the Beatles
came out and my mother knew I was into them (who wasn't?) she picked up their
first American LP for me. Very quickly.
a couple more albums appeared and I promptly went out on my first record binge
and bought both of them and a Chuck Berry album titled Twist, a 1962 release
that was the sixth disc put out as a compilation of his singles, and many of
the fourteen tracks included remain as some of my favorite songs of all time.
It's not like the Beatles (or the Stones, for that
matter) turned me on to Chuck Berry, but the fact that they showed him such
deference certainly didn't make me appreciate him any the less. So, for many years now I felt the way to
really show the impact the man has had on the music of his time would be to
intersperse his appreciators' versions with the originals, and that is what
this show is all about.
about the sets
To my mind, the only way to start off a show dedicated
to Chuck Berry would be with the song that seems to almost be about him, Johnny
B. Goode. I recall sometime ago the
question was posed, what was the most important or influential song. For my generation I thought then and still
think now it would have to be this song that seemingly was included in the
repertoires of almost all the garage bands of the 60s. The rest of our opening set is built around
some of his best known numbers like School Days, Sweet Little Sixteen (reincarnated
by the Beach Boys as Surfin' USA), and personal favorites such as the rarely
recorded Let it Rock and Back in the USA, then coming full circle with Bye Bye
Johnny.
The next set is by two groups of the early Brit Beat
Rockers to present Chuck to a whole new generation of listeners. The Beatles only presented two studio
productions of Berry material and we have both of them here, Roll Over
Beethoven and Rock and Roll Music, but the evidence of his influence is found
by the number of tracks on their two double disc CD sets of their BBC airings,
an influence that lasted right up to what I believe was their last single
release. The opening line of Come
Together, Here comes old flattop, he's movin' up quickly, is taken verbatim
from Chuck's You Can't Catch Me, and its flipside Get Back's opening character
Jo Jo is a tip of the cap to Jo Jo Gunne.
It seems as though the early Stones wouldn't release an album without a
Chuck song on it. Even before that they
chose Come On for their first single and we chose it here, followed by Carol
and the live Little Queenie before we close with Around and Around.
Getting back to Chuck, we take a look at his Bluesier
side including Wee Wee Hours and Confessin' the Blues (both mentioned in our
next segment), then another number done by the Stones (and even better by
Manfred Mann) although not written by Chuck, Down the Road a Piece, the classic
Worried Life Blues, an up-tempo instrumental One O'clock Jump, a new favorite I
hadn't heard before, Go Go Go, where Chuck speaks of things like "now they
tell me Stan Kenton's cutting Maybellene", another rockin' instrumental
Guitar Boogie followed by Our Little Rendezvous, which is amazingly reminiscent
of Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, then Blues for Hawaiians and a tune later
done by the Animals, How You've Changed, winding up with what might be my
favorite number with the great bass work of Willie Dixon, Rockin' at the
Philharmonic. Not a Bluesman? Then how is this our longest set today?
Promised Land No Money Down You Can't Catch Me Reelin'
and Rockin' Maybellene Nadine Oh Baby Doll Don't Lie to Me Beautiful Delilah
This write-up is the product of some of my favorite
sources. Wikipedia is always a good
place to start a chronological foundation and, despite my early fears of its
inaccuracies, has proven to be pretty much reliable, but oftentimes there are
discrepancies between sources and I usually try to point out the significant
ones (you're welcome). Following that up
today is the online All Music Guides, whose paperback Blues edition has long
been my highest regarded volume, but Chuck does not appear in its pages so their
online edition is the way to go, not to mention the updates that have occurred
since I purchased my copy more than twenty years ago. And Rolling Stone also had an extensive
article is well, but probably most of the embellishments came from a biography
I purchased, author Krista Reese's Mr. Rock and Roll.
I
will readily admit that I will steal a quote made by the subject of my stories
anytime I find one appropriate, but I think this is the first time I have
stolen from one of the biographers. I
mentioned I am a big fan of All Music, and one of their best Blues biographers
is Cub Koda, who opined in his report on Chuck Berry as follows: "Quite
simply, without him there would be no Beatles, Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, nor 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 . . . Elvis may have fueled rock & roll's
imagery, but Chuck Berry was its heartbeat and original mindset."
And with that said, let's move right on to my version
of the Chuck Berry life story.
*************************
According to the book Mr. Rock and Roll, Charles Edward
Anderson Berry was born October 18, 1926 right here in San Jose so I am going
with that, although all the others list St. Louis, Missouri, where he moved
shortly afterward, the fourth of six children (MR. R'n'R says two brothers and
two sisters) in a family headed by his father Henry William Berry and mother
Martha Bell (Banks) growing up in the middle class black neighborhood Wentzville
(referred to as the Ville). Henry was a
carpenter and a deacon at a nearby Baptist church and his mother was a
certified public school principal.
Chuck's parents gave his music a chance to blossom,
beginning at the Antioch Baptist Church where his parents sang, as well as his sisters
Lucy Ann and Thelma while they also began learning piano. Chuck joined the choir when he was just six: "The
first music I can remember enjoying was way back in church. I was four years old and I was amazed by this
particular song. It had this part that
went . . . 'and we will walk, walk, walk.'
Each time they'd sing 'walk' the deacons would pat on the wooden
floor. It jarred the whole church and
got into me - that vibration from the floor." Also, "The feeling to harmonize began to
be a desire of mine; to get away from the normal melody and add my own melody
and harmony was imperial, and I guess that grew into the appreciation for music".
As a teenager, Chuck spent $4 on a used Spanish guitar,
transitioning from a four string tenor guitar to the normal six string model. He was also teaching himself piano and
saxophone but was assisted in his guitar education by a local barber and later
his high school music teacher, Julia Davis.
Chuck's first public appearance was in 1941, his junior year, when he
won a talent contest at Sumner High School with his guitar and vocal rendition
of Big Jay McShann's Confessin' the Blues.
Among his other early influences were the master Jazz
guitarist Charlie Christian, who was exposed during his 1939-1941 stint with
Benny Goodman before he died so young at the age of 22, and vocally Nat
"King" Cole and Louis Jordan.
"If I had to choose an artist to listen to through eternity it
would be Nat Cole. And if I had to work
through eternity, it would be with Louis Jordan." He would describe his own singing as,
"Nat and (Billy) Eckstine with a little bit of Muddy". No less of an influence was T-Bone Walker for
stage showmanship and his impressive early electric Blues/Jazz guitar style.
Chuck was still a student at Sumner in 1944 when he was
convicted of the armed robbery of three Kansas City, Missouri businesses and
stealing a car at gunpoint. Berry's autobiography
admitted that he had waved down the car but the gun he used was not
functional. During his term at the
Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men, he took up boxing and formed a vocal
quartet that was good enough to be allowed to perform outside of the prison
confines. He was released in 1947 on his
21st birthday.
Berry would marry Themetta "Toddie" Suggs on
October 28th 1948 and their first
of two daughters Darlin Ingrid Berry was born almost two years later on
October 3rd. Chuck tried a lot of things
in St. Louis to put bread on the table, including working at the General Motors
Fisher Body auto assembly plant, as a janitor at the apartment house where the
family lived, then went through night school at the Poro College of
Cosmotology, all of it ultimately leading to his being able to buy a
"small three room brick cottage with a bath" which can be found on
the National Register of Historic Places as the Chuck Berry House. And it took him three months to pay for his
first car, a 1933 Ford.
But it wasn't long before he was adding to his day job
income by joining local combos in the city's club scene and sitting in as often
as he could. He began incorporating the
Blues guitar playing techniques and stage presence of T-Bone Walker into his
performances. Early in 1953 he
established a long relationship with pianist Johnnie Johnson (whom Chuck said
was "born thirty years too late", referring to the Boogie Woogie piano
craze beginning in the late 20s) as a Blues and Ballad trio (the drummer was
Ebby Harding). Over the next four years
they played house parties, church gatherings and, of course, gigged in the East
St. Louis clubs like the Moonglow Bar, the Crank, and especially the
Cosmopolitan Club essentially as the house band for $14 a night.
Against competition like Little Milton, Albert King, and
his main rival Ike Turner, the Johnson Trio became one of the most popular
black combos around, but also satisfied the many Country fans in the area. "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.' And it also began a history of Chuck's
crossover with the white fans, much the same as one of his idols, Louis Jordan,
had done a decade before.
After befriending Muddy Waters during a May 1955 visit to
Chicago, the Blues maestro recommended he get in touch with Leonard Chess of
Chess Records. According to one story
Chuck expressed, he went in to the Chess office the next day where it was
suggested he come back with some original material, inspiring him to go home
and come up with a few tunes. "It
had never occurred to me to write my own songs." Berry thought his Blues would be a natural
fit for the label, but his May 21st 1955 session produced his re-inventioning
of Bob Wills' recording of the traditional fiddle tune Ida Red, under the title
of Maybellene (accompanied by Johnson, Bo Diddley's maracas man Jerome Green,
drummer Jasper Thomas and bassist Willie Dixon) that Chess chose as his first
release as the company moved to expand from its Blues base. Johnson was surprised at the choice. "We thought Maybellene was a joke, you
know. People always liked it when we did
it at the Cosmopolitan Club, but it was Wee Wee Hours that we was proud
of. That was our music."
Leonard Chess promptly took a demo of the song to Alan
Freed at New York's WINS to put on the air.
As Chess told Ramparts magazine, "The dub didn't have Chuck's name
on it or nothing. By the time I got back
to Chicago, Freed had called a dozen times saying it was his biggest record
ever. History, the rest, y'know?" Presumably in exchange for airplay, Freed received
one third writer's credit, something Chuck would never allow to happen again.
The song was a success with over a million sales and a
number one rating on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues chart as well as number
five on its Best Sellers in Stores listing for the week of September 10th. It was also the first record to achieve
Billboard's "Triple Crown" by appearing on the Pop, Country and
R&B charts. As Chuck saw it, "It
came out at the right time when Afro-American music was spilling over into the
mainstream pop."
Once signed on with Chess, the trio became known as the
Chuck Berry Combo as they hit the road to promote the records. In the process, he went from $14 a night to
commanding a fee a hundred times that.
At one point, beginning on August 9th at Gleason's in Chicago, the band
played 101 gigs in 101 nights.
Carl Perkins was a part of the "Top Acts of
'56" tour (there is also mentioned a Stars of '56 mentioned, presumably
the same tour) with Chuck, who was riding on the success of Roll Over Beethoven's
cresting at number 29 on Billboard's Top 100, and the hillbilly rock legend
said, "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." Perkins went further regarding Chuck's
knowledge and enjoyment of Country: "Chuck knew every Blue Yodel and most
of Bill
Monroe's songs as well. He told me
about how he was raised very poor, very tough. He had a hard life. He was a
good guy. I really liked him."
On one of the Freed tours, Perkins decided to follow the
tour bus in his Cadillac and Chuck enjoyed the opportunity to ride with him,
even to the point of composing his Brown Eyed Handsome Man in the Caddy's back
seat. Perkins was no stranger to writing
songs in strange situations either, having worked out his Blue Suede Shoes on a
potato sack in the kitchen early one morning.
The Biggest Show of Stars for '57 included in its 80 day
tour Fats Domino, who had headlined the year previous, Bill Haley, Frankie
Lymon and his Teenagers, the Drifters, the Everly Brothers, Paul Anka, Laverne
Baker, Clyde McPhatter, Jimmie Bowen and Buddy Holly and the Crickets. The rigors of touring prompted Chuck to obtain
his own custom interior bus he named Maybellene.
While
Elvis was considered a white artist performing in a black style, Berry was
somewhat the mirror image, his Rhythm & Blues about so many of the high
schoolers' concerns (cars, girls, the after-school day and especially music)
would make him the first Black Rock 'n' Roller as he blurred those racial lines.
So, a little bit about some of the songs. The flip side of 1956's You Can't Catch Me
was Havana Moon, one of the earliest Calypso tunes, predating even Harry
Belafonte. From an interview with
Patrick Salvo came the revelation that the phrase "little country
boy" in Johnny B. Goode started out as "little colored
boy". It is also likely that
"Goode" came from the street where Berry grew up. His least successful (commercially) single
was the 1958 pairing of Run Rudolph Run with Merry Christmas Baby, which still
was loved by some critics, as one Billboard writer revealed: "It's no
secret at all that the Berry Christmas disc fractured the Billboard panel and
had them stomping around the record room like few records have done." 1958 also marked the September release of the
first of many albums compiling the single tracks already put on the market, After
School Session. Memphis, Tennessee was
recorded in his office with his secretary Fran providing the drums while its
B-side, Back in the USA, represented Chuck's frustration while touring
Australia being unable to order a burger or a hot dog.
Chuck maintained his band in a totally professional
manner, right down to the uniforms.
"I had to outfit my trio, the three of us, and I always remember
the suits cost me $66, $22 apiece. We
had to buy shoes and everything . . . anyway, when we got to New York, the
suits, they were rayon but looked like seersucker by the time we got there. . .
so we had one suit, we didn't know we were supposed to change. so we wanted to do
something different, so I actually did that duck walk to hide the wrinkles in
the suit - I got an ovation so I did it again, and again, and I'll probably do
it again tonight." And thus, at
that Labor Day 1956 show at the Paramount in Brooklyn, a legendary piece of
showmanship was first seen.
A different version of its beginnings from Chuck's own lips says he was "stooping with full-bended knees, but with my back and head vertical" in order to get a ball that had rolled under a table and the response his family gave was what led to "performing in New York for the first time and some journalist branded it the duck walk."
Another time, Chuck had a disagreement with Dick Clark,
who had all the acts on his American Bandstand lip-synch their performances,
but this was not how Chuck did things, saying, "Chuck Berry is not gonna
open his mouth and have nothing come out."
Leonard Chess finally convinced Chuck to do it Clark's way and the show
went on.
Chuck was on another multi-artist tour in 1957 with Alan
Freed's "Biggest Show of Stars for 1957", where among the stars on
the bill were The Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly. Berry was in full stride between 1957 and
1959 with more than a dozen charting 45s, most significantly School Days (#1
R&B, #3 Pop), Rock and Roll Music (#6 R&B, #8 Pop, which he also
performed on ABC-TV's Guy Mitchell Show), Sweet Little Sixteen (#1 R&B, #2
Pop, his rendition of this number at 1958's Newport Jazz Festival made it onto
celluloid in Jazz on a Summer's Day), Johnny B. Goode (#5 R&B, #8 Pop),
Carol and Memphis, Tennessee.
Alan Freed put out films loosely based on his mega-shows
and tours, the first being 1956's Rock, Rock, Rock which featured Chuck singing
You Can't Catch Me. Freed was referring
to himself as Mister Rock and Roll in 1957 which listed Chuck in the credits
but didn't make it past the cutting room floor.
1959's Go, Johnny, Go saw him performing Johnny B. Goode, Memphis,
Tennessee and Little Queenie and also included a speaking role as himself. His 1958 Newport Jazz Festival rendition of
Sweet Little Sixteen can be found in the film Jazz on a Summer Day. The movies gave kids who had only heard
Chuck's records or on the radio a chance to see his onstage antics.
Chuck's star could not be ascending any quicker what with
the heavy touring, vast record sales, big and small screen entries... He opened the racially mixed Club Bandstand in
1958 and also invested in real estate in the St. Louis area, even planning to
open an amusement park in Wentzville. In
August 1959, it was reported by the New York Times that Chuck was arrested in
Meridian, Mississippi for "trying to date a white girl", but after
spending some time in jail with no bail he was released saying it was all a
mistake, that the girl was just looking for an autograph when her boyfriend got
jealous. Then it all came crashing down
when, in December, it was alleged that he had sex with a 14-year-old Apache waitress
he had brought across state lines (from Mexico, actually) to work in his
club. It was brought out that,
unbeknownst to Chuck, the girl was supplementing her income via prostitution at
a hotel across the street from the club.
He was convicted under the Mann Act in a two-week trial and faced $5,000
in fines and five years in prison.
Alan Freed was getting a lot of flak for putting black
and white artists on the same bills as well as some of the topics and language
used. Pamphlets from the KKK warned
parents about their children listening to "nigger music" and Congress
considered a motion whether Rock 'n' Roll was a Communist plot, to which
economist Vance Packard testified in the affirmative. With this sentiment just looking for a
target, Berry had placed himself directly within their gunsights.
Chuck appealed and won on the grounds that the judge's
comments and attitudes were racist (he referred to Berry as "this
negro"), thus prejudicing the jurors. After hearings in May and June of 1961, he was
convicted again as a second trial against him resulted in a three year
penalty. Berry unsuccessfully mounted
another appeal, but his conviction stood and Chuck served the year and a half
between February 1962 and October 1963.
The notoriety from the three plus years of trials was not
the right publicity to keep his career thriving and, while he continued to gig,
record and release right up to his incarceration, it strikes me that Chuck was
distracted (duh!) and his quality suffered, although there were a few tunes
that came close to his heyday as well as some good Blues. There were a couple of good signs for the
future with the reissue of Buddy Holly's version of Brown Eyed Handsome Man
charted #22 and the Berry beat was still popular as proven by the Beach Boys
first hit, Surfin' USA, a blatant knockoff of Chuck's Sweet Little Sixteen. The whole sordid mess took its toll as the
Berry family, including four children, fell apart within two years of the end
of his jail term.
Chuck got a deserved boost for his career upon his
release because the burgeoning "British Invasion" bands had taken his
music as a big part of their repertoire, as can be seen in some of our sets
today. Of the eight singles he released
in 1964 & 1965, three of them went into the top 20 of the Billboard 100: No
Particular Place to Go, You Never Can Tell and Nadine. Chuck made a success of his first UK tour in
May 1964 through January of 1965 and it is somewhere around this time that he
gave up his touring and opted to use pick-up bands in each of the many town's
he played. He also got very hard-nosed
in his dealings with promoters but in spite of all this his past musical output
still kept him a constant draw.
1964 also saw Berry in the T.A.M.I. show, later known
as the Teenage Command Performance and finally called Gather No Moss, a
documentation of the live performance at Santa Monica's Civic Auditorium
featuring a mixed bag of performers, beginning with Jan and Dean introducing
the artists beginning with the Rolling Stones, the Barbarians, Chuck, Marvin
Gaye, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Lesley Gore, Jan and Dean again, Billy J.
Kramer and the Dakotas, the Supremes, and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, but
I believe the highlight of the show was the man who followed Berry, James Brown
and his Famous Flames.
As the Rock 'n' Roll decade was making way for the new
peace movement and it's music, Chuck varied his stage act to include more slow
Blues as he frequently appeared on the Festival and hippie ballroom circuits. In 1966, Mercury's $150,000 advance drew
Berry away from the Chesses, whom he felt were more than business associates,
and Leonard said, "Go, and you'll be back in three years". The highlight of the five albums Chuck put
out for Mercury between 1966 and 1969 was the Live at the Fillmore Auditorium
backed by the Steve Miller Band. A
couple of the major concerts were the July 1969 Schaefer Music Festival in New
York City's Central Park and October's Toronto Rock and Roll Revival. But evidence of the decline of Rock 'n' Roll
was provided by the fact in July of 1969, New York's Paladium sold only 600
seats of their 6,000 capacity.
Leonard had passed away before Chuck's return to
Chess, but his statement was none the less true. Chuck had a comfort level at Chess that
Mercury could not match. The Chesses
understood Berry's ideosynchracies and, even without Leonard around, Phil and
Leonard's son Marshal dealt with them easily.
Chuck would ask Mercury for his money but they told him the royalties
were paid out semi-annually, and when that did not please Berry they offered to
write out a check but that was no good either; Chuck did not like contracts or
checks or any semblance of a financial paper trail, ultimately leading to his 1979
conviction of tax evasion, but Chess was much more used to dealing in
cash. When they bought WVON, Chicago's
main Soul station, it was with over a million dollars in $10,000 bills. The Chesses sold out to GRT for an estimated
ten million dollars shortly after Chuck's return, but Phil remained with the
company until his death in 1974 and Marshal was there until he took on
responsibilities with Rolling Stone Records in the early 70s.
There was a concert at Los Angeles' Palladium where
the Rolling Stones' Keith Richard jumped onstage to join Berry and Chuck kicked
him off. He told reporter WilliamPatrick
Salvo that he didn.t recognize Richard and that the guy (along with pianist Dr.
John) was just playing too loud for Chuck to be heard. "Gee, I love the cat. I guess it was just a bad night; they must have
been high or something."
1972 first #1
in 17 years of recording with My Ding-a-ling.
It had been recorded somewhat differently as My Tambourine on the 1958
album Berry's on Top. The London Chuck
Berry Sessions contained another live number (Reelin' and Rockin' ?)
Berry appeared in another movie in 1973, London Rock
& Roll, along with Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard in that
order preceding him, seen both performing and backstage. Reese's book states that the movie
"shows some of the best footage ever of Berry; he is relaxed and his
movements seem totally without strain".
Unfortunately, a power problem shut down the guitars and mikes in the
middle of Johnny B. Goode while he was doing his duck walk, but the problem was
resolved and the show came to its natural conclusion.
1975 saw Chuck again touring the UK, playing at
Nader's sixth annual event and being named by DJs and critics for the Rock
Music Awards to Don Kirschner's Hall of Fame.
Another UK tour was done in 1976.
The movie American Hot Wax came out in 1978 with Berry performing
Reelin' and Rockin'.
Berry was again facing legal proceedings in June 1979
from an indictment for tax evasion based on twelve 1973 concerts, the
underestimated amount estimated at $110,000.
Prosecutors claimed Berry had received a suitcase loaded with $45,000 in
cash each time, converted them to cashier's checks and then into certificates
of deposit to obfuscate his income. His
taxable earnings were claimed to be $589,555 for the year but Berry reported only
$374,982. Assistant US Attorney Kathleen
March stated, "What we have here is calculated activities to avoid paying
taxes. This man has $2.6 million of net
worth. The motivation was not need. It was greed."
Berry ultimately pled guilty to the charges and was
sentenced to 120 days in federal prison, benefit concerts and 1,000 hours of
community service. He was allowed thirty
days to set everything up and go on an already scheduled twelve day European
tour prior to beginning his time at Lompoc, California on August 18th. (Chuck preferred the trial be held in
California rather than Missouri this time.)
Just before this incarceration, his Atlantic release Rock It had hit the
market.
Once again, musical tastes were changes and Disco was
becoming the rage but Chuck declined disparaging it. "Disco is just Rock with an exaggerated
beats and lights, effects and a few other things. Rock has always been dance music. That's why it has lasted. People like to be happy."
The last single by the Beatles Come Together used
"Here come old Flattop, he was movin' up slowly" as its opening line,
taken verbatim fro Chuck's You Can't Catch Me, and it's flip side's Get Back
opening line uses Jo Jo as a direct reflection of Jo Jo Gunne. pg104
Professor Jim Curtis of Chuck's home state University of
Missouri in Colombus teaches a popular culture course and has long tried the
school to give Chuck an honorary degree. It is not common practice to hand
these out to musicians - the only past recognition of a musician was to another
Missouri-born artist, Count Basie in 1978 - rather to businessmen who would
hopefully follow up with donations. More
than forty nominees are proposed each year and only two or three go through and
Reese's book, which was published in 1982, said he had offered Berry's name up
for nomination four years before, but if his nomination failed he would
continue to bring up the matter.
In December, shortly after his release, Chuck made an
appearance at San Francisco's Old Waldorf backed by Mark Naftalin (formerly
keyboardist for Paul Butterfield) and guitarist Mel Brown (veteran of Bobby
"Blue" Bland's band) where he played an unprecedented two hours plus
an encore.
Agent-turned promoter Richard Nader booked Madison
Square Garden for a 1970 event and signed up Bill Haley, the Platters, the
Shirelles and the Coasters, but he wanted Berry to truly make it great. Chuck's agent signed on, but when he felt
unsure of Nader's ability to pay he booked Chuck to another concert. Nader already had the publicity rolling so he
went to the agent's office with the money promised and bumped it up another
$250. "I offered the agent $250 to
lose the contract. I bought (the agent)
a hi-fi." After the success of that
first concert, Nader has made it an annual event.
Nader confirmed having his problems with Chuck. Berry was not pleased sharing top billing
with the Platters nor the fact that there were two shows and that the Platters
closed the first one. Part of any deal
would be cash payment in advance and the provision of two dual showman
amplifiers. At a Nader show in Pittsburgh,
Chuck was refused the extra money he demanded so went on stage and tuned up for
45 minutes, stating that he hadn't been paid at all. Nader said, "Just fucking play,
Chuck", which he finally did when the audience began booing him. Still, no one has claimed Berry ever put on a
poor show, as Nader agrees. He
"never delivered less than 110% on stage . . . never left until the last
person was standing."
Nader related a story Chuck had told him as to why he
was so stringent in his contracts. Chuck
got an offer from a woman in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to perform for $750
and Berry drove all through the night in hard rain to get there from St.
Louis. Upon arrival, he found an
audience of about 20 kids in a rundown ice cream shop behind the woman's
house. He played the gig, but when he
asked for his money was handed a list of all the expenses incurred. As Nader said, "She had everything down
there, down to the light bulbs."
When all was said and done, Berry was offered $1.75 so he told to keep
it, but forevermore it would be cash up front.
Nader concluded that, "of all the artists in Rock
'n' Roll, he is one of the three - Elvis, Paul Anka and Chuck - who has held
onto his money". He says Berry told
him, "You use my name. You take
money from the public. I show up. You
pay me".
*************************
At the request of Jimmy Carter, Berry performed at the White House on June 1, 1979. Among the honors Berry received were the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984[92] and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000.[93] He was ranked seventh on Time magazine's 2009 list of the 10 best electric guitar players of all time.[94] On May 14, 2002, Berry was honored as one of the first BMI Icons at the 50th annual BMI Pop Awards. He was presented the award along with BMI affiliates Bo Diddley and Little Richard.[95] In August 2014, Berry was made a laureate of the Polar Music Prize.[96]
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".[97] In November his compilation album The Great Twenty-Eight was ranked 21st in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[98] In March 2004, Berry was ranked fifth on the list of "The Immortals – The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[8][99] 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).[100] In June 2008, his song "Johnny B. Goode" was ranked first in the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time".
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."[7] Berry is included in several of Rolling Stone magazine's "greatest of all time" lists; he was ranked fifth on its 2004 and 2011 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[8] 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".[9] Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" is the only rock-and-roll song included on the Voyager Golden Record.[10]
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."[7] Berry is included in several of Rolling Stone magazine's "greatest of all time" lists; he was ranked fifth on its 2004 and 2011 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[8] 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".[9] Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" is the only rock-and-roll song included on the Voyager Golden Record.[10]
Johnny B. Goode
Maybellene
School Days
Downbound Train
Back in the USA
Bye Bye Johnny
Chuck Berry
20mins
Rock and Roll Music
Roll Over Beethoven
The Beatles
Come On
Carol
Little Queenie
Around and Around
The Rolling Stones 17mins
Wee Wee Hours
Confessin' the Blues
Down the Road Apiece
Worried Life Blues
One O'clock Jump
Go Go Go
Guitar Boogie
Our Little Rendezvous
Blues for Hawaiians
How You've Changed
Rockin' at the Philharmonic
Chuck Berry
29mins
Promised Land
Johnnie Allen
No Money Down
Johnny Hammond
You Can't Catch Me
Love Sculpture
Reelin' and Rockin'
Chris
Farlowe
Maybellene
Foghat
Nadine
The Blues Band
Oh Baby Doll
The Pretty Things
Don't Lie to Me
The Downliner Sect
Beautiful Delilah
The Kinks
Run Around
I Got to Find My Baby
Blue Feeling
It Don't Take But a Few Minutes
Roly Poly
Drifting Blues
In-Go
Anthony Boy
Berry Pickin'
Chuck Berry
23mins
Too Much Monkey Business
I'm Talking About You
Let It Rock
The Yardbirds
Memphis, Tennessee
Sweet Little Rock 'n' Roller
The Faces
Come On
The Blues Band
Brown Eyed Handsome Man
Downbound Train
Havana Moon
Rip It Up
Jo Jo Gunne
Run Rudolph Run
Chuck Berry
15mins
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