Last year became notorious for the number of prominent people in music and other fields who died in the course of the year. While this year has not yet equaled the pace set early last year, earlier this month saw the death of another music great, Chuck Berry, one of the pioneers of rock & roll, indeed some would argue the greatest one of all. Berry’s longevity was impressive; he was 90 years old when he died, having outlived many of the rock musicians he influenced. This was even more surprising when you consider that he wasn’t even all that young at the birth of rock and roll, having turned 30 in 1956, just when the new genre was taking America by storm. By comparison, Elvis Presley was only 21 in 1956, when he was having his first major label hits, and the Beatles had already broken up by the time any of them reached 30. Indeed, even many years ago it amazed me to think that Chuck Berry was still around when so many of his successors were not.
Of the first generation of rock and rollers, including Presley, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly and more, Berry was perhaps the most representative of the sound of the new genre as it was born from a fusion of rhythm and blues with elements of country, and he was one of the few who wrote (or perhaps co-wrote, as I discuss below) all of his songs. His influence on the next generation of rock musicians was profound. The Rolling Stones were practically founded on a love of Chuck Berry, and John Lennon was quoted as saying “If you were going to give rock & roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry’.” Songs like “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Johnny B. Goode” are all time classics that have been covered countless times, and Berry’s performing style was imitated by many later musicians. Berry himself was supposedly pretty difficult to work with and in later years his shows were apparently rather erratic in quality, but that doesn't negate his impressive accomplishments. Those of his admirers who dealt with him certainly felt that way; Keith Richards commented that while he found Berry difficult, he put up with the aggravation because of all he owed to Berry.
In a previous post, I talked about an album of Chuck Berry covers that I put together many years ago, including ELO’s masterful fusion of “Roll Over Beethoven” and Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and the Beach Boys rewrite of “Sweet Little Sixteen” as “Surfin’ USA”, alongside covers by the Beatles, the Stones, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, Emmylou Harris, Paul McCartney and more. This time I’m listing my choices as the fifteen most essential recordings by Chuck Berry himself. Aside from the obvious hits, I’ve included some of my favorites among his relatively obscure tracks. Berry’s one major downside as a songwriter was that a lot of his singles sounded quite similar; indeed he sometimes reused the same music (listen to “School Days” and “No Particular Place to Go” or “Johnny B. Goode” and “Let It Rock” for some examples). But he also did songs that sounded nothing like the hits, such as the ominous sounding “Downbound Train” and the tragicomic calypso song “Havana Moon”, both of which combine great lyrics with interesting music. He also did songs in the classic blues style, with “Wee Wee Hours” being the example I’ve included here. The later “You Never Can Tell”, best known today for its use in the film Pulp Fiction, also has a musical flavor that is distinct from his earlier hits. Perhaps Berry’s greatest strength in comparison with other early songwriters was his lyrics; only Jerry Leiber of the Leiber and Stoller songwriting team could match him in those days. Among my favorite Berry lyrics are “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” and “Memphis, Tennessee” with its surprise twist at the end.
But as far as the music is concerned, though Berry is credited as sole composer on all his songs, there are a number of songs where that credit should be taken with a grain of salt. His breakout track, “Maybellene”, was based on the upbeat Bob Wills arrangement of the traditional song “Ida Red”, and his sole number one hit, the risqué novelty song “My Ding-a-Ling”, was originally written and recorded by Dave Bartholomew, who in turn took the melody from the 19th century song “Little Brown Jug” (Berry did substantially alter the lyrics and arrangement, but at most that should have be good for a co-writing credit). Finally, it’s possible that pianist Johnnie Johnson helped write the music for many of Berry’s songs, most of which he played on (in fact Berry’s career got started when Johnson recruited him to join a trio he was leading). As I wrote in my post on the autobiography of one of Berry’s biggest fans, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, Richards “asked Johnson about how songs like ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ and ‘Little Queenie’ were written. Johnson said Berry would come in with all the words and then Johnson and the band would play a blues format with Johnson laying out the sequence. Richards’ reaction was hey, that means you co-wrote the songs. He goes on to note that he and the drummer went back and looked at Berry’s songs and realized that they were all in piano keys.” Johnson, who died in 2005 a few months short of his 81st birthday, sued Berry over the credits for many of the songs (including “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Sweet Little Sixteen”) in 2000, but the case was dismissed because too much time had passed. Interestingly, one song Johnson himself said he didn’t even play on was “Johnny B. Goode”, which he said Berry had told him was a tribute to him (Johnnie Johnson), though it also had a lot of autobiographical elements about Berry himself. Regardless, Johnson’s role in the creation of Berry’s music should be remembered along with Berry himself.
Here, in order of release, is my list of essential Chuck Berry songs:
Maybellene (1955)
Wee Wee Hours (1955)
Downbound Train (1955)
Roll Over Beethoven (1956)
Brown Eyed Handsome Man (1956)
You Can’t Catch Me (1956)
Too Much Monkey Business (1956)
Havana Moon (1956)
School Days (1957)
Rock and Roll Music (1957)
Sweet Little Sixteen (1958)
Reelin’ and Rockin’ (1958)
Johnny B. Goode (1958)
Memphis, Tennessee (1959)
You Never Can Tell (1964)
