This is What YouTube (and Television!) is all About (Dear Dad!)

Since we've been talking about family, here's a letter from son to father...

Looked at My Watch and it was Quarter to Four-- (every time I look up there's another Berry more), and they roll

Here you've got four Berrys in the field of view-- Chuck, Charles, Charles, and Ingrid.  (In our family we spent a week or two trying to say the "family rosary" together, but we never got this many together to sing raunchy songs).  (Another video clip from the Pageant.)



I made my case on www.chudberry.com/forum-- but here's the thing: Someone needs to do another documentary and capture some of the best of these latter day Chuck Berry performances on professional guage videotape.  Maybe they could even get him to say a few things.  There's something magical about the way Chuck Berry is winding down his performance career.  It would be nice to see it preserved.

An Interesting Blog Post About "Brown Eyed Handsome Man"

Here's a link to a blog called Brown Eyed Handsome Man-- and the interesting post that evidently started it.  http://browneyedhandsomeman.blogspot.com/2007/04/1st-anniversary-it-was-brown-eyed.html

A Man Could Get Pretty Full of Himself Up There With 100 Girls and Women

But we have to remember-- he never did catch Nadine!  (I don't think.)



This is live from the Pageant-- an all ages (and evidently all female) show last Friday night.  Oh, to be 83!

People's Television: Three Generations, Chasing that Remarkable Girl

Here's a sweet version of "Nadine" from Chuck Berry's show last night at the Pageant in St. Louis (one of her biggest fans was there to hear it) with a solo by "Junior"-- Chuck Berry's grandson.  The middle Berrry, Charles, Jr., is playing rhythm and giving the thumbs up. 



As they say on real television-- stay tuned!

Worse Television! (Look What They Done To My Song, Ma!) (But Chuck Comes to Save the Day.)

Bad Television, Great Singing: Chuck Berry Fields Forever

(Wish I could Understand!)

Got a Chance-- I Ought to Take It!

Recently a good version of the T.A.M.I. show came out on DVD, and public television has been using a chopped up version to request donations. (It’s better than legions of Irish dancers). At the end of the show all the stars come back on stage to dance with each other and the go-go girls and boys. It’s sort of sweet. And as I recall (having watched only once) there’s Chuck Berry, who opened the show, dancing a bit shyly behind the crowd.

The notion of Chuck Berry dancing shyly is a hard concept for me. He's a great dancer—inventor of the “scoot” and the “duck walk,” a guy who did splits well into advanced older age-- and he has that rare ability to make you laugh just by moving—a sort of musical Charlie Chaplin, or Bill Cosby. Check out his little guitarless dance while his hero T-Bone Walker plays “Every Day I have the Blues” at Montreux.



Or some of those early movies and television shows where he was forced to lip sync. To make it interesting, and since he didn’t have to play guitar, he moved his whole body during those performances. They make lip-synching interesting.  (I can't embed this one, but it's worth clicking on the LINK.

But read his Autobiography (which you should do, despite the silly sections), and you find that he was shy in high school, where it took a car and a hit performance at the talent show to start getting the girls. That’s when some of the lyrics make sense.

The protagonist of “Little Queenie” knows he’s got to do something but spends most of the song thinking about just what exactly he’s gonna do

I got lumps in my throat
When I saw her comin down the aisle
I got the wiggles in my knees
When she looked at me and sweetly smiled
Well there she is again
Standin over by the record machine
Lookin' like a model
On the cover of a magazine
She's too cute
To be a minute over seventeen

Meanwhile I was thinkin'
She's in the mood
No need to break it
I got the chance. I oughta take it
If she can dance, we can make it
C'mon queenie: let's shake it!

Which sounds pretty good—until a verse or two later you find out that he’s still strategizing.

Meanwhile, I was stilllllll thinkin'
If it's a slow one
We'll omit it
If it's a rocker, that’ll get it
If it's good, she'll admit it
C'mon queenie, let's get with it!

Carol is pretty much the same. It starts out with a car ride, anticipation, and a description of the venue just like Hank Williams’ “Hey Good Lookin’,” or the “House of Blue Lights.”

Climb into my machine so we can cruise on out
I know a swingin' little joint where we can jump and shout
It's not too far back off the highway, not so long a ride
You park your car out in the open, you can walk inside
A little cutie takes your hat and you can thank her, ma'am
Every time you make the scene you find the joint is jammed

This sounds like Mr. Slick—some teenage Casanova-- until you get to the insecurities:

Oh Carol—don’t let him steal your heart away!
I’m gonna learn to dance if it takes me all night and day!

Chuck Berry somehow understood how scared teenagers are—all the chances they have to take every day, and all the new things they have to learn. Getting out on the dance floor means taking a risk.

Sounds so sweet
Had to take me a chance
Rose out of my seat
I just had to dance
Started moving my feet
While clapping my hands
And they kept on rockin”!

So tomorrow, I’m taking my Chuck Berry obsession to a new, healthier place by taking my guitar to a little spot on the edge of town where, for good or ill, I intend to climb on stage for the first time, plug in that old electric, and play a song or two with people I don’t know. I won’t play Chuck Berry. It’s a blues band. But, fingers willing, I’m sure a lick or two descendent from Chuck will come out at some point, the way they always do when guitars get plugged in anywhere on earth, from Montana to Mozambique.

But geeze-- it gives me wiggles in the knees just to think about it—like a teenager again.

Revisionist Song Singing

I turned on the news a year or so ago and saw a bunch of rural folk in Montana dancing in cowboy hats to "Johnny B. Goode."  No surprise there-- Chuck Berry has written some of the best "country" songs ever, and lots of country musicians have played his music.  (Hell-- the man wears a bolo tie most days!)  Here's an example-- the great Jerry Reed playing a medley that includes "Promised Land," "Johnny B. Goode," and others.

But here's the interesting twist.  If you read this blog, you'll know that I consider "Promised Land" a song of black liberation.  It was written during the civil rights struggle, a few months after the Birmingham church bombing.  It talks about the bus breaking down in Birmingham (home of Bull Conner, dogs, bombs and fire hoses) and "gettin' 'cross Mississippi clean."  (Chuck Berry's vague obsession with Mississippi comes up often in interviews.  See the great one posted a few weeks ago.)  But those lines about a "struggle" in Birmingham are nowhere to be found in this shortened version-- just as Waylon Jennings left the home run slugger and the guy busted for unemployment out of his version of "Brown Eyed Handsome Man."

Still-- these guys do great versions of great songs, and I wish I could tune into the Porter Wagner show today.

But as the kids are sayin' these days-- just sayin'!

Motor Got Hot and Wouldn't Do No More (My Visit to Berry Park)

In the spring and summer of 1978 I drove an ailing Fiat 128 across the country from Seattle to the East Coast and back. On the way home-- in hot summer-- I stopped in the small town of Wentzville, Missouri, and asked how to find Berry Park.

Many years prior I had read about it in Ramparts magazine. A writer had gone there for a promised interview. He was sent packing. According to the article the owner of the park, the great Chuck Berry, had met him for a moment, changed his mind about doing an interview, told him “Standing in the sun ain’t my shot,” refunded the guy’s money, and left.

And I'd actually been close one time before-- back in 1964, when my mother packed six kids into a 1963 Impala and drove us from Sacramento to Warrenton, Missouri to visit my oldest brother.  Another brother, Stevo, told me that "No Particular Place to Go" was a hit during that trip, and that it used to annoy my mother.  I wouldn't have known.  I was the littlest kid, and always stuck out in my own calabouse, way out in the kokomo, in a rearward facing back seat, half a mile from the car's little radio speaker.

Warrenton is just a few miles from the park.

I knew that Berry park and the Rampart's article because I was insane-- a “Mad Lad”-- obsessed with Chuck Berry since I had first seen him at a near empty hall in Sacramento 7 or 8 years prior to my Wentzville journey.   This was before the internet, and I had spent hours at the library searching through magazines and books for anything that I could find about the man.

My eyes are still quick to spot a five letter word starting with “C-h.”

When I drove to Wentzville I was hoping to find the commercial establishment described in Ramparts, where I recalled some mention of a cash register and a grill.  I was hoping for a “House of Blue Lights,” with “friers,” with “broilers,” with hamburgers sizzling “on an open grill,” and where, perhaps, (if I had the money,) I could get a “T-bone steak a la carty.”

I was hoping to see Chuck Berry walk past, tall and lanky in purple pants and a green paisley sports coat, silver bolo tie, white belt and white leather shoes.

In my heart of hearts I was hoping he’d recognize me as a long lost, genetically inferior child; or that he’d adopt me; or that, at the very least, he’d invite me into his studio to play guitar, elicit my advice about future recordings, and maybe show me a few licks.

But when I got to Wentzville no one was very sure what Berry Park was or where to find it. I remember at a gas station near the interstate one attendant consulted another.

"The rock singer's place?"

He pointed vaguely. "Down that road a couple miles, I think."

“Down the Road a Piece,” he might have said.

This wouldn’t happen now, I’m sure-- but this was 1978, a few years after Chuck Berry’s surprising 1972 last hit record, and a few years before he’d become a national landmark.

After a couple more stops for directions (I remember a little general store with warm Coke and bags of food and a man who drawled “The negro singer?” before pointing the way) I found: it across the road from a gun club.

The “Promised Land!”


There was a chain link fence and granite marker (a tombstone) with the words:

Berry Park

Founded August 15, 1957

By the Family

For the People.

I was hoping I was one of the people, but the park didn't look very commercial.  No Coca Cola in the offing. No friers. No broilers. No juke box.

I remember a long, straight blacktop drive, and flat land, and a house painted red brick red, and further right, some low buildings. 

Some irrational part of me was still hoping I could hang out a while, meet Mr. Berry or at lest see him-- as so I pulled in the drive and motorvated slowly maybe half the distance to the house thinking:

"This is not a commercial establishment."

That's when the “motor got hot and wouldn’t do no more.”

It was, as I said, a Fiat; an old one; and it was something like 95 degrees and 90 percent humidity.

I turned the key again and again, panicking, beginning to drip sweat, my battery fading, my dignity disappearing, when finally a woman came out of the house 50 yards away.

"What do you want?" she asked.

I was lame.

"Is he here?" I asked.

"He's not," she said. I probably stood there looking dumb.

"You need to leave."

I tried starting the car again but that wasn't going to happen-- so I so I put the back of my shoulder to the B-pillar and pushed the little car back out the driveway. I parked it (fittingly) next to the tombstone. I’m not sure how long I was out there, but only long enough to let the motor cool down. 

Then off to a KOA in the flat grasslands of Missouri where I set up my pup tent on the hot grass and slept off my shame.

Chuck Berry is my idol. I told him so when I was 14 or 15. I was a late comer to the music. I wasn’t even born when Maybellene was out cruising and causing trouble. My Chuck Berry was a middle-aged guitar virtuoso and showman who traveled alone, making do with pickup musicians, still making good records, still making people laugh and dance, still selling out small halls and concert venues.

His draw is mysterious.  He dipped deeply into the Mississippi and pulled up what makes America good and interesting. There’s blues. There’s country. There’s a bit of jazz. There’s youth. There’s experience. There’s black, white, Hispanic. There's raunch.  There's humor.  There’s stubbornness and trouble. There’s family.

This blog is about Chuck Berry. Not his life story, which he has told and others have documented. This is just about one fan's appreciation.

Got a Chance, I Ought to Take It (Don't Bother Me, Leave Me 'Lone!)

In his book “Long Distance Information: The Recorded Legacy of Chuck Berry,” author Fred Rothwel tells a charming and typical story of bumping into his idol. He shows up at a west London theater hoping to get a ticket and is dejected to see a “sold out” sign. Then:

“[I]n the corner of my eye I spotted a long cherry red Mercedes hidden in the shadows of the flyover. The limo had dark glass but the side window was down and through it the familiar face of Chuck Berry could be seen busy videoing the façade, no doubt very pleased with the ‘Sold Out’ sign.”

Rothwell ponders what to do or say, (“I got my chance, I ought to take it”) when suddenly “the glass slid down noiselessly to reveal a smiling Mr. Berry. ‘How come you are in the right place at the right time?”’ he asked. I explained my lack of admission and muttered some banal and totally inadequate words of appreciation for the enjoyment his music had provided through the years, but all too soon the audience was over.

“I turned to walk away, then realized I hadn’t shaken my main man’s hand. Without a second’s thought to cause me to falter, I thrust my hand into the car’s dark interior and wished him well. My hand was enveloped in a huge grip, by the hand that had written the lyrics of Roll Over Beethoven, by the fingers that had fashioned those immortal introductory notes to Johnny B. Goode. I drove 40 miles home with a smile on my face.”

I love this story for two reasons. First, it captures the spirit of my own tiny and fleeting interactions with the man who’s been my hero for a lifetime (although Rothwell’s encounter seems downright soulful compared to any of my blink-like interactions); but secondly, and more importantly, because he appreciates the significance of the event—his hand “enveloped” by “the hand that had fashioned those immortal introductory notes…”.

Chuck Berry is no mere celebrity. He’s not just a rock star. He really is one of the immortals—a regular man, with more than a few flaws, I’m sure, who used his considerable talents and genius to fundamentally change everything.

And he walks among us. You can see him play, in a small room, for $30, every month in St. Louis—no small matter. Or you might find him in an airport, or at a restaurant, or under the “flyover.”

Google “I met Chuck Berry”-- and you’ll find examples everywhere of people meeting and interacting with Chuck Berry, at airports, backstage, from the foot of the stage, in cars, after shows. Here are a few:

http://fumbleontheweb.com/archive/memories/blog_chuckberry.htm

http://waronjunk.blogspot.com/2006/01/meeting-chuck-berry.html

http://livinginstereo.com/?p=265

Of course, since this is (almost) all about me, I have to tell about my own fleeting interactions with the man.

At South Lake Tahoe, in about 1971, I saw him leaning on the side of the stage during a break between sets. He was smoking a cigarette talking to a man who was considerably older than me. I was a skinny 15 year old with extremely long hair. I approached and stuck out my hand. He shook it. All I could manage was stupidity.

“You’re my idol,” I yelled, above the noise of the crowd or the opening act.

He nodded. I moved on—blessed like someone who has touched holiness, and a little embarrassed by my lack of anything useful to say.

###

Three years later I am in Monterey, California, at an outdoor concert. I’m at the foot of the stage. It’s a helluva show—luxuriously long, but restricted to blues, jams, and the big hits. I scribble a note that reads “Play Got it and Gone.” It’s a song from Bio, the album he’d just released. Chuck Berry leans down, takes the note, repeats “Got it and Gone,” and laughs. He plays more of the big hits.

Ah well. I tried!

###

The next time I am at the Seattle Paramount. It’s the late 1980s. I’m with my former wife. We are in the first row. My ex-wife is a rare dark face in a sea of pasty Seattle light ones. During a blues number Chuck Berry spies her, locks eyes, smiles, and does a little dance that appears intended just for her.

Okay, it’s not an interaction with me-- but I get my kicks where I can.

###

Ten or so years later I’m at the Seattle EMP, this time carting along my children. The show is a surprise. Berry’s been brought in to replace an ailing Jerry Lee Lewis. We get there early, and as we approach the gaudy museum, a black Lincoln Town Car exits an underground garage and pauses right in front of us. I know all about these Town Cars. I know this could be a Rothwell moment! I grab my kids’ hands and rush forward to see a familiar chin pushed forward beneath a captain’s hat, turning this way and that, trying to figure out which way to turn. “It’s Chuck Berry!” I tell my kids. They squeal. We lurch forward towards the car. It lurches away.

I remember my lame words at Lake Tahoe. I figure it’s probably just as well.

###

Then we’re inside at the foot of the stage, and Chuck Berry is singing “Wee Wee Hours.” It’s the first time I’ve seen him play it and I’m mouthing the words, entranced. He looks down, sees me moving my lips, and says to me, from stage: “You’re remembering someone, aren’t you?”

The truth is, at that particular point in my life, I was doing my darndest to forget someone—but that’s another story—and who cares? The real point is that my hero of 35 years took fleeting notice and spoke to me.

Later Gemma, then 6 or 7, speaks up loudly during “My Ding-a-Ling.” A light had gone off in her head. I’m not sure how or why. “He’s singing about his penis!” she says, loudly, in a gruff, matter of fact voice.  I still don't know how she knew that-- but it was funny.  If he heard it (and she had a great big voice) he ignored that one.

###

Then in 2009, my new youngest got his chance. He knew I was going off to St. Louis to see Chuck Berry at Blueberry Hill. One day I went to pick him up at preschool and he gave me a colorful drawing of a face with a guitar. He had somehow written “CHUCK” on it, but if I recall it was written completely backwards, as if in a mirror. I carried it to Blueberry Hill along with a photograph that I had taken at the Paramount a couple of decades prior. After the show, Chuck Berry set up a funky little metal folding chair in the stage doorway and a line of fans took turns meeting him. I didn’t rehearse any words. I was nearly as speechless as I was the first time I shook his hand. I’d thought for years that “idol” was a silly word, so I told him “Man, you’re my hero!” He signed my photograph, and then was taking the picture that Rafferty had drawn. “This is from a four year old boy in Seattle who likes your music,” I said. He was about to sign it, and then stopped.

“Oh, this is for me,” he said, with just a hint of a smile. And he put it down next to his chair.

I once again failed to thank him, or let him know how much he means to me—to us. I have no haiku to express that thought.

But I think he knows.

Let's Build a Monument to Thousands of Nights on the Road

The official Chuck Berry website ( www.chuckberry.com/forum) has a very good list of all of Chuck Berry's recent appearances. Morton Reff's books-- The International Chuck Berry Directory-- has an amazing list of television performances and international appearances. And there's a huge listing all of Chuck Berry's appearances at http://www.chuckberry.de/.  But hundreds or thousands of one nighters here in the United States remain sealed in our memories, or on ticket stubs, or old newspaper clippings. Given the beautifully typed list Chuck shows (I think during an interview with Robbie Robertson) there's probably some very detailed information available in Wentzville, but we can't count on seeing that until (we can hope) it arrives at the archives of some museum many years hence. SO-- I'm wondering if fans can't resurrect history by sending the dates we know to some central spot. It would be a cool thing. A lot of us have spent our lives watching and listening to Chuck Berry and have indelible memories of it. It's certifiably crazy, but it would be cool to know the dates-- and just putting them in one place would be a testament to one man's real work-- getting on stage night after night for 50 years and just killing it.

If you've got a verified date, send it to me at goheadon(at)rocketmail.com and I'll trying getting it to someone who'll put it in the permanent record.

Picture by "Sky."

Charlie and Chuck

It's interesting that Chuck Berry scholar Morten Reff says that "I grew up with swing jazz from my father’s collection. People like Benny Goodman (Charlie Christian), Lionel Hampton, Fats Waller (Al Casey) and Eddie Condon caught my attention" since Chuck Berry himself often cites Christian as an influence, and has recorded the Christian, Goodman, Hampton, Jaquette number "Flyin' Home" a number of times.  I got to Christian and Goodman through Chuck Berry.  Berry got to himself and Reff got to Berry the other way around.

My favorite version of "Flyin' Home" is the one on "Back Home" that Chuck Berry recorded with Bob Baldori on harmonica and probably Lafayette Leake on piano.  A couple of writers have said it is not the Goodman/Christian classic, but that's definitely where it's got its roots, and you can hear traces of that original 1930s recording if you listen close.  The most fascinating example, for me, is near the end of both versions.  In the original, a clarinet and some other instrument (another clarinet?) repeat a little riff that nearly knocked me off my couch with its familiarity the very first time I heard it.  It was deja vue all over agin, with Benny Goodman playing a Chuck Berry riff about 15 year prior to Maybellene!  I don't know how to introduce a soundbite, so I'll try to imitate it with typed scat (the biological definition best describes my system of musical notation):

baa- doo-bop, da-bop, 

bop-a-dop-a-daba-daba

      doo-bop, da-bop,   

bop-a-dop-a-daba-daba

I'm sure you recognize the riff! 

Rignt?

(As I often say-- learn to read and write music, kids!)

Anyway, change those clarinets to guitar notes, and add a little rock and roll punch, and you've got a fine Chuck Berry lick.  If only I could pull a sound bite and show you.

But recently, listening to the "Back Home" version of "Flyin' Home," I realized that Chuck Berry never forgot where the lick came from, and put it back into the song, on guitar, at the end, just where it fits into the original.  (I haven't gone back to listen to versions he recorded for Mercury, but I wouldn't be surprised to find it there, as well.)

I do know this: in those Mercury recordings, including the Live version at the Filmore, Mr. Berry stuck more closely to the original tune-- dee-dee bop, diddley-diddley-deedie-bop, etc.  On the "Back Home" version Baldori's harmonica takes over the lead and changes the melody of the song (which is built on the "rhythm changes.")  But if you listen close, especially towards the begining, you'll here that Chuck Berry is indeed fingering "da-de-da, dudly-dudly-deedly-bop" just like he did at the Filmore for at least some small portion of the song.  Then: they take it home, in the most delightful way, with cascading piano rills, great guitar chords, and beautiful interchanges between the two.  What a song!  I put it up there with "Deep Feeling," "Rockin' at the Philharmonic," and "Woodpecker" as one of Chuck Berry's all time finest instrumentals--

And They Say He Doesn't Play In Tune

Watch him tune up during the intro to Johnny B. Goode from September '09 at BBH.  This is a great, energetic performance that I found on a great youtube channel--  http://www.youtube.com/user/busseybootlegger

An Interview-- Good One!

How can I stop when people like Doug send me stuff like this???



But wait-- there's more!



Dang-- good stuff!

Crazy Heart

I don't see many movies at the theater, but I knew when I saw this preview that I'd like Crazy Heart.  We saw it last night.  It's a very good movie, with a great performance by Jeff Bridges and a powerful story, but I think CB fans might appreciate those early scenes of a fallen star and songwriter working with local pickup bands on a tough circuit of small bars and bowling alleys to keep his career going.  Chuck Berry never got this low, but what I admire about him is how he kept working through thick and thin and up and down-- and how, when he found the right musicians on that stage, he'd pull musical rabbits from his hat.  In 1971 I saw him play a sad show with an uninspired group of musicians to a small crowd.  I loved it-- but part of the power was the hurt in his eyes looking out into an empty hall.  Then, a few months later, a great band of local musicians and a small town audience bursting the seams of a former grocery store in a show that kept going and going until it wore me out.  In the opening scenes of Crazy Heart Bad Blake plays to a dozen or so folks at a bowling alley lounge.  The backup band is made up of game young guys.  No rehearsal.  He whispers chord changes as the song opens: Wing it, boys.  Drunk, he barely makes it through the show.  Then he stumbles into another bar and finds middle aged Wesley playing good piano and sits down to jam in the afternoon.  "It's been a long time since I've worked with a good piano player," he says, grinning.  The details are all wonderful.  The musicians are real.  The guitars are scratched and worn and loved.  There's a scene oddly reminiscent of "Hail! Hail!" about a beloved amp and sound and a stand off with the man at the controls.  (In Crazy Heart victory is complete when the man relents.)  There's something amazing to me about the itinerant musician struggling to make a living despite massive talent.  It's only the opening to the human tale that follows-- but unlike most music movies, Crazy Heart seems to get it right.  Go see it.

Down Came a Tear from his Happiness

Here's another really nice write up about the event at Sumner High. Back in the classroom! This one quotes Berry's son as saying he'd never seen his dad happier than at the event, and has the father of Rock and Roll running out the door with "hurry home drops on his cheeks" (or something like that!) 

Wayyyyyyy After School Session!

Chuck Berry sang (at) his old alma mater the other day, and got an honorary diploma.  Check it out HERE.  (There's a video link).   There are some GREAT pictures of the event here.

What's so cool about this is that Chuck Berry started his singing career at a talent show at Sumner High singing, I think, a Joe Turner number.  (I'll have to go check on that.)  I wonder if it was the same stage? 

When the teacher was gone
That's when we'd have a ball
We used to dance and sing
All up and down the hall
We had a portable radio

We was ballin' the jack

But we'd be all back in order

When the teacher got back

Oh Baby Doll

When bells ring out the summer free

Oh Baby Doll

Will it end for you and me?

We'll sing the old alma mater

And think of things that used to be

Chuck Berry in Hawaii, Part One

So I just got back from Hawaii, and I've decided to do a few pieces on Chuck Berry and Hawaii, so I googled some, and found this cool entry"

"The day ended with a Fourth of July celebration on the beach -- a magnificent dinner followed by a surprise performance from Academy member Chuck Berry. The student delegates cheered with delight as the Father of Rock and Roll mounted the seaside stage, placed for the occasion on a gleaming white sand dune, framed by a beautiful Hawaiian sunset. Still vigorous and mischievous in his 80s, Berry tore his way through some of his signature hits, "Roll Over Beethoven," "Round and Round," and "Rock and Roll Music." Academy members and student delegates soon crowded the illuminated dance floor, twisting and twirling to the original rock classics, played by the man who wrote them and first made them famous. Rolling Stone magazine has recently named Berry's tune "Johnny B. Goode" the "Greatest Guitar Song of All Time." When Berry and the band ripped into this number, the crowd overflowed onto the stage, and the bandstand was soon jammed with gleeful dancers. Just as the song reached a furiously rocking climax, spectacular fireworks erupted over the sea, lighting the sky with brilliant colors. When Chuck Berry finally left the stage, to a well-deserved ovation, the patriotic strains of John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" filled the air, and a marching line, led by Frank McCourt and Sally Field, jubilantly circled the stage. For visitors to the United States, the occasion provided an incomparable insight into the irrepressible American spirit; for U.S. citizens, it was as glorious a Fourth of July as one could ever hope to see."

That excerpt and photo come from this site: http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/pagegen/newsletter/2008/  When Chuck Berry is followed by Frank McCourt, and when Bill Russell and Desmond Tutu are in attendance, too, life is pretty interesting.  (I don't think this club would let me be a member!) 

It seems, at first glance, like an amazing organization.  I'll have to learn more.  And I'm glad that our man is a member.   Search and you'll find that he has appeared there frequently, including this time with another favorite of mine.  http://www.achievement.org/newsletter/2003/news-12.pdf

Anyway-- when I've caught up with other stuff, I'll go back to Blues for Hawaiians, and Surfing Steel, and see what Mr. Berry has to say about Hawaii.

Aloha

Blues for Hawaiians - Surfing Steel

In continuing my examination of all things Hawaiian, I finally have to disagree with Fred Rothwell.  In his liner notes to "You Never Can Tell: The Complete Chess Recordings 1960 - 1965" he calls "Surfin' Steel "a superior version of 'Deep Feeling' from three years earlier." 

He's half right, half wrong. 

First, there's nothing superior to "Deep Feeling."  "Deep Feeling" is up there with anything Chuck Berry ever did.  I remember a friend who heard "Deep Feeling " on a blues radio show in the early 1970s.  This friend didn't really know Chuck Berry and was a bit contemptuous of my interest.  Then he heard "Deep Feeling."  Then he heard who played it.  And he changed his mind.  "Deep Feeling" really is deep.  For Chuck Berry blues it's matched only by "Wee Wee Hours" and "Have Mercy Judge," and the three cuts would have made Chuck Berry a somebody in the blues world all by themselves.

But I finally really listened to these two "Hawaiian" "Surfin'" songs, playing them one after the other instead of miles apart on different disks and I can report that "Surfin' Steel" is:

A superior version of "Blues for Hawaiians."   "Blues for Hawaiians" is almost like a demo-- with the piano doing simple chords throughout, and a screech of reverb in the middle.  "Surfing Steel" is more refined, and structured a little differently.  But they are pretty much the same tune.

But when it comes to the blues, both cuts pale compared to the shatteringly deadly version Chuck Berry plays at the end of "Hail! Hail!"  ("Blues for Missourians?")  as the cameral flies in over the dirty swimming pool into the empty clubhouse. 

My view: while "Deep Feeling" and "Mad Lad" stand apart, the other three (including that stark live one that ends "Hail! Hail!") are versions of the same tune.  (And those strawberries-- pre-genetic engineering!)

Blues for Hawaiians

I'm on vacation-- and learning how not to blog every day.  But yesterday we stopped at the Hanalei Community Center and saw/heard Doug McMaster play Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar with his wife accompanying him on ukelele.  If you're in Kauai on a Friday or Sunday afternoon, you should plunk down $20 and check it out.  This is a beautiful, homespun version of guitar that shares a lot with fingerpicking by people like Mississippi John Hurt and Elizabeth Cotton and the open tunings of people like Muddy Waters.  Believe it or not, there's a bit of commonality with our man Chuck Berry, too, with lots of double string picking on the "lead" parts.  Anyway, it's beautiful stuff-- and McMaster is well named, since he's certainly mastered it.  Check out their website here.

Chuck Berry's Missing Album: Got it and Gone!

One of the problems with Chuck Berry albums is that they tend to be a hodgepodge. In the early days, when the backup musicians were all Chess stalwarts, that didn’t make a big difference. But later it did. San Francisco Dues had a couple of older songs thrown in that didn’t quite fit. Bio had music from two different bands—a group of local St. Louis musicians, and musicians from Elephant’s Memory.

Now that I’ve heard what was actually recorded (on the wonderful "Have Mercy" package), I would love to step back in time and fix a few things—starting after The London Sessions.

Instead of mixing and matching on Bio, I would have issued an interim album between London Sessions and Bio. It would have been a bit of a mish-mash—but I think it would have been a game changer of sorts. The list? 

(Side One) (Remember, this was going to be an LP)

Got it and Gone
Annie Lou*
Me and My Country*
South of the Border (live)*
Sue Answer

(Side Two)

Roll ‘em Pete (live single edit)
Blues #1*
A Deuce

(The songs with an * were never released until now.)

This would have been a good follow-up to London Sessions.

For people who first learned of Chuck Berry from that half live album, there’s one half-live song—“Roll ‘em Pete.”

For people who liked the sexy humor of “Ding-a-Ling” and “Reelin’,” there’s a funny, live version of “South of the Border.”

For people who want to hear Chuck Berry do something completely different, there’s the solo version of “Annie Lou.” As I’ve said, I think this finger-picked Chuck Berry blues would have expanded the conception of who and what Chuck Berry is. 

For grown-ups generally—“Blues # 1,” a dynamite instrumental with two keyboards that both duel and complement each other. I’d love to know who’s playing. My guess is that it isn’t Johnnie Johnson on the acoustic—there are none of his frilly rills. And the electric piano is biting. Is this Baldori and Leake teaming up again? Who knows—but it’s good enough that Chuck Berry spends most of the cut happily playing sideman.

My album would have put “A Deuce” with the songs it was recorded with, instead of squeezing it onto a much later album. It would have a good rocker in “Got it and Gone.” It would have the funny “Sue Answer.” And it would have the interesting “Me and My Country.”

Only Chuck Berry knows exactly what this song is about. It almost sounds like the song he wrote to tell the world he was about to start cheating on his taxes! (He doesn’t want to buy, beg or steal, but he’ll do what he has to to give her what she wants). But it starts out absolutely nailing it with the lines:

I love my country
Its aims and intent
I believe in the system
As they have it in print

That’s a pretty profound line, since it’s easier to believe in the U.S. Constitution as written than the way we often abuse it.

Anyway—it’s close to being a really good song, and although I have a bit of trouble following its logic, it’s good enough, and interesting enough, that it should have come out. And the two blues DEFINITELY should have come out.

So there. And then, with Bio, you put on the two perfectly serviceable songs from the Elephant’s Memory sessions that were never realeased until now--"One Sixty Nine AM," and "Roll Away"-- and you have an album as cohesive as—Back Home.

Ah, but nobody asked me.  Which means I got to experience the pleasure of delay time.

Rhythm & Blues for Hawaiians

I'm going there, so I probably needed this...

Of Course...

I've been paying attention first to all the stuff we've never heard-- but the real beauty of this collection is that it brings back the material from albums like Back Home, San Francisco Dues, The London Sessions, Bio, and Chuck Berry, and puts it all up for reconsideration.  I've always loved those albums.  They were part of my original "discovery" of Chuck Berry.  But recently I played them more in memory than on disk because my copies were battered, worn and a bit troublesome (I hardly use a turntable anymore).  But today I drove around town listening to "Flying Home," and "Fish and Chips," and "Oh Louisiana," and it made my commute that much sweeter.  Even some of the songs I thought I no longer cared for ("Festival?"  "I'm a Rocker") were suddenly new again.  (When have I heard them in my car?  Some of these-- never!)  A few weeks ago I said I didn't like the album called Chuck Berry that much.  But I'm reconsidering-- especially having heard some of the stuff that was recorded but wasn't put on the record-- like "Jambalaya," and "Dust My Broom."  My brain is rolling all over this stuff.  I ponder the way I would have packaged it.  (I would have put two more songs with Elephant's Memory on Bio and slid some of the small group stuff to another record.

In other words-- Have Mercy is a blessing.

Don't the Music Intrigue You When the Drummer Gets Proud

Wow!  Double Wow!  Just moments ago the Drummer from Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs-- the "fifties" band that backed Chuck Berry at my own personal favorite Chuck Berry concert back in 1974 just added to my old post on that show with vivid memories of his own.  (You know he's good because he survived the Chuck Berry "no-setlist, you-guess-the-key"experience with good memories, dignity intact,  and even got a handshake from our man mid-beat!  And he tells me there are PICTURES from that show on the Butch Whacks website!  Wow!  Find his comments, and my original post by clicking right here!  Thank you Mr. Moore!  Please-- be in touch!  (And lo!  And behold!  Here are the pictures!)

(Maybe a little tiny!)

 http://www.butchwhacks.com/history/pop_yb70p3.html

More About Have Mercy

After 40 years and a couple weeks I finally got my copy of “Have Mercy” and I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet. I haven’t had time. But I keep jumping here and there, sampling the stuff I’ve never heard, and listening to a few old favorites. Here are some notes from memory.

First—the package is great. There are notes by Fred Rothwell, and several photographs I’ve never seen, including a couple “new” ones from the cravat and paisley jacket photographs that once graced the centerfold of the original London Sessions album. (There’s one of them here where I’d wager he’s just coming up from the "splits" photo shown on the cover. He's snapping his right fingers.)  But my favorite might be a color shot of CB in headphones that hearkens (me) back to my original Chuck Berry centerfold—old black and white shots from inside The Golden Decade showing CB at work in the studio. There’s something sort of cool about seeing Chuck Berry sitting down with his guitar. It’s a vision of Johnny B. Goode, himself-- and I think he should add it to his stage show—a chair, a tree, a railroad track, and a few quiet moments of ballads and blues suitable for an elder statesman of rock and roll.

Which brings us to “Annie Lou.” Fred Rothwell game me a preview of this one, describing it as an intimate blues number—but I had no idea how much I’d like it. The song itself is run of the mill blues—not “Wee Wee Hours,” not “Have Mercy Judge,” not “Stormy Monday” or “How Blue Can You Get.” But the performance is special, if only because it’s a look at and a listn to a Chuck Berry we never get to see or hear. You can’t second guess a genius, but I wish he’d have slowed down his shows once in a while to pull something like this out of his hat, or a few ballads, or whatever moved him. In this cut he plays blues the old fashioned way—alone, just him and his guitar—and it’s beautiful. He was always just a step from the Delta anyway. The opening riff of “Wee Wee Hours,” with its bass bottoming out on a low D, is pure Muddy Waters Delta Blues done East St. Louis nightlife style. Here the nightlife is gone—and if it isn’t delta blues, it’s Wentzville livingroom blues, the sort of thing that I imagine Chuck Berry fingering when there are no fans around. It’s, to me, the reason to buy this collection.

Of course, there are a few duds. Sometimes “complete” means too much. Chuck Berry always seemed to want to set up the joke of “My Ding-a-Ling” by playing it straight as album filler. Thus the old “My Tamborine,” and thus, I guess, the studio version of “Ding-a-Ling” from the sessions that brought us “Tulane” and “Have Mercy Judge.” Have mercy, indeed. It’s one thing to hear “Ding-a-Ling” on the lengthy live cut from the Coventry concert that became London Sessions, but it’s torture to hear it in the studio. I didn’t make it through the entire cut before starting a tradition that will endure by hitting the forward button.

But there are other songs from those sessions that are worth hearing. A couple versions of the instrumental “Gun” show that they picked the right one for the album. One is too fast. The other is too slow. The album cut is just right.

And there’s a song called “untitled instrumental” that seems like an early version of the song that would become “Some People.” There’s an uncredited organ that I assume is played by Bob Baldori—a rare thing on a Chuck Berry record, and nice to hear. And although I don’t think too unkindly about the lyrics to “Some People” (he probably wrote them between sessions) the song works well as an instrumental.

Another “new” one from the Back Home sessions is “That’s None of Your Business.” It’s a good song with a vaguely weird and cluttered arrangement. I think if they had tried a few more times they might have had something—but it’s not my business to say.

That’s all for now. I’ve got to get to work. And I’ve got to listen a lot more. But there’s a lot more to listen to: a couple of decent cuts from the sessions with Elephant’s Memory. An early version of "Poem" from San Fancisco Dues-- this one called "My Pad" and done without accompaniment.  A surprisingly clunky bunch of live songs from the Coventry concert that produced a couple of classics. Some interesting, previously unreleased songs from the sessions that became the 1975 album Chuck Berry, including, notably, Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya” and Robert Johnson’s “Dust My Broom.” I wish they’d been included on that album.

Annie Lou... FINALLY!!!!!!

So it finally arrived, and I went straight for pay dirt—a blues “Annie Lou” performed (I think!) solo by Chuck Berry.

Annie Lou
You know how much I love you, Annie Lou
Annie Lou
You know how much I love you, Annie Lou
What makes you treat me, treat me
The way you do?

Maybe it was just a warm up, or a demo. But this one should have been released. It would have broadened the conception of who and what Chuck Berry is.

There’s nothing here but a quiet guitar—I think just one—and a quiet voice (you know the one).

I once wrote that it is a straight shot from Robert Johnson to Chuck Berry. Well—here’s proof. This is Chuck Berry as a traditional bluesman—or perhaps just Chuck Berry in his own living room, which might be more or less the same thing. It opens with the blues intro that Chuck Berry used often in the early 1970s-- i.e., "Mean Old World," "Have Mercy Judge."   I’ve listened three or four times since ripping the package open and can’t tell if there’s overdubbing, or if Chuck Berry is actually finger picking, or if (as I suspect) he’s doing all this himself in one take with his thumbs and a pick—but however it’s done it’s beautiful-- with a quiet guitar bass line punctuated by Chuck Berry’s patented double string blues riffs and a searing riff or two right out of Lightning Hopkins.

It’s amazing to me that this one (along with “Have Mercy Judge,” and “Mean Old World”) wasn’t included on the misguided release called "Blues," because, like “Wee Wee Hours” and those others, it is one of Chuck Berry’s most authentic blues recordings ever.

And this one is special because it is Chuck alone, in a way I've never heard him-- just him and his guitar.  It's like those quiet moments in the film "Hail! Hail!" but this time it's blues instead of ballads.  I love it.

I haven’t listened to anything else on the four disk package yet—but this song is worth the wait, and worth the $90 I paid to get the records sent to me by snail mail.

More later.  Got to ride in my automobile and listen to the rest of this set!

Come On!

Remember Bob Margolin and "Delay Time?"

"The note would come a little delayed. In the course of a fraction of a second the listener subliminally misses the note, begs for it, and then is satisfied."

I got my first Chuck Berry albums in the early 1970s.  I have a soft spot for that stuff.  I have a hankering for the stuff he recorded then that I've never heard. 

But talk about delay time.  I ordered it from Hip-O Select weeks ago, hoping to be the first one on my block to hear it. 

Still not here.

Down the halls and into the Street

"Between about 1940 and 1960, one high school in St. Louis produced a Wimbledon champion, two Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, an Emmy-winning actor and a famous comedian and activist."

That's how the story begins.  But the halls where Chuck Berry, Tina Turner, Arthur Ashe and Dick Gregory were ballin' the jack might soon close.  Here's the Story.

(Picture by Peter K.)

AAAAAAAAHHHHHRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG

Dear Hip O Select Customer:


We regret to inform you that there is a delay in receiving Chuck Berry's "Have Mercy- His Complete Chess Recordings 1969-1974". We hope to have this item in our warehouse by mid-week and will begin shipping orders as soon as the product arrives. You will receive an shipment notification within 24 hours once the orders have been processed.

Sincerely,