Blogspot Took My Song!

A song I wrote when I was 18 or 19 and recorded a week or two ago.  It's one of the things blogspot took away.  They said they'd put it back, but they didn't, so I'm putting it back.  It has nothing to do with Chuck Berry, but I like this song.  Pretty smart kid for a kid.

Bypassed Rock Hill

I always figured the song "Promised Land" made more than passing reference to the civil rights struggle.  Here's a great article quoting Howard DeWitt and making the same case.  Remember that the Greyhound bypasses Rock Hill.  Here's a bit of history I didn't know (but that Chuck knew) about the first Freedom Ride.

In 1961 a group of seven black and six white people, including John Lewis, left Washington, D.C. for New Orleans on two buses, a Trailways bus and a Greyhound bus. The group made it through Virginia and North Carolina without incident.

At the Greyhound bus station in Rock Hill, South Carolina, the group encountered violence. A mob of twenty attacked the group, and John Lewis was the first to be hit as he approached the white waiting room. 

Read more about it HERE.

Fate

I threatened to shut down the blog a week or so ago-- then Blogspot shut itself down and stole my most recent posts.  Gone my song.  Gone my farewell.  So maybe it's fate.  I'll leave it up for a while, and try not to think too much about it.

Ah-rested on Charges of Stealing Intros

I didn't know this Dwayne Eddy song until tonight, when I heard "The Quarrymen" do it in a corny John Lennon biopic.  The beginning sounds like a modified intro to Chuck's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man."



(Here's Chuck.)



And here are the Beach Boys, who ripped off both, modifying the stolen intro and tacking it to the stolen melody of "Sweet Little Sixteen!"



But lest we get too self righteous, let us remember what came before Chuck, Dwayne or Brian.

HIgh Water Everywhere

Chuck Berry and T-Bone Walker inherited a lot of their showmanship from early blues artists like Charlie Patton, famous for spinning his guitar mid song.  And, of course, Wentzville is right up highway 61 from Clarksdale, so the Mississippi is a big part of Chuck Berry's music.  Here's Patton.

Someone kindly put my favorite Chuck Berry Mississippi River song on YouTube.  Here's "Oh Louisiana."  (Slow start, but good sound.)

Put Up the Dang Signs!

The mayor of St. Louis, Francis Slay, has evidently vetoed a plan to honor Chuck Berry and other St. Louis luminaries with street names.  Read about it here.  Evidently the signs would cost a whopping $3000.  I don't know who else was to be honored, except Nelly, but if they can't start honoring Chuck Berry in that town, what's the point of having a town?

Classic Wax-- a blog.

I've only skimmed it, but you might enjoy this interesting looking blog about LP records.  It starts, interestingly, with Chuck's "Bio" LP.  The covers alone (including a Colonel Sanders Christmas Album) make it worth scrolling through.

More Newport

Dietmar tried to post this as a comment, but it didn't work-- so HERE is how the big spenders can order their own copy of the Newport Jazz Festival performances that didn't make the film.  (I might have to be a big spender myself!)

Johnny B. Questionable

But use the phony drums in your computer and at least the beat works better!  The bass, guitars, "piano" and singing can't be helped.

The Amazing Daryl Davis, Volume One!

(Here's an oldie, but a goodie that's worth repeating.  Daryl contributed enough for two other segments that you can find by searching.)  Late last year my brother in New York thought he might go to B. B. King’s to see Chuck Berry on New Year’s Eve. I posted a query on www.chuckberry.com/forum to see if Mr. Berry’s St. Louis band would accompany him. CBII responded that only Jimmy Marsala would go, and that “the Amazing Daryl Davis” would be on keyboards.

That night I looked up Daryl Davis on the internet and youtube, and there he was, playing boogie woogie and rock and roll and teaching a little musical history on the sly.  (Check it out HERE.)

Well, I’ve had good luck so far with Chuck Berry’s keyboardists. First Bob Lohr gave a dynamite interview. Then Bob Baldori did the same.

So I wrote a few questions for Daryl Davis.

And you thought piano playing lawyers could expound!  This is only Volume One!

You backed up Chuck Berry at B. B. King’s on New Year’s Eve. I’ve seen video clips of the performance, and he seemed to be in great form. Can you tell us about the show?

Chuck is in GREAT form. He is 83 years of age and doing things of which most people that age only have distant memories. Getting older is inevitable. It is not a choice, unless of course you choose the alternative. However, maintaining your physical fitness is a choice and one that Chuck Berry has always wisely made. Thus, his ability to look and prance around like he was a couple of decades younger. He eats right, doesn’t drink, gave up cigarettes and never did drugs. He is the antithesis of the lifestyle most often associated with the genre of music he created. For the longest time, up until recent years, people would remark on how decades later, Dick Clark still looked about as young as he did on American Bandstand. Chuck’s got him beat by decades!!!

I reside in Silver Spring, MD, just 15 minutes from our nation’s capital, Washington, DC. Normally, I’ll drive up to New York to play with my band, The Daryl Davis Band or Chuck Berry, or another artist. But I figured it would be too crazy to try to drive in Manhattan, let alone Times Square on NYE. Knowing that equipment was being supplied by the club, I didn’t have to bring a keyboard and my drummer Adolph Wright, didn’t have to bring drums. So we rode the train up to NYC. Chuck’s regular bass player, the great Jimmy Marsala, was coming with Chuck, so my bass player stayed behind this time. We got off at Penn Station and walked a few blocks to B.B. King’s. You could feel the energy all through the air as people were hustling to Times Square to stake out their spots to watch the ball drop.

We got to the club about a half hour ahead of our scheduled sound check. Chuck was not there yet and I didn’t expect him to be. Usually, when my drummer and bassist are on the gig, we take care of sound checking for him and making sure his Fender Dual Showman amps and speakers are correctly placed on the stage and all the dials are set to where he likes them. Then I’ll check his microphone and monitor levels and run a few songs. If his bass player Jimmy is on the gig, he takes care of all that.

When the sound crew was ready for my drummer and me, I sat down at the piano and played Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie, then went into the Blues song After Hours while they adjusted the monitor and house speaker levels. When I finished, I heard one of the sound crew people behind me applauding my playing. I turned around to thank him, only to see that it was Chuck Berry clapping his hands for me. We both started laughing and greeted each other. I had spoken with Chuck on the phone a couple of days prior and played with him a couple of months back when his St. Louis based pianist Bob Lohr was kind enough to let me sit in and play some piano with Chuck when I dropped in on their gig Blueberry Hill in St. Louis back in October.

Jimmy tuned up Chuck’s guitar and Chuck actually strapped it on and did the sound check with us. That’s a rarity!!!. But that’s also one of the many things I love about Chuck Berry. He has his routines but, don’t ever try to predict him. That’s when he’ll do the unexpected. Always expect the unexpected, and I mean that in a good way. He likes to be spontaneous and try different things on the fly. He will definitely improve your musicianship. I love it, I love it, I love it!!!! He asked me if I knew the melody to Auld Lang Syne. I said I did. He chose a key and we rehearsed it.

When the sound check was over I went outside to people-watch for a little while. When I came back in, Chuck was sitting on my seat on stage, playing the keyboard. For those of you who don’t know, Chuck Berry can Boogie Woogie on the piano. After all, Boogie Woogie is what influenced him to create Rock’n’Roll. I bent over beside him and took over the left hand while he soloed with his right hand. The doors to the club were about to open to let the public in, so we ended our duet and retreated back to the dressing room.

We were scheduled to perform two shows; 8:00 p.m. and 11:15 p.m. A few minutes before show time, I peeped out from behind the curtain that shields the audience from the backstage area. The place was packed and the people were ready to party and there was a strong vibrant energy in the air.

Moments later, Jimmy, Adolph and I, took our respective places on stage. From the sound booth about halfway back in the audience, the sound man made some general announcements and when he saw that we were ready and his voice filled the air, “Ladies and gentlemen, CHUCK BERRY!!!”

The crowd roared and hidden in the wings unseen by the audience the guitar resonated that familiar intro just like ringin’ a bell, “Bah doo dah, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee,……..” Chuck teased the audience by continuing to play for about 4 bars before emerging onto the stage and into the audience’s sight. When he appeared, the decibels of the roar rose as did many of the crowd who stood up and cheered as he continued the most famous guitar riff in the world. They were all his. All his children, Black, White and everything else, all ages who grew up listening to his music or came to know it through their parents or grandparents. The spell had been cast and he had them in the palm of his hand.

Chuck has an uncanny ability that comes with years of experience in the art of pacing himself. He would mix some Blues songs and slower numbers in between some of the uptempo rockers so that no matter how many fast songs he played, he could still burn a solo without it sounding tired or lackluster. The audience would call out Chuck Berry song titles and he would accommodate them.

Time flies when you’re having fun. It seemed like we had just started because the excited roar of the crowd never wore down, but it was an hour later and time to close that show. Even though I’ve played countless dates with the man for almost 30 years, I could still feel the energy he generated, vibrating inside me as I walked off the stage wondering, “How does this 83-year-old man do this? I’m 51 now. Will I be able to do this when I’m 83?”

Two hours and 15 minutes later it was time for the next show. I once again peeped out from behind the curtain at the audience. Even though they had turned the house and it was a whole new audience, it was like déjà vu. The house was packed and the people were ready. That strong vibrant energy was abound. The energy level was cranked up a bit because we were now 45 minutes away from 2010!!! Again we all took our places on stage and Chuck began the show once again from the wings, driving the crowd into a frenzy with that guitar riff that says, “This is Rock’n’Roll!!!” With the energy he put out, no one would have known he had already played a one-hour high energy show two hours prior. I’m still trying to figure that one out. The only answer I can come up with is that it’s all in how he paces himself and takes good care of his health.

Chuck’s spontaneity usually displays itself in his choice of songs. He doesn’t use a set list. He just plays whatever song he decides on the spot to play when he finishes the one he’s playing. During this particular set, Chuck’s spontaneity displayed itself in his choice of instruments. During one of his songs, he walked over to me and motioned, “Let’s switch instruments.” I stood up and took his guitar and began playing Chuck Berry licks. He sat at the keyboard and played it. The crowd loved it.

Then, like the first show, it didn’t seem like any time had passed at all, but we were doing the countdown. At the precise moment, Chuck looked at me and we went into Auld Lang Syne. We closed this show as we did with the first, by having women come on stage to dance. Chuck jammed on an extended version of Reelin’ & Rockin’, trading fours with me and then Adolph. He exited the stage the same way he appeared, playing the guitar as he went out of view of the audience. He soloed for a few verses backstage while we accompanied him and about 30 girls danced on stage. Then he ended the song and 2010 was ready to begin.

I hung out with Chuck and Jimmy for while before he departed to his hotel. We wished each other a Happy New Year and Adolph and I walked those few blocks, making our way through all the drunks on the street, back to Penn Station to catch the train home in the wee wee hours.

None of the original Rock’n’Rollers still living, had played this New Year’s Eve except for Chuck Berry. Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, did not perform anywhere this New Year’s Eve. On the train ride home, it hit me, “I just played the last real original Rock’n’Roll concert of 2009!!!!”

I was pleased to see him play “Brown Eyed Handsome Man.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen him play that song. Does he ever pull out some of the less common songs when you’re with him? Ballads, or newer material?

Actually, I’ve played Brown-Eyed Handsome Man with him a lot of times over the years. He may not do it every gig, but it hasn’t been all that rare when I’m on the gig. One song that he did the other night on New Year’s Eve that I’ve only played maybe 2 or 3 times with him was No Particular Place To Go. A lady in the audience shouted it out and boom, he went right into it.

Two other songs he didn’t do the other night and he rarely does in my experiences are Back In The USA and Too Much Monkey Business, but I have played them on a couple of occasions with him.

Every so often, he will pull out songs with me that he doesn’t normally do. When he is comfortable with his backing musicians knowing they can follow, he is at ease to stretch out from the stock of I-IV-V 12-bar songs, once he’s given the audience what they’ve come to hear.

I read that you began playing piano at age 17. How long after that did you do your first job backing up Chuck Berry?
Yes, I started out a little late. They say 17 is rather old to be starting out in music. So I had to learn to play fast. That’s why I play Boogie Woogie. It’s fast.

I graduated from high school the next year in 1976 at age 18 and graduated from Howard University with my degree in music 4 years later at age 22. My first gig with Chuck was the following year in 1981.

First of all, how is that even possible?!?! And what was it like for you?

I knew that Chuck relied on the promoters of his shows to supply him with a backup band. I had seen Chuck perform a number of times before I ever played with him. In fact, I’d seen him perform before I could even play myself. I studied him religiously, not just on record but also on stage. I was well aware that he did not always play his classic Chuck Berry songs “just like the record.” He liked the freedom to play them like the record or to deviate and improvise upon them, and he should have that right. After all, he wrote them.

The mistake that many of the backup bands make who I’ve seen work with him, is that they have only studied his Greatest Hits records and expect him to play it “just like the record.” Boy, are they in for a surprise!!!

What gives musicians like Jimmy Marsala, Bob Lohr, Bob Baldori and myself the advantage, is our understanding of Chuck’s need to not be restricted to conforming to playing something the same way he played it back in the 1950s. Chuck Berry will improve your musicianship 100% if you take the time to understand that Rock’n’Roll is no different than Jazz or Blues in the sense that it is a spontaneous feeling upon which one may improvise and interpret differently each time the same song is performed, unlike Beethoven’s Fur Elise, which is restricted to only Beethoven’s interpretation and any improvisation is strictly forbidden.

Use the Chuck Berry records as a basic template to understand the song progressions and Johnnie Johnson’s phenomenal piano lacings in and around Chuck’s vocals and guitar riffs. Watch the live shows to know that he doesn’t like a walking bass line on most of his songs. He prefers only the root note of each chord played in a specific rhythm on the bass. His cues are made with his legs. When he raises his leg and kicks it down to the floor, if you are playing, then stop. If you’re not, then start. Certain things he does in the way he holds the guitar, indicate that he wants you to solo on your instrument. These and other little things are all things you can’t get off a record or CD or out of a book. It comes with experience and the ability to tune into the psyche of the artist whom you are backing.

I love working with Chuck Berry. He’s one of my all time favorites. He’s my idol, my mentor and my friend. Johnny B. Goode is my all time favorite song and to play it on stage with the man who wrote it, is a euphoric feeling that cannot be put into words.

Funny story. When I was a little kid, my favorite song was Memphis, by Johnny Rivers. I heard it when it first came out and loved it. It was always being played on the radio by Johnny Rivers. Later, I discovered Chuck Berry when I saw him on TV. I had heard his music on the radio before but never retained his name before seeing him. He became my favorite performing artist. So my favorite song was by a guy named Johnny Rivers and my favorite artist was this guy named Chuck Berry. I was blown away when I found out shortly thereafter that my favorite artist was the one who actually wrote and first recorded my favorite song. Last year I played with Chuck Berry out on Long Island, NY and guess who the opening act was? Johnny Rivers!!!

World in the Palm of his Hand

According to this ARTICLE in the University City Patch, they're hoping to install the Chuck Berry statute on Delmar around June 10.  (There will be a Blueberry Hill show June 15.)  Photo by Kathy Bratkowski.

This'll B. Goode!

http://www.chasingtheking.com/trailer.html

School Days South of the Border

Matt Hill

Bob Lohr will be playing with guitarist/singer Matt Hill tonight at Beale on Broadway in St. Louis.  Check out samples of the music on Hill's website.  Based on my quick listen to the song "Hellz Bellz," with its Little Queenie-esque intro, Bob should be feeling very much at home.  Here's a slower blues.

El Ritual Siempre es el Mismo: Chuck Berry a Blueberry Hill

Thanks Doug for another one...

Bendi Straw Losers

Here's Chuck's grandson and his band--

Charles III is the one playing guitar.

More About the Monterey Show, 1974

Here are some more memories of the long, glorious show I saw in 1974 in MONTEREY.  They come from the backup band, Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs.  One of them had a good time, the other not.  (See the original post for additional comments from the band.)  I'm afraid I was one of the people terrorizing them on stage after the show.

Still trying to figure out when this show occurred.  I have some photos of four of us in the Salinas/Monterey area, and I know from my hair cut (only down to the shoulders) that they were taken after 1974.  So I have to wonder if it might have happened in 1975.

Chuck Berry in Jazz on a Summer's Day

Tonight I ordered up “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” on Netflix and watched most of it for the first time.  I’ve skipped through it before.  There’s something magical about much of the film.  It makes the 50s look palatable.  The girls are pretty.  The styles seem contemporary.  The scenery is spectacular.  The crowds are diverse.  The music is great.  Legends play to small but appreciative crowds.  Boats race on wild seas.  Moving water provides an abstract background for the jazz.

There's a lot to see and hear the film.  A short appearance by Thelonious Monk is worth the price of admission.  He plays to mostly empty seats.  Anita O'Day is fun.  Dinah Washington is spectacular.  At the end comes Louis Armstrong, someone I enjoyed but took for granted as a little kid.  I was small.

I watched it in part because I read the other day that Keith Richards saw it 14 times as a teenager and credits the Chuck Berry scene with changing his life and ambitions.  It was filmed in 1958 not long after the Berry family had moved into the mansion on Windermere Place.  He was at the height of his success.  He was about to be taken down.

Odd in a sense that the takedown started on home turf, among musicians and music fans, at least in the one song that made it into the film.  I wish I could see the others.

It’s a lesson in how to play “Sweet Little Sixteen” on guitar, because he was pretty much doing it alone with a drummer until a clarinet started wailing.  The band, which had just done an incredible job backing Big Maybelle, seems to be on strike when the author of Maybellene gets on stage.  It’s mostly cold sweat for Chuck.  The bandleader, Jack Teagarden, stands laughing.  The drummer smirks-- too easy.  The rest of the band appears to be silent.  When my man starts a wailin’ clarinet, Chuck seems so happy he starts yelling “blow! blow!” or somethng to that effect.

The story is that he played three other numbers, including “Johnny B. Good” and “No Money Down,” and the young people in the cheap seats went crazy.  The old farts did what old farts do.

But it was an honor.  John Hammond booked Berry and Big Maybelle and Big Joe Turner.  They all deserved to be there.  Not many other rock and rollers would have fit.  Maybe Fats Domino.  

Whatever he said about modern jazz (and I’m betting those musicians had heard it) Chuck Berry had jazz and swing roots that could have flowered nicely with a good backup that night.  I wish they’d have given him what they gave to Big Maybelle.  (* See Below.)

But he did what he could with what he got and drove them wild enough that police were summoned.

And the joint was rockin’.

But wait, there's more!  Paul Harvey used to tell the rest of the story.  After posting I did some reading.  Fred Rothwell has actually heard the rest of the story, which I have not.  He says in his book Long Distance Information that "The band appears to start rather tentatively, but by the end of the set they are won over by the young pretender."  Now that makes me happy.  That makes the whole thing seem more than palatable.  I want to go there!  

Boogie-Woogie in B Flat

Here's a pretty interesting POST on the whole silly Johnnie Johnson as author controversy.

No Money Down

Here's a second try at one that I tried to do a few months ago.  This one is better.  (Hey, all I can say is that lots of people play golf badly.  I play Chuck Berry badly.  But it's fun.)

Chuck Berry at Blueberry Hill 4-13-2011

Haven't listened yet, but based on Doug's review, I'm looking forward to it.

Ah!  And now I have.  What a beauty, and just as Doug described it on chuckberry.com.  First Chuck spends a long time with Bob Lohr.  (Bob-- the quarter tone is way too refined for the likes of me.  The solos sound great.)  One of the best things that's happened at BBH lately is the spindly little chair where Chuck can settle in, play, and rest his legs.  Then some great harmonica by Ingrid, a little back and forth with drummer Keith Robinson, and finally the wonderful interplay between Chuck and bassist Jimmy Marsala.  VERY nice clip.

Chuck Berry at Blueberry Hill April 13, 2011

When Doug goes, we all go. 

Chuck Berry in Monterey, 1974 (An old post with a great new comment-- see below!)

I've been lucky enough to see Chuck Berry live 10 different times. Several shows are described here already-- my first, at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium in about 1970; my second, at a tiny, packed South Lake Tahoe rock hall in about 1971; I saw him once at a Lake Tahoe casino (hardly counts); my eighth and ninth times were at Seattle Paramount and the Experience Music Project; my last time, last January, was at Blueberry Hill in St. Louis. I saw him a couple more times in the early 1970s as part of the Richard Nader Rock and Roll Revivals-- fun shows with a good backup band, a half dozen acts (The Shirelles, Bill Hailey, Gary U.S. Bonds, Bo Diddley), giant crowds, and, it turns out, definite federal tax liabilities. Ah well-- they were good fun for the money, and the only tension I felt at those rock and roll revival shows was whether Chuck would dominate the lineup—especially after Bo Diddley blew the crowd out of control with his routinely incendiary showmanship.

(Enjoy Bo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HICsPNm2ARY)

I shouldn’t have worried. Chuck Berry always closed the show with a knockout performance.

But also in the mix during this time was an outdoor show in Monterey, California at the fairgrounds where they filmed "Monterey Pop."

Once, years ago, I found that someone wrote about this show in a book about Chuck Berry. (The book used to be at our local library; but, alas, it seems to be gone. Can't cite it here. Can't recommend, pan, cite or review it, because I don't know who wrote it, or what it was called. Help me out, somebody!)

But anyway, whoever wrote that book saw a different show than I did, citing it, mysteriously, as an example of "how far things had fallen" for the mighty Chuck Berry. He complained about the performance. He complained about the backup band. He even complained that in the middle of the show the promoter gave away an old Cadillac-- an act that happened to fill my own young heart with great glee and cheerfulness.*  (Editor's note:  No He Did Not!  See my comment below.  It goes to show you never can tell about my memory cells.  Peter.)

Maybe the author was just having a bad day. (Although I don't think so. I think he had a good time. Because I met a fellow, crazed, well-informed Chuck Berry fan at the foot of the stage that day. I'd bet an old Cadillac it was my man the author.)

So for me, that Monterey show will always be one of the best I got to see-- a long, slow-building, totally enjoyable powerhouse of a show, with a great backup band, great guitar, lots of happy people, and all witnessed by me from the very edge of the stage, just a few short feet from Chuck Berry's big leather bound ones.

I apologize for the bad photos--- they are as faint (and vivid) as my own memories. Damn those instamatics!

As you can see, Chuck came out in a black shirt, bolo tie and the red pants that he writes about in his autobiography. The same pants, in fact, that he wore 15 years later at the Seattle Paramount, and that YOU have probably seen him wear one time or another. They were nearly new at Monterey, purchased, if I recall, for $7 on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles just two years prior.

He was backed by the band that served as a warm up act-- Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs, a Sha Na Na sort of act, and a great choice to back up Mr. Berry. At first Chuck pretty much ignored the crowd. He knelt about three feet from me, behind a big monitor, plugged in a nutmeg Gibson, and riffed on a slow blues number, tuning, picking, tuning, picking— luscious bunches of bent double string notes. I was mesmerized—just like I was at my first live show—but now I knew the riffs, and there was Chuck Berry, three feet away, making them happen.
Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs is evidently still working in the San Francisco Bay Area, and at least one of its members cites this show as a career highlight. (Under fondest memories he writes: "Backing up Chuck Berry for two-and-a-half hours in Monterey , with no set list, no idea what song we're doing next or in what key, and doing a piano solo for 96 bars (I thought Chuck would only want me to do a standard 12 so I went all out, and then he let me go for 12 more, and then another 12 and I was having severe arm fatigue and cramps by bar 72) and then having Chuck invite the crowd on stage only to find out seconds later that he's boogied out of there, and we have to finish and then get our equipment off stage before it's toast.")

http://www.butchwhacks.com/bio_LarryStrawther.html


After jamming for a while, maybe playing one or two more numbers, Chuck jumped into Nadine. It wasn’t an inspired rendition, but it was long and good and the crowd started moving. And then, when it was over, and when I'm thinking "This is pretty good. People like him." Chuck says:

“I think we are warmed up now—so with your permission we will now begin our show!”

And from them on, there followed what seemed like hours of perfect music, great dancing, splits, and guitar wizardry. Chuck Berry’s most exciting guitar bits are the blistering solos on the original records—but during the late 60s and early 70s he was at his peak of virtuosity. If you doubt me, listen to the guitar work on “Back Home” (with, in the words of Michael Lydon, its "bitingly fine quality of etched steel") or the “London Sessions,” or, for an accessible and endlessly entertaining example, this spectacular and refined 1972 version of “Oh Carol."



But back to Monterey. I think I may have wound up on stage at the end of that show, though I’m hoping for dignity’s sake that this is a false memory. I know that I have a photograph of the young cop who stopped us from chasing Chuck Berry after the show. (My brother made it past the cop and watched him drive away in a Cadillac convertible). One girl near the stage got his autograph on a scrap of binder paper. I must have looked envious, because she gave it to me after the show. (I still search my old boxes trying to find that thing.)

By the time of that show the album Bio had come out—and I wanted Chuck Berry to play something newer than his classics. (I still do!) I handed him a note asking for my favorite—“Got it and Gone.” He leaned over, read the note, and laughed. He probably barely remembered recording the song and sure as hell wasn’t going to play it.

Ah, well. It was the second time I got to communicate directly with my idol.

More reading: http://www.theshirelles.com/

Also for Doug!

Fran Calls them My Rock and Roll Shoes...

Sounds like early 1989.  I saw him and that shirt that year at the Seattle Paramount.

Change of Pace

My friend Al sent this incredible video.  Evidently the musician, Shiyani Ngcopo, just died.

Chuck Was All Those Artists Rolled Into One...

George Thorogood talking about the blues, Chuck Berry, Jimi, et al, before his show in Salinas, California.  Read it HERE.

Heeeeeeeeeere's Chuck! And Johnny!

I haven't even watched these, but I used to love the days when he'd show up on the Johnny Carson show.  I remember the time he took over the whole hour-- an unprecedented thing.  He seemed to have fun with Johnny.  Thanks again to our vice president for audio-visual entertainment.



Part two:

More Shapeshifting!

Gracias a Doug for this video of Enrique playing the heck out of "Roll Over Beethoven!"  I love the energy of this one.  Great job!

Shapeshifting

I've always considered myself a pretty big Chuck Berry fan (and getting bigger and bigger in my in old age, especially around the waist,) but I haven't changed my name to Chuck, or gone on stage to become Chuck!  (Of course, my granddaughter's middle name is Tulane.  Top that!)  But in Europe it's different.  On both sides of the Channel you'll find them.  First Dominic "Chuck Berry" Cooper and his band Rollin' Home.  (I'd rather post the live version found on facebook, but it's evidently not on youtube.  But this one sounds really good.)



Then, across the water, or tunnel, Jean "Red Chuck" Million, (born with a stage name,) not doing his Chuck Berry licks here, but killing it just the same with his band Red S'Alamandre. (Maybe ought to be called Cameleon Rouge.)



And it's not just in Europe.  My Mexican friend Enrique ("Berry") seems to scoot and duckwalk around town and practices splits in the hall.

Like me, this other guy, (who sometimes takes the name of Chuck Berry's chief tormentor and imitator,) has a guitar that looks like a Chuck Berry guitar.

And Doug duckwalks and scoots without a guitar.



Post Script:  Of course, no matter how well Dominic and Jean play, no matter how low Enrique can go, no matter how red Jan's guitar is, or how well the admiral's had fits Doug, the truth, the only verifiable, true, scientific proof of who really stirs the girls, is that one immutable piece of evidence: the photograph.  And it's worth a thousand words!  (Eat your hearts out, fellows.)