I’ve always considered him a so-so player. This came to my attention in the other Guitarist Thread, but I was concerned that if I questioned his abilities there it might come across as thread-shitting.
Anyway, I think of him as a right place/right time phenom. Don’t get me wrong, I really like his music. I’ve even owned his albums. But addressing his playing only, it just seems kind of basic. Even the playing in Johnny B. Goode (which is a monumentally important song), is basically lifted from Louis Jordan’s Ain’t That Just Like a Woman played by Carl Hogan. A riff that Berry gets credit for.
And its not that there weren’t other amazing guitarists before him. Django Reinhardt, for example.
Great songwriter. Great synthesist. Great guitar player? I don’t know. He knew how to create a unique sound out of bits and pieces picked up from all over the place, that’s for sure.
And possibly the most brilliant lyricist in popular music. You can have your Sondheim, your Coward, your Rice/Weber. Even your Ray Davies. Berry was a genius with words.
I can barely play guitar, and don’t know exactly what elements of Berry’s playing launched a thousand followers/worshipers/students. But I know that his playing during the first ten minutes of his 1958 Belgian TV appearance gives me more pleasure than the collected works of many famous guitarists. Also, the singing and stagecraft are awesome.
For me, delivery of raw stringed pleasure is enough to make a guitarist great.
You’d have to tell me how to define someone to be a great guitar player. Why do you think Django is a better player than Chuck? Is it simply a matter of playing in a manner you find technically more accurate? Could I feed audio of player to a computer and have it spit out a single “rating” number?
Django Reinhardt wrote zero great rock n’ roll songs.
Chuck Berry, in addition to being a talented guitarist, was a terrific songwriter and mesmeric stage performer. Not always the greatest of human beings, he had to serve 20 months in prison on an essentially bogus charge, which apparently influenced his personality.
Still the greatest rock n’ roll figure in history in my opinion.
You mean like:
“They furnished off an apartment with a two room Roebuck sale
The coolerator was crammed with TV dinners and ginger ale
But when Pierre found work, the little money comin’ worked out well
“C’est la vie”, say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell”
Or
“Too much monkey business for me to be involved in”
(something about ending that phrase with “in” gets me!)
Or
“Milo Venus was a beautiful lass
She had the world
In the palm of her hand
But she lost both her arms
In a wrestling match to get
A brown eyed handsome man
She fought and won herself
A brown eyed handsome man”
And I could go on.
“Last time I saw Marie, she was waving me goodbye
With hurry home drops on her cheek that trickled from her eye”
Actually the whole Memphis song with the twist ending.
You are not wrong about him being a brilliant lyricist.
If you’ve seen the pretty good documentary Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll Keith Richards ends up giving a lot of credit for the development of Berry’s playing style to Berry’s long-time pianist Johnnie Johnson. One kinda comes away with the impression that in some ways Richards ended up more impressed as a musician with Johnson than Berry.
But of course Johnson never had near the stage presence or charisma of Berry.
I consider him a great guitarist. Innovators are de facto great, and he was that. He basically brought T-Bone Walker in the rock and roll age. Yeah, he could be sloppy, but so could Hendrix. Segovia too.
So now, the hallmark of a great guitarist is whether they can write a rock 'n roll song?
I don’t know whether to believe you or these guys:
By far the most astonishing guitar player ever has got to be Django Reinhardt … Django was quite superhuman, There’s nothing normal about him as a person or a player. — Jeff Beck
“He was the greatest guitarist in my mind. I’d do anything to play as great as he did.” Les Paul on Django Reinhardt
“Even today, nobody has really come to the state that he was playing at. As good as players are, they haven’t gotten to where he is. There’s a lot of guys that play fast and a lot of guys that play clean, and the guitar has come a long way as far as speed and clarity go, but nobody plays with the whole fullness of expression that Django has.” - Jerry Garcia
At least on the early recordings, Berry played all the guitar, in single takes without overdubs. That includes the intros to the songs, inspired by the horn intros to pop songs of the day, the rhythm while he was singing, and the many inspired solos he put into the songs. I’m not a musician, I don’t know how good he was on a technical level. But in terms of how it sounded and the impact he had, he was certainly one of the greats.
So, of course was Django, in a very different way. Without either of them, music would be significantly poorer.
I saw her on the corner when she turned and doubled back
And started walkin’ toward a coffee colored Cadillac
I was pushin’ through the crowd tryin’ to get to where she’s at
And I was campaign shouting like a southern diplomat
Then later
She moves around like a wayward summer breeze,
Go, driver, go. Go on, catch her for me, please.
Moving through the traffic like a mounted cavalier.
Leaning out the taxi window tryin’ to make her hear.
Why are you fighting so hard against the intent of the thread? No one is saying Berry isn’t a memorable and outstanding figure. I don’t see any worshiping either.
