His contributions to early rock and roll music, and the subsequent rock revolution, cannot be downplayed.
So have a “Johnny B. Good” Birthday.
Holy shit, he’s not only alive, but is releasing his first new album in nearly four decades. He and his wife Themetta have been married for 68 years.
Wow - I had no idea.
Yeah, he is a difficult man in the best of circumstances, with a history of amazing things and questionable behavior, but when all is said and done, I suspect we will discuss Chuck Berry more than Elvis when rock n’ roll gets a section in the history books.
Happy Birthday, Chuck.
Happy birthday, Chuck. Certainly one of the very giants of rock music. I read his biography many years ago, and though I know it was a lot of hyperbole and whitewashing (though he didn’t conceal his troubles with the law in the fifties, but no words about peeping in restaurant restrooms), it was a very funny read. I’ve always loved the stories about his touring in the 60s/70s. Too cheap to travel with a band, he used to always hire local bands, met the band on stage first time without rehearsals, called the songs, and mostly it all went smoothly. Shows how much his songs are part of the DNA of rock (I once heard/read that one time, Bruce Springsteen was in one of those local bands).
Makes me wonder if that scene in Back to the Future was a nod to his use of local bands: “This is a blues riff in ‘B’, watch me for the changes, and try and keep up, okay?”
Fun fact: I’ve got a cheap sampler on a very obscure label I bought maybe 25 years ago (maybe a bootleg, but I’ve seen thousands of similar samplers by Chess artists. I wonder if the Chess catalog was in the public domain for some time. But I digress…), called “The Best Of Cuck[sic] Berry”. It’s twice as funny in Germany, because “Cuck” sounds like German “Kack”, and that means “crap” :D.
One of those obvious things that didn’t click with me until years later… The band name “Buckcherry” is a spoonerism of Chuck Berry.
Happy birthday Chuck!
The main joke was that white Marty McFly got to teach rock and roll to black musicians. The band leader who hurt his hand was “Marvin Berry.” ANd when he saw Marty playing rock, he immediately phoned his cousin Chuck and said, “Hey Chuck, listen to this- this is the new sound you said you’ve been looking for!”
He always demanded to paid in advance, cash only. He was still touring not all that long ago. The clips I’ve seen are a little sad, as he isn’t quite on top of his game as he once was (He is 90 after all); I don’t think he should try the duckwalk either.
Yes, Springsteen talked about that in a Chuck Berry documentary that came out a long while back. Berry basically showed up without them practicing together and expected them to follow along…somewhat chaotic.
I saw him in the mid 1980s with a bunch of other old rockers (Junior Walker, Duane Eddy, Jerry Lee Lewis). I said I was going to see Lewis because he may die soon and he is still around at a spry 81.
Couple things about Berry that night (who closed the show).
- he never changed guitars. Some guys do it constantly, not Berry
- he had problems tuning it/ keeping it tuned
- “My Ding a lung”, his only number one single, is a puerile novelty song but it’s a fun puerile novelty song when you have 10,000 people singing the chorus. Which is the kind of reaction it got in bars when the jukebox played it when it was released.
There’s an old saying that you know it’s a hit song if the first time you hear it, by the end of the song you’re singing the chorus.
I went with a couple of friends to see him perform. We thought how much longer will he be around? This was in 1988. He was very late getting in from the airport. Jumped on the stage with a band that never met him. Asked the audience what they wanted to hear and that was his set list. He played for about 45 minutes and left. The announcement was “Chuck Berry has left the building.” Somehow we weren’t disappointed.