Chuck Berry

Charles Edward Anderson Berry (born October 18, 1926), better known as Chuck Berry, is an American guitarist, singer and composer. Berry was born in St. Louis, Missouri and was one of the first members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986). He received Kennedy Center Honors in 2000.

While there is debate about who recorded the first rock and roll record, Chuck Berry's early recordings, including "Maybellene" (1955) fully synthesized the rock and roll form, combining blues and country music with teenaged lyrics about girls and cars, with impeccable diction alongside distinctive electric guitar solos and an energetic duckwalking stage personality.

Most of his famous recordings were on Chess Records with pianist Johnnie Johnson from Berry's own band and legendary record producer Willie Dixon on bass, Fred Below on drums and Berry's guitar, arguably the epitome of an early rock and roll band.

Producer Leonard Chess recalled laconically:

"I told Chuck to give it a bigger beat. History the rest, you know? The kids wanted the big beat, cars, and young love. It was a trend and we jumped on it."

Berry's musical influences were Nat King Cole, smooth singer and master pianist, Louis Jordan, very much Chuck's model, and Muddy Waters, singer and guitarist vital in the transformation of Delta blues into Chicago blues and the man who introduced Berry to Leonard Chess at Chess Records.

Throughout his career Berry recorded both smooth ballads like "Havana Moon" and blues tunes like "Wee Wee Hours." but it was his own mastery of the new form that won him fame. He recorded more than thirty Top Ten records and his songs have been covered by hundreds of blues, country, and rock and roll performers.

Many of his hits are among the leading rock and roll anthems:

• "Johnny B. Goode", the autobiographical saga of a country boy who could "play a guitar just like ringing a bell", was chosen as one of the greatest achievements of humanity for the Voyager I collection of artifacts. The song was also prominently featured in the movie "Back to the Future."
• "Rock and Roll Music", one of the first tunes recorded by The Beatles
• "Sweet Little Sixteen", with new lyrics it became a hit for The Beach Boys as "Surfin' USA".
• "Roll Over Beethoven", a cheeky announcement if ever there was one.
• "School Days", whose chorus, "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll", was chosen as the title of a documentary concert film organized by Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones as his tribute to Chuck, who appears in the film with many others.
• "Let It Rock", fantasia of gambling railroad workers that lives up to the title, written under the pseudonym E. Anderson. Turning a line like "there's an off-schedule train coming two miles out" into a cry for Dionysian revelry is not a skill given to all singers.

His other hits, many of them novelty narratives, include:

• "Maybellene" -- car, girl, rival, jealousy -- based on the country tune, "Ida Red", performed originally by Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys.
• "Too Much Monkey Business", teenaged attitudes, predecessor to rap, "Same thing every day, gettin' up, goin' to school, no need of me complaining, my objection's overruled".
• "Brown-eyed Handsome Man", adult attitudes, "arrested on charges of unemployment"
• "Back in the USA", which inspired The Beatles' "Back in the USSR".
• "Nadine", the elusiveness of identity, strong lyrics, rhyming "coffee-colored Cadillac" with "campaign shouting like a Southern diplomat"
• "Memphis", unique beat, sweet story. Lonnie Mack and Johnny Rivers both built entire careers starting with this song.
• "My Ding-a-Ling", his only #1, a New Orleans novelty song that he had been singing for years and fortuitously included on a live recording in London in 1970.

Among his blues tributes:

• "Confessing the Blues", signature tune of the famed Kansas City, Missouri jazz band of Jay McShann
• "Merry Christmas, Baby", originally by Charles Brown
• "Things I Used to Do", by Louisiana's Guitar Slim

As a young man, he served a three-year term in reform school for attempted burglary. In December 1959 he had legal problems after he invited a 14-year-old Apache waitress he met in Mexico to work as a hat check girl at his nightclub (Berry's Club Bandstand) in St. Louis. After the girl was arrested on a prostitution charge, so was Berry, who stood accused under the Mann Act of transporting a minor across state lines for sexual purposes. Berry was convicted to five years in prison and fined $5,000. He was released in 1963 but his best years were now behind him.

His influence on rock and roll was profound, particularly on up and coming British acts of the 1960s. The Rolling Stones founded their style upon his. When Keith Richards inducted Chuck into the Hall of Fame, he said, "It's hard for me to induct Chuck Berry, because I lifted every lick he ever played!"

Chuck toured 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. Among the many bandleaders performing this backup role were Bruce Springsteen and Steve Miller. Springsteen backed Chuck again when he appeared at the "Concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" in 1995.

After travelling the oldies circuit in the 1970s, he was in trouble with the law again in 1979, when he pled guilty to income tax evasion and was sentenced to four months imprisonment and 1,000 hours of community service doing benefit concerts.

In the late 1980s, Berry owned a restaurant in Wentzville, Missouri, called The Southern Air. Berry also owns an estate in Wentzville called Berry Park. For many years, Berry hosted rock concerts throughout the summer at Berry Park. He eventually closed the estate to the public due to the riotous behavior of many guests.

Although in his late 70s, Berry continues to perform regularly, playing both throughout the United States and overseas. He performs one Wednesday each month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bar located in the Delmar Loop neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri.

Berry was also the subject of attention in the 1990s for his alleged voyeurism of female guests in his home.