Chuck Berry, who died over the weekend, was a true rock 'n' roll pioneer.
His hits ‘Johnny B. Goode’, ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’, ‘Maybellene’ and ‘Memphis’ combined elements of blues, rockabilly and jazz.
Chuck Berry Photo: Wikicommons
Although he practically wrote the rock 'n' roll songbook, Berry had a fraction of the success enjoyed by his acolytes who followed in the 1960s.
Editor of the New Yorker David Remnick says without Berry there would have been no Beatles or Rolling Stones.
“If anybody was responsible for shifting the blues into the sound of tires on an open road it’s got to be the guy who came out in 1955 with those first big hits like ‘Maybellene’.
“John Lennon said if you gave rock 'n' roll another name it might as well be Chuck Berry.”
Berry influenced just about anyone who picked up a guitar with dreams of rock stardom - Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen were all fans.
Richards called Berry his influence “numero uno” and Dylan called him "the Shakespeare of rock 'n' roll".
Berry was also one of the first pop artists to write and perform his own songs.
His lyrics were witty, sly, sexy and littered with references to American brands.
“I saw her from the corner when she turned and doubled back/ And started walkin' toward a coffee colored Cadillac/ I was pushin' through the crowd tryna get to where she's at/And I was campaign shouting like a southern diplomat.”
These lyrics from the song ‘Nadine’ were typical of Berry’s genius at a time when moons, Junes and spoons were more common pop song tropes.
“Even though he was thrilled to death that his songs were so important to a second generation of white musicians - British musicians like Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, John Lennon and Paul McCartney - there was some resentment against those second-generation bands who made all the money,” Remnick says.
After his first flush of hits ended Berry made a living playing live and developed a reputation as something of a miser - he would demand cash before going onstage and used pick up bands wherever he played.
For one gig in Maryland in the 1970s a young Bruce Springsteen joined Berry’s pick up band.
“If you’re in a rock 'n' roll n band and you don’t know how to play ‘Johnny B Goode’ and ‘Carol’ and ‘Maybellene’ and ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ you don’t know how to do anything, so they would provide a backing bed, Chuck would open his case bring out his guitar get paid and go out on stage.
“Bruce was incredibly nervous and asked him, ‘What songs are we going to do?’
“’We’re going to play Chuck Berry songs’, Berry told him.”
Although he wrote pop classic such as ‘School Days’,’Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘Back in the USA’, ‘Reelin' and Rockin', ‘Rock & Roll Music’, ‘No Particular Place to Go’, ‘Memphis’ and ‘You Can Never Tell’, his only number one hit was ‘My Ding-a-Ling’ - a third rate throwaway ‘novelty’ song.
As a teenager Berry was sent to a reformatory school for armed robbery. He went on to have a number of brushes with the law.
In 1962, he was sent to prison for transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes. In the year and a half he spent incarcerated he wrote several songs, including ‘No Particular Place to Go’. Then in 1979 he was convicted of tax evasion, and served four months in prison.
A recording of Berry’s ‘Johnny B. Goode’ was selected for the collection of music sent into space aboard the unmanned 1977 Voyager I probe to provide aliens a taste of Earth culture.
