Charles Edward Anderson "
Chuck"
Berry (born October 18, 1926) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of
rock and roll music.
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 focusing on teen life and consumerism and utilizing
guitar solos and
showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.
[1]
Born into a middle-class
African-American family in
St. Louis, Missouri, 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 arrested, and served a prison sentence for
armed robbery
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 blues player
T-Bone Walker, Berry began performing with the
Johnnie Johnson Trio.
[2]
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's Rhythm
and Blues chart.
By the end of the 1950s, Berry was an established star
with several hit records and film appearances to his name as well as a
lucrative touring career.
He had also established his own St.
Louis-based nightclub, called Berry's Club Bandstand.
But in January
1962, Berry was sentenced to three years in prison for offenses under
the
Mann Act—he had transported a 14-year-old girl across state lines.
[2][3][4]
After his release in 1963, Berry had more hits in the mid 60's, including "
No Particular Place to Go," "
You Never Can Tell,"
and "Nadine." By the mid-1970s, he was more in demand as a nostalgic
live performer, playing his past hits with local backup bands of
variable quality.
[2]
In 1979 he served 120 days in prison 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, with the comment that he "laid the groundwork
for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance."
[5]
Berry is included in several
Rolling Stone "Greatest of All Time" lists, including being ranked fifth on their 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
[6]
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll included three of Berry's songs: "
Johnny B. Goode," "
Maybellene," and "
Rock and Roll Music."
[7]
Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" is the only rock and roll song included on the
Voyager Golden Record.
[8]
He continues to play live, performing monthly at
Blueberry Hill restaurant in
St. Louis.
| Chuck Berry |
|---|
Chuck Berry in 1957
|
| Background information |
| Birth name |
Charles Edward Anderson Berry |
| Born |
October 18, 1926 (age 89)
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Origin |
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Genres |
Rock and roll |
| Occupation(s) |
Musician, singer, songwriter |
| Instruments |
Guitar, vocals |
| Years active |
1955–present |
| Labels |
Chess, Mercury, Atco |
| Associated acts |
Johnnie Johnson, T-Bone Walker, Muddy Waters |
| Website |
www.chuckberry.com |
| Notable instruments |
Gibson ES-350
Gibson ES-355 |
Early life and apprenticeship with Johnnie Johnson (1926–54)
Born in
St. Louis, Missouri,
[9] Berry was the fourth child in a family of six. He grew up in the north St. Louis neighborhood known as
The Ville,
an area where many middle class St. Louis people lived at the time.
His
father, Henry, was a contractor and deacon of a nearby
Baptist
church, his mother Martha a certified public school principal.
His
middle class upbringing allowed him to pursue his interest in music from
an early age and he gave his first public performance in 1941 while
still at
Sumner High School.
[10]
Just three years later, in 1944, while still at Sumner High School, he was arrested and convicted of
armed robbery after robbing three shops in
Kansas City and then stealing a car at gunpoint with some friends.
[11][12]
Berry's own account in his autobiography is that his car broke down and
he then flagged down a passing car and stole it at gunpoint with a
non-functional pistol.
[13]
Berry was sent to the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men at Algoa, near
Jefferson City, Missouri,
[9] where he formed a singing quartet and did some boxing.
[11]
The singing group became competent enough that the authorities allowed it to perform outside the detention facility.
[14]
After his release from prison on his 21st birthday in 1947, Berry
married Themetta "Toddy" Suggs on October 28, 1948, who gave birth to
Darlin Ingrid Berry on October 3, 1950.
[15]
Berry supported his family doing a number of jobs in St. Louis: working
briefly as a factory worker at two automobile assembly plants, as well
as being janitor for 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.
[16]
He was doing well enough by 1950 to buy a "small three room brick cottage with a bath" in Whittier Street,
[17] which is now listed as the
Chuck Berry House on the
National Register of Historic Places.
[18]
By the early 1950s, Berry was working with local bands in the clubs of St. Louis as an extra source of income.
[16]
He had been playing
the blues since his teens, and he borrowed both guitar riffs and
showmanship techniques from blues player
T-Bone Walker,
[19] as well as taking guitar lessons from his friend Ira Harris that laid the foundation for his guitar style.
[20]
By early 1953 Berry was performing with
Johnnie Johnson's trio, starting a long-time collaboration with the pianist.
[21]
Although the band played mostly blues and ballads, the most popular music among whites in the area was
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."
[9]
Berry's calculated showmanship, along with mixing country tunes with R&B tunes, and singing in the style of
Nat King Cole to the music of
Muddy Waters, brought in a wider audience, particularly affluent white people.
[2][22]
Signing with Chess: "Maybellene" to "Come On" (1955–62)
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 material would be of most interest to Chess,
but to his surprise it was an old country and western recording by
Bob Wills,
[23] entitled "
Ida Red" that got Chess's attention.
Chess had seen the
rhythm and blues
market shrink and was looking to move beyond it, and he thought Berry
might be the artist for that purpose.
So on May 21, 1955 Berry recorded
an adaptation of "Ida Red"—"
Maybellene"—which featured Johnnie Johnson on piano, Jerome Green (from
Bo Diddley's band) on the maracas, Jasper Thomas on the drums and
Willie Dixon
on the bass.
"Maybellene" sold over a million copies, reaching number
one on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues chart and number five on the
September 10, 1955 Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart.
[9][24]
At the end of June 1956, his song "
Roll Over Beethoven" reached number 29 on the
Billboard 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." As they toured, Perkins discovered that
Berry not only liked country music, but knew about as many songs as he
did.
Jimmie Rodgers was one of his favorites.
"Chuck knew every Blue Yodel and most of
Bill Monroe's
songs as well," Perkins remembered. "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."
[25]
In late 1957, Berry took part in
Alan Freed's "Biggest Show of Stars for 1957" United States tour with the
Everly Brothers,
Buddy Holly, and others.
[26]
He also guest starred on
ABC's
The Guy Mitchell Show,
having sung 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 top 10 US hits "
School Days," "
Rock and Roll Music," "
Sweet Little Sixteen," and "
Johnny B. Goode".
He appeared in two early rock and roll movies. The first was
Rock Rock Rock, (1956) in which he sings "You Can't Catch Me."
He had a speaking role as himself in
Go, Johnny, Go! (1959) along with
Alan Freed, and performs his songs "Johnny B. Goode," "
Memphis, Tennessee," and "
Little Queenie."
His performance of "Sweet Little Sixteen" at the
Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 is captured in the motion picture
Jazz on a Summer's Day.
[27]
By the end of the 1950s, Berry was a high-profile established star
with several hit records and film appearances to his name, as well as a
lucrative touring career. He had opened a racially integrated St.
Louis-based nightclub, called Berry's Club Bandstand, and was investing
in real estate.
[28]
But in December 1959, Berry was arrested under the
Mann Act after questionable allegations that he had sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old
Apache waitress, Janice Escalante,
[29] whom he had transported over state lines to work as a hat check girl at his club.
[30]
After an initial two-week trial in March 1960, Berry was convicted, fined $5,000, and sentenced to five years in prison.
[31]
Berry's appeal that the judge's comments and attitude were racist and prejudiced the jury against him was upheld,
[3][32] and a second trial was heard in May and June 1961,
[33] which resulted in Berry being given a three-year prison sentence.
[34]
After another appeal failed, Berry served one and one half years in prison from February 1962 to October 1963.
[35]
Berry had continued recording and performing during the trials, though
his output had slowed down as his popularity declined; his final single
released before being imprisoned was "
Come On".
[36]
"Nadine" and move to Mercury (1963–69)
Chuck Berry and his sister Lucy Ann (1965)
When Berry was released from prison in 1963, his return to recording and performing was made easier due to the
British invasion acts of the 1960s—most notably
the Beatles and
the Rolling Stones—having kept up an interest in his music by releasing cover versions of his songs,
[37][38] along with other bands reworking them, such as
the Beach Boys' 1963 hit "
Surfin' U.S.A.", based on Berry's "
Sweet Little Sixteen".
[39]
In 1964–65 Berry released eight singles, including three, "
No Particular Place to Go" (a humorous reworking of "School Days" concerning the introduction of car seat belts),
[40] "
You Never Can Tell", and the rocking "
Nadine",
[41]
which achieved commercial success, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard
100.
Between 1966 and 1969 Berry released five albums on the
Mercury label, including his first live album
Live at Fillmore Auditorium in which he was backed by the
Steve Miller Band.
[42][43]
While this was not a successful period for studio work,
[44] Berry was still a top concert draw. In May 1964, he did a successful tour of the UK,
[40]
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 non-negotiable contract was earning him a reputation as a
difficult yet unexciting performer.
[45]
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.
[46]
Back to Chess: "My Ding-a-Ling" to White House concert (1970–79)
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 which he had recorded in a different version on his 1968 LP
From St. Louie to Frisco as "My Tambourine".
[48]
The track became his only number one single.
A live recording of
"Reelin' And Rockin'" was also issued as a follow-up single that same
year and would prove to be Berry's final top-40 hit in both the US and
the UK.
Both singles were featured on the part-live/part-studio album
The London Chuck Berry Sessions which was one of a series of London Sessions albums which included other Chess 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 1979's
Rock It for
Atco Records, his last studio album to date.
[49]
In the 1970s Berry toured on the basis 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
has 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.
[50]
Among the many bandleaders performing a backup role with Berry were
Bruce Springsteen and
Steve Miller when each was just starting his career.
Springsteen related in the video
Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll
that Berry did not even give the band a set list and just expected the
musicians to follow his lead after each guitar intro.
Berry neither
spoke to nor thanked 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.
[43]
Berry's type of touring style, traveling the "oldies" circuit in the
1970s (where he was often paid in cash by local promoters) added
ammunition to the
Internal Revenue Service's
accusations that Berry was a chronic income tax evader.
Facing criminal
sanction for the third time, Berry pleaded guilty to tax evasion and
was sentenced to four months in prison and 1,000 hours of community
service—doing benefit concerts—in 1979.
[51]
Still on the road (1980–present)
Berry performing live in 1997
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.
[52]
Eric Clapton,
Etta James,
Julian Lennon,
Robert Cray and
Linda Ronstadt, among others, appeared with Berry on stage and 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 guitar Berry used on his early recordings.
[53]
In the late 1980s, Berry bought a restaurant in
Wentzville, Missouri, called
The Southern Air,
[54] and in 1990 he was sued by several women who claimed that he had installed a
video camera
in the ladies' bathroom. Berry claimed that he had the camera installed
to catch red-handed a worker who was suspected of stealing from the
restaurant. Though his guilt was never proven in court, Berry opted for a
class action settlement with 59 women. Berry's biographer, Bruce Pegg,
estimated that it cost Berry over $1.2 million plus legal fees.
[55]
It was during this time that he began using Wayne T. Schoeneberg as his
legal counsel. Reportedly, a police raid on his house did find
videotapes of women using the restroom, and one of the women was a
minor.
Also found in the raid were 62 grams of marijuana. Felony drug
and child-abuse charges were filed. In order to avoid the child-abuse
charges, Berry agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor possession of
marijuana.
He was given a six-month suspended jail sentence, two years'
unsupervised probation, and ordered to donate $5,000 to a local
hospital.
[56]
In November 2000, Berry again faced legal charges when he was sued by his former pianist
Johnnie Johnson,
who claimed that he co-wrote 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.
[57]
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
Virgin Festival in
Baltimore, Maryland.
[58]
He presently lives in
Ladue, Missouri, approximately 10 miles west of St. Louis.
[59]
During a New Year's Day 2011 concert in Chicago, Berry, suffering from exhaustion, passed out and had to be helped off stage.
[60]
He usually performs one Wednesday each month at
Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bar located in the
Delmar Loop neighborhood in
St. Louis.
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."
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame[61]
A pioneer of rock music, 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,
[2] and utilizing
guitar solos and
showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.
[1]
His records are a rich storehouse of the essential lyrical, showmanship
and musical components of rock and roll; and, in addition to
the Beatles and
the Rolling Stones, a large number of significant popular-music performers have recorded Berry's songs.
[2]
Though 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
Charlie Christian and
T-Bone Walker[2]
to produce a clear and exciting sound that many later guitar musicians
would acknowledge as a major influence in their own style.
[56]
Berry's showmanship has been influential on other rock guitar players,
[62] particularly his one-legged hop routine,
[63] and the "
duck walk",
[64]
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."
[65][66]
The rock critic
Robert Christgau considers him "the greatest of the rock and rollers,"
[67] while
John Lennon said, "if you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'."
[68] Ted Nugent said "If you don't know every Chuck Berry lick, you can't play rock guitar."
[69]
Among the honors Berry has received have been the
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984,
[70] the
Kennedy Center Honors in 2000,
[71] and being named seventh on
Time magazine's 2009 list of the 10 best electric guitar players of all time.
[72]
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.
[73]
In August 2014, Berry was made a
laureate of the
Polar Music Prize.
[74]
Berry is included in several
Rolling Stone
"Greatest of All Time" lists. In September 2003, the magazine named him
number 6 in their list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
[75]
This was followed in November of the same year by his compilation album
The Great Twenty-Eight being ranked 21st in the
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
[76]
The following year, in March 2004, Berry was ranked fifth out of "The Immortals – The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time".
[6][77]
In December 2004, six of his songs were included in the "
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", namely "
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).
[78] In June 2008, his song "Johnny B. Goode" ranked first place in the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time".
[79]
Source: Wikipedia.org
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