tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26768062891047946762024-03-13T04:24:20.737-07:00Go Head On!Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.comBlogger990125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-6757637312409136172023-08-16T09:35:00.004-07:002023-08-16T09:35:46.227-07:00<p>I was a guest recently on the wonderful podcast Autistic Tidbits and Tangents, where I got to talk, just a bit, about my interest in Chuck Berry.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="336" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/16wryT1vrZ0" width="404" youtube-src-id="16wryT1vrZ0"></iframe></div><br /><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>Peter O’Neil is the author of <b>My So-Called Disorder: Autism, Exploding Trucks, and the Big Daddy of Rock and Roll</b>.</i></p><div><i><br /></i></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-25424678196749676312023-06-21T13:25:00.002-07:002023-06-21T13:25:39.560-07:00Загадка (A Mystery!)<p>The other day I came home to the strangest package I have ever received--a package with a thousand stamps!</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_wcqjWZNm3UvsA9L_42BhE3pBIa3uGZNqDV6WBpthO3iRTiymDvDQj4v_10debXh76AHWbXQ4kO8zk58A1LYvJ1XaFQH4pI04NRRqPSwoIvaNSpizMNgApd3R0iG8Owrxe5dYoK6OGQDwEUATPNgH1O1IYuHyCSKpPjDbqIuc4Yd7JVY1sLfFO72ZFTsR/s4032/IMG_3262.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="638" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_wcqjWZNm3UvsA9L_42BhE3pBIa3uGZNqDV6WBpthO3iRTiymDvDQj4v_10debXh76AHWbXQ4kO8zk58A1LYvJ1XaFQH4pI04NRRqPSwoIvaNSpizMNgApd3R0iG8Owrxe5dYoK6OGQDwEUATPNgH1O1IYuHyCSKpPjDbqIuc4Yd7JVY1sLfFO72ZFTsR/w478-h638/IMG_3262.jpeg" width="478" /></a></div><br /><p>A package from Russia! From someone I don't know!</p><p>The package was very light. At first I thought it contained a used Chuck Berry CD I had recently purchased-- From St. Louie to Frisco.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9K30uiWtejdJv3ntOSkY-8xCOw6FpSwP40oSy7fDSq3VHHV6NzDguyxPcvf0EdxiVkc2k6NcRYHfucRwHGO_xsdtQzW7nAMN4jXIjuPVjahMVM2HOsMmtBEJHIt6W3MlsMqwCwo2G6Q3A4Oic_ZXGp7xtnYLHE4uw0VLVP1XzTisqqtPgLv8o8j5QdtCE/s316/Chuck_Berry_-_From_St._Louie_To_Frisco.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="316" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9K30uiWtejdJv3ntOSkY-8xCOw6FpSwP40oSy7fDSq3VHHV6NzDguyxPcvf0EdxiVkc2k6NcRYHfucRwHGO_xsdtQzW7nAMN4jXIjuPVjahMVM2HOsMmtBEJHIt6W3MlsMqwCwo2G6Q3A4Oic_ZXGp7xtnYLHE4uw0VLVP1XzTisqqtPgLv8o8j5QdtCE/s1600/Chuck_Berry_-_From_St._Louie_To_Frisco.jpeg" width="316" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>Nope-- but I was on the right track. Opening the package was a delicate operation. Two pieces a foam, and in between them a sort of sheer plastic envelope. And inside that-- a soviet era record sleeve.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkeUaNlnG_L8kTHc7-qrbaud7d6Aslx8pfFRA3g7EQojSHj-ANW-yKJiscYNuZcQaWDx4reBiWOEa-3oO7Is56xNaouaRTrMZ8_brenqU4nqkPq19wpd5ycy44pJs-Le1Jo-Q_aerSiFejY1Wrrn6W8uoLHs6y-iHT0ngiRv6MhtjoSwMPQfuHVGGxNoN2/s4032/IMG_3264.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkeUaNlnG_L8kTHc7-qrbaud7d6Aslx8pfFRA3g7EQojSHj-ANW-yKJiscYNuZcQaWDx4reBiWOEa-3oO7Is56xNaouaRTrMZ8_brenqU4nqkPq19wpd5ycy44pJs-Le1Jo-Q_aerSiFejY1Wrrn6W8uoLHs6y-iHT0ngiRv6MhtjoSwMPQfuHVGGxNoN2/s320/IMG_3264.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEQrOTpu-cYHM736-8Y06hGWzCFvniW_-d23vVa43-Eeb68YRlnDaHxxn_9iGzM4ki_aL_qST9e8SUNRtqgbw2UkMGJPlhjbA0l9yKq7l3s_IrPPnfVj4PwIBa8VwHZfh2OqyNSoxGqXblrmAZtI6uzJadjbaQ_yej-R0Js5fbsmJzKULQucQOpH39glQ_/s4032/IMG_3266.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEQrOTpu-cYHM736-8Y06hGWzCFvniW_-d23vVa43-Eeb68YRlnDaHxxn_9iGzM4ki_aL_qST9e8SUNRtqgbw2UkMGJPlhjbA0l9yKq7l3s_IrPPnfVj4PwIBa8VwHZfh2OqyNSoxGqXblrmAZtI6uzJadjbaQ_yej-R0Js5fbsmJzKULQucQOpH39glQ_/s320/IMG_3266.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>But no record! Or so I thought. Instead of a record I found the X-rays of two healthy looking hands.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwzAjHEd8urJHDO2urB_NpBR_5zkqx3yRL1k7jaRa2A-o8eOnEphQMdxawMP-qDTbatGjinKEVv73yBiglagHRemXvT5VD6sudjrc81XpKltp2Lg6OzbnBAt-zFNacP7feRwUueUgF1dA-K_EynwPHagxa3S4WZ_10cV6kyUzArzm1xOsP8DdyWWE8jRJc/s4032/IMG_3265.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwzAjHEd8urJHDO2urB_NpBR_5zkqx3yRL1k7jaRa2A-o8eOnEphQMdxawMP-qDTbatGjinKEVv73yBiglagHRemXvT5VD6sudjrc81XpKltp2Lg6OzbnBAt-zFNacP7feRwUueUgF1dA-K_EynwPHagxa3S4WZ_10cV6kyUzArzm1xOsP8DdyWWE8jRJc/s320/IMG_3265.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>I "crowd" sourced this on Facebook. "Look what I received!" And it was Chuck Berry friend Carmelo Genovese <a href="https://goheadon.blogspot.com/2010/06/got-chance-had-to-take-it-super-fan.html" target="_blank">(Read About Him HERE)</a> who sent me a YouTube that explained things.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6H13jFvdsVY" width="320" youtube-src-id="6H13jFvdsVY"></iframe></div><div><p>And sure enough, you can see that the two hands look like the hands of a DJ manipulating a record!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivnzxZUq6f-2EVP6Mb9XsHCAUkjkqSoMu6ciKgKdiJ6ZhJq0-IEaXBA3hytJuLuSjYXecMN9CPthF-_XrW21uKKfGbZbypLMbxzkOC0_oJeXrkn8EutHgTgQ5j_cYGK2dx-im4YSALmXR_t9uEl44gr_fZ_J0oylqg-uxshRu4mEsplVg4PFsqwJAGNiP2/s4032/IMG_3267.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivnzxZUq6f-2EVP6Mb9XsHCAUkjkqSoMu6ciKgKdiJ6ZhJq0-IEaXBA3hytJuLuSjYXecMN9CPthF-_XrW21uKKfGbZbypLMbxzkOC0_oJeXrkn8EutHgTgQ5j_cYGK2dx-im4YSALmXR_t9uEl44gr_fZ_J0oylqg-uxshRu4mEsplVg4PFsqwJAGNiP2/s320/IMG_3267.HEIC" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p>And not just any record--a Chuck Berry record! You Never Can Tell! You can see Chuck's name in this shot if you look closely near the thumbs.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSR63zsUarhJMKkfpYSXZyWHnlq9_E3zhTjmpIDz18KohJK8CNh47VFjZjv2fxJ0WMmzJG3MVK9Nz3gOkLJxdI5cMZZPOrKfCrHBRNRYlzD53xrxn9mUVUNxhXk6BWSp2mfbhZ2Ah5fGRh_-DLx8I1nqz80Ax84IsJQcWzBTm-usKfOjHPNbkYCSp5OEvD/s4032/IMG_3268.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSR63zsUarhJMKkfpYSXZyWHnlq9_E3zhTjmpIDz18KohJK8CNh47VFjZjv2fxJ0WMmzJG3MVK9Nz3gOkLJxdI5cMZZPOrKfCrHBRNRYlzD53xrxn9mUVUNxhXk6BWSp2mfbhZ2Ah5fGRh_-DLx8I1nqz80Ax84IsJQcWzBTm-usKfOjHPNbkYCSp5OEvD/s320/IMG_3268.HEIC" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p>My greatest thanks to whoever sent this! There is a return address. It might take a while to find something anywhere near as cool, but it will arrive there someday!</p><p><br /></p></div>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-43997893055738360552023-03-22T10:40:00.001-07:002023-03-22T10:40:51.217-07:00My So-Called Disorder On Sale Now<p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYepm2ry0ZjfWzuQWfdCVUNi7AyR-DzZX_IB-88dB0AWyBH7q_XGdcNYnOu3y0Dg2hA4L-I8xRJc1GS7xZr1W1fVnhDLo-ylWMyQJji39v8SF2D1GwrUaV5TIS4DYl3HNuvEPdY6YHQtbOIYUhMZdPo4ODfEhdI3pd-3kha32V4O0wjwMDg7K-IBI_-Q/s4032/IMG_3007.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYepm2ry0ZjfWzuQWfdCVUNi7AyR-DzZX_IB-88dB0AWyBH7q_XGdcNYnOu3y0Dg2hA4L-I8xRJc1GS7xZr1W1fVnhDLo-ylWMyQJji39v8SF2D1GwrUaV5TIS4DYl3HNuvEPdY6YHQtbOIYUhMZdPo4ODfEhdI3pd-3kha32V4O0wjwMDg7K-IBI_-Q/s320/IMG_3007.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br />If you like this blog I encourage you to buy a copy of my book <i>My So-Called Disorder:</i> <i>Autism, Exploding Trucks, and the Big Daddy of Rock and Roll, </i>available<i> </i>now on Amazon and other online retailers. The back cover tells you a lot about it, and includes a testimonial from Chuck Berry scholar Fred Rothwell, author of <i>Long Distance Information--Chuck Berry's Recorded Legacy.</i><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJp3OHEkk9JjoJDpwEhgSwZj0i5-lpyaZUKgYThj89kvSgwENVeWCgE3TKYdj3s468DawPRVP_517qpHjupu1bzHzBNlqZ6qXyukDFY4kYYjHNdzgw9v9VuJoYy1oehvQXiHyzLp02w_OOmOhjSodKPdxHNV29CQCxDrq9yQ7_RFGyOsQvhVwc9rSZOQ/s2000/2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1313" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJp3OHEkk9JjoJDpwEhgSwZj0i5-lpyaZUKgYThj89kvSgwENVeWCgE3TKYdj3s468DawPRVP_517qpHjupu1bzHzBNlqZ6qXyukDFY4kYYjHNdzgw9v9VuJoYy1oehvQXiHyzLp02w_OOmOhjSodKPdxHNV29CQCxDrq9yQ7_RFGyOsQvhVwc9rSZOQ/w420-h640/2.jpeg" width="420" /></a></div><br />You've probably seen television shows where the autistic kid knows all about bugs or the Antarctic. For me when I was fourteen, it was Chuck Berry. And we're talking more than 50 years ago, long before the internet, and 50 years before I knew I was autistic.<p></p><p>Spoiler alert: the book features stories and material you may have read here. But it also tells how I used my autistic ability to form "special interests" into a successful career on my own, somewhat odd and flexible terms.</p><p>If you happen to be autistic, or if you love or work with someone who is, it might be interesting and worth a read.</p><p>And I'll sell it to you for <strike>fifty thousand dollars!</strike> (the low, low price of $19.95!</p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/My-So-Called-Disorder-Autism-Exploding/dp/B0BYCCZ53D/ref=sr_1_1?crid=180L1U3Q8PTX0&keywords=my+so-called+disorder&qid=1679506800&sprefix=my+so-called+disorder%2Caps%2C137&sr=8-1">https://www.amazon.com/My-So-Called-Disorder-Autism-Exploding/dp/B0BYCCZ53D/ref=sr_1_1?crid=180L1U3Q8PTX0&keywords=my+so-called+disorder&qid=1679506800&sprefix=my+so-called+disorder%2Caps%2C137&sr=8-1</a></p><p><br /></p>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-86705869685143278782023-03-19T00:11:00.017-07:002023-03-22T10:41:28.910-07:00Chuck Berry: A Great American Artist's Life<p> <span> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFOVNleyzJy6d05AG3EpJwx4qlFsQJQCN-q99q8mYTkmfHBshDpAVjtwr642yEeAJi8m0zYv-OUip2l_82b7tXFNEylWnWJBqWc9SkS67QYU7H9V201ujXrZveR7Kd5OdDyZBDs70lo_NMiZHjS5hES1bVFQVrWNKAAryAW0gdWnb_dPtDATYSmXoB_g/s1000/81tXiqbZEYL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="663" height="661" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFOVNleyzJy6d05AG3EpJwx4qlFsQJQCN-q99q8mYTkmfHBshDpAVjtwr642yEeAJi8m0zYv-OUip2l_82b7tXFNEylWnWJBqWc9SkS67QYU7H9V201ujXrZveR7Kd5OdDyZBDs70lo_NMiZHjS5hES1bVFQVrWNKAAryAW0gdWnb_dPtDATYSmXoB_g/w438-h661/81tXiqbZEYL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpeg" width="438" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px;"><span> </span>I finally read my copy of Chuck Berry: An American Life. I wasn’t in a rush. There were other books above it in the pile, and when you get down to it, I know as much as any outsider can know about this particular American life. (That’s autism for you.) What I appreciate about the book, I suppose, is that the author, RJ Smith, recognizes the greatness and the complexity of the man. What I appreciate less is having to follow the same old same old path, and then to learn one or two things too many about that life. The great lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who represents death row inmates, has said, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” I believe that. And I </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px;">know</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px;"> that Chuck Berry is a million times more than the tawdriest things he ever did. So why tell them, especially when they were private and consensual? </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px;"> <span> </span></span><p></p><p><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px;">On the other hand, this is the first book to reveal to me what a terrible driver he was, so there’s that. Who would have thought the man who wrote so eloquently about cars would be so incompetent at driving them. Even Blueberry Hill’s Joe Edwards tells a tale of going the wrong way on a Los Angeles freeway at 70 mph?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And the book makes an attempt to answer every alleged scandal and alleged tawdriness or nastiness with some sort of reminder that Chuck Berry faced a host of difficulties and injustices during his long life.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But what his long life and his incredible body of work actually deserve is a celebration, pure and simple.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Once I bought volume one of a gigantic biography of Elvis Presley. I couldn’t actually read it but I skipped through and read parts. And I was surprised to find a paragraph about young Elvis spying on young women changing into their bathing suits at one of his homes. There was a lens built into the room that Elvis evidently used.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This never became a part of Elvis’s legend—it was just a paragraph in a book the size of Game of Thrones or War and Peace.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But the tawdry crap has become the be all and end all of the Chuck Berry story. I wonder why? I wonder why the difference?</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On a personal note it appears Mr. Smith stole something from this blog and never credited it among the copious footnotes. I will go out on a limb and say there’s no way Smith figured out that young Chuck was observing an eclipse of the Sun in 1938. He took that from this blog. Once upon a time Peter K. of Sweden sent me a wonderful photo of young Chuck using a telescope in broad daylight. I figured out he was observing the sun. Peter K. went farther and found two eclipses in St. Louis when Chuck was twelve. And the lovely Rebecca did some American history and practical math with Chuck and CBII to determine the year (more or less!) That merited a footnote. I mean, whole pages were wasted on whether the ding-a-ling belonged to Charles or Dave.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So if you’re looking for the best in Chuck Berry writing, look no further. It’s right here. Original. And free.</p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span> <span> And if you're looking for Chuck himself, spin a record. It's right there, original, and free.</span></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhURs3-kKS5D1d9e7TUyfexItaRCX423cJSLLw_6BZQ6Cb7SI7HJxSDQvuHRatxjOA2oqH-mP04Kjdrn_-Zs2AYEA_0K-EITwrAJMIgVBTq2OBtAFT5XKuzQZ3WmquEBgXuyHoeYQIUrdGFlZlh9QvWz1ZjK4vGA2XiRuaEcrdjLBBY2qL12DhseWfZ1w/s400/17362777_10210785843116171_2747497389956660647_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="264" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhURs3-kKS5D1d9e7TUyfexItaRCX423cJSLLw_6BZQ6Cb7SI7HJxSDQvuHRatxjOA2oqH-mP04Kjdrn_-Zs2AYEA_0K-EITwrAJMIgVBTq2OBtAFT5XKuzQZ3WmquEBgXuyHoeYQIUrdGFlZlh9QvWz1ZjK4vGA2XiRuaEcrdjLBBY2qL12DhseWfZ1w/s320/17362777_10210785843116171_2747497389956660647_n.jpeg" width="211" /></a></div><br /><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-74095822475920582362023-03-05T20:27:00.003-08:002023-03-05T20:29:01.247-08:00My So-Called Disorder<p>In a few weeks you will be able to find my book, "My So-Called Disorder: Autism, Exploding Trucks, and the Big Daddy of Rock and Roll," online at sites like Amazon, or by ordering it at your local bookshop. I'm more than a little proud.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXU-fpqPJQVJ-a38fEe_NBB_eLeEmOrzOA-kJyXZIJcD8u4CNsNAIV083KWBvkco-46V-MRQtTiw2LTnHlnLo2Q4HUjgG1fe9vhWJZF6kp_J0MglinkYhFO5MF6RNDpSoMwImpJKT6UnwVHGiAEgxcb1_DbXW6Yfh3_AVDgZR384gf4XUVen42ke6F0w/s2000/1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1313" height="773" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXU-fpqPJQVJ-a38fEe_NBB_eLeEmOrzOA-kJyXZIJcD8u4CNsNAIV083KWBvkco-46V-MRQtTiw2LTnHlnLo2Q4HUjgG1fe9vhWJZF6kp_J0MglinkYhFO5MF6RNDpSoMwImpJKT6UnwVHGiAEgxcb1_DbXW6Yfh3_AVDgZR384gf4XUVen42ke6F0w/w507-h773/1.jpeg" width="507" /></a></div><p>If you ever thought my interest in Chuck Berry was <i>oddly</i> intense, it's because, like me, you didn't know that I am autistic. But last year, around this time, I learned that I am, and suddenly my whole life made sense.</p><p>I've had a life of very intense interests, both personal and professional. And now I know why.</p><p>And I'll be telling you all about it. In the book. Available March 20, 2023, wherever truly fine books are sold. </p><p>And that Big Daddy of Rock and Roll (that rubber legged guy?) does play a role.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigr5Xn_cSE69j-UcWYwRyCaRcRp-c-v4e4hTDqQ6coNRno1SyosMgvBSI6AK96erHjEZrJDUwuVCJctZz_mxjJAu9EHQFU3pqbYHrFusnSNCOESD5Qk2IzboHAcrkqgeGWVsxLS7xtkyAZnte86y39fzXGOl3xGbNhH54z9J7rjFBSxUvJ95vi4tILyg/s2000/Copy%20of%20Lighter%20background-5.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1313" height="751" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigr5Xn_cSE69j-UcWYwRyCaRcRp-c-v4e4hTDqQ6coNRno1SyosMgvBSI6AK96erHjEZrJDUwuVCJctZz_mxjJAu9EHQFU3pqbYHrFusnSNCOESD5Qk2IzboHAcrkqgeGWVsxLS7xtkyAZnte86y39fzXGOl3xGbNhH54z9J7rjFBSxUvJ95vi4tILyg/w493-h751/Copy%20of%20Lighter%20background-5.jpeg" width="493" /></a></div><p>Talk soon!</p>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-46046872163972309952017-07-06T22:07:00.002-07:002017-07-21T07:19:44.944-07:00CHUCK<h2 style="color: #333333; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Bookman Old Style', Times, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 40px; margin: 30px 0px 5px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">One thing I loved about the new album “Chuck” even before I opened it was the cover: a beautiful drawing of an iconic photo and the name “Chuck” up top in block letters that look, to me, like the most common Black Lives Matter poster around Seattle. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I’m reasonably sure the resemblance isn’t deliberate, but I like it.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And I like the picture— Chuck Berry in his early 1970s prime doing a thoughtful split in full rock and roll regalia.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It was a picture I first saw back in 1972 when I opened the new London Sessions album, and one I stared out for many hours as a teenager.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Opening the cover is just as rewarding, with two beautiful black and white photos of the elder chuck, one in a prayerful or just tired looking pose in front of a mirror in what looks like a restaurant booth, and another with Chuck embracing his banged up, scratched up, doctored up old Gibson.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Below the photos something important: credits showing that the Berry family and the musicians who backed Chuck Berry for decades in St. Louis and internationally are the main performers on the album. This made me instantly glad. I remember back in 1973 purchasing T-Bone Walker’s last studio album, a massive and polished thing produced by Lieber and Stoller featuring Lieber and Stoller songs and dozens of great jazz and blues musicians. They used T-Bone Walker’s voice. It was sweet, I still like it. I loved where for a moment he spoke, saying “Thibaud! Thibaud! It’s a French name!” But the record didn’t match the man.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">This record, on the other hand, is pure Chuck Berry, but treated with all the love and dignity his band and family and Dualtone records could provide him.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There are a few “stars” (notably Gary Clarke, Jr. and singer Nathaniel Radcliffe) but the real stars are the songs, Chuck himself, and the production.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">What stunned me right off the bat was the sound— strong, deep, with a ton of bass, great drumming, a touch of reverb, and the sort of rippling, rollicking piano you heard on early Chuck Berry.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">It’s a record I like to turn up loud enough that the neighbors probably hear it, and every crank on the volume just makes it sound better.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Which is a miracle considering how it evidently was made, from Berry’s tapes, with other most musicians filling in their parts later.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mm8-6d3gx9A/WV8Vq5UTrsI/AAAAAAAADII/j8g7Tv2jNDUdc4TiXOlFxp28i03mLPz8QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_5474.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I love all Chuck Berry records one way or another, and grew up on the “new” Chuck Berry records of the 1970s, but I also always felt that some of those had a flat feel, or showed inconsistencies when a single album drew from different sessions with different bands and different studios. Here there’s a consistent whole. It’s an album— the best Chuck made since 1970’s Back Home. The sound is consistent, modern, but with the feel of his early stuff. And there’s a little of everything you think of when you think of Chuck Berry: the well written boogie rockers, a few blues, a bluesy standard, some country, a funny live performance, a poem, female harmonies, and one wonderful bit of 1950s style country choir. A perfect ending.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">It starts with Wonderful Woman, which starts with a vibrato chord on the keyboard and then an exuberant shout from Chuck: “Oh well, lookie here now, this just makes my day!” And of course, it’s a woman, or some combination of his wife Themetta and every wonderful woman Chuck Berry ogled from stage. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Big Boys comes next— a song about a little kid figuring out what the big boys (and girls) do. It’s the catchiest song on the album with a descending double string guitar lick that works its way into your ear quickly and excited cries of “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” from Chuck and backup singer Nathaniel Radcliffe.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">The next two, although covers and not Chuck Berry songs, are my favorites. You Go To My Head is a jazz standard done Chuck Berry style. It reminds me of the standards he played during rehearsals for Hail! Hail! Rock & Roll, but with a thumping blues beat. Love in 3/4 Time (Enchiladas) was a crowd favorite at Blueberry Hill, a funny waltz with what I assume are some new added lyrics. Its images are nearly perfect for Chuck, with red guitars and El Dorados and a funny line about software and hardware.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Darlin’ is another favorite of mine. I first read about it years ago in The New Yorker. (The writer was visiting Chuck while Chuck made quick phone arrangements for his last Seattle show— a quickie visit to replace the ailing Jerry Lee Lewis at the EMP. I was there!) It’s a great song sung to (and with) his daughter about growing older to a loping, western beat.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">The rest, for me, are a little like the minor characters on Gilligan’s Island in the show’s original theme song (“and the rest”) but I like them all well enough. Lady B. Goode be pretty goode. She Still Loves you sounds great, but the lyrics don’t quite cut it for me. Jamaica Moon is cute but Havana Moon was better. Dutchman’s chief value for me is that Chuck Berry acknowledges he wrote music that some consider superb. And Eyes of a Man is chiefly wonderful to me for that voice, but when I heard Charles, Jr. discuss it in a television interview I began to understand it better (men's work crumbles, women's work endures). But they are all good, and I’m happy to let the CD play on. (I haven’t played the LP yet, but I’d wear out Side A several times before I put a crackle on Side B.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Jimmy Marsala, who played more shows with Chuck Berry than anyone, plays great bass throughout; Keith Robinson supplies the best drums for Chuck since the days of Odie Payne and Fred Below; and Robert Lohr on piano resurrects the spirits he learned from: Otis Spann, Lafayette Leake, Johnnie Johnson and Professor Longhair. Berry family members Ingrid, Charles and Charlie all add their parts, which are especially perfect because Chuck Berry’s music was always a family affair, on stage, and often, with his sister and daughter, in the recording studio.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">As a lifelong fan I could hardly have hoped for a better ending— an honest, adult, great sounding record with a couple of first rate new Chuck Berry songs and a lot of good ones, a summing up, in a beautiful package. Thank you Mr. Berry! Hail! Hail! Grammy time!</span></span></div>
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Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-27468298639042999182017-06-10T22:05:00.000-07:002017-06-10T23:43:22.865-07:00The Band B. Perfect<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This picture, which I've not done justice by reproducing with my phone, was taken by my friend Doug, at Blueberry Hill, and does a perfect job illustrating the beautiful musical and working relationship of drummer Keith Robinson and Chuck Berry. Robinson was the best drummer I ever saw live playing with Chuck Berry, and the two of them obviously loved playing off one another. Chuck never lost a bit of his rhythm on stage, and he loved bouncing riffs off a drummer who could match him.<br />
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I just saw a hack review of CHUCK in Rolling Stone magazine. Rolling Stone has some great political writing, but it rarely did justice to Chuck Berry. Except for a collage that included virtually everyone, he made the cover only once before he died, back in 1969. I don't guarantee this, but my fading memory tells me that The Captain and Tenille also made the cover at least once. <br />
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But it wasn't just the covers. Rolling Stone also blew the reviews. As I recall, their write up of the mostly brilliant album "Back Home" complained that Chuck Berry had not kept pace with the music he invented-- that he hadn't "grown." "Back Home" was a great Chuck Berry record-- a joyous return to Chess Records after a three year stint at Mercury-- with Lafayette Leake on piano and Phil Upchurch on bass and more swing than you could find in the rest of 1970 combined.<br />
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After that, and after his death, you'd think the magazine would try to make it up to the guy who started what they write about, but not so much. Easier to fall back on the same old bullshit. At best, an appearance or two in Random Notes, and an occasional (and these I appreciated) ranking in Top 100 Guitarists, or Song Writers, or Whatever. And of course, he made the cover again when he couldn't see it.<br />
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Anyway, in the hack review the hack reviewer calls the backup on CHUCK a "bar band" and suggests that the album could have been improved with a drummer like Charlie Watts.<br />
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No disrespect from me to Charlie Watts. He's great. But the drumming on CHUCK is great, too; a perfect fit, with all the pounding, beautiful energy of the best early Chuck Berry records. And so is the "bar band"-- a core of incredible professionals who've put down the best rhythm section I've heard on a Chuck Berry record since the 1950s and early 1960s.<br />
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Yes, they've played in a a lot of bars. And if you've been to some of those bars, you'll know that St. Louis has some of the best blues and r&b in the world. <br />
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But better yet, they played with Chuck, for years, and in one case, for decades. He couldn't have found, hired, recruited a better band for the last Chuck Berry album anywhere.<br />
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So, Rolling Stone writer. Thelonious Monk's band were often "bar bands." B.B. King's bands were "bar bands." Muddy Waters' band was a "bar band." And so, in his final years, was Chuck Berry's.<br />
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But none of them were hacks.<br />
<br />Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-38362224011786309262017-05-19T15:08:00.001-07:002017-05-19T15:11:46.069-07:00Bye Bye Johnny B. GoodeYears ago I wrote about meeting Chuck Berry and giving him a framed picture of himself as a child. Peter K. had given me the photograph and we'd had fun trying to figure it out. In the picture Chuck is on the roof of a building, dressed to the nines, and using a small telescope. It's daytime. The telescope is pointing skyward. And it doesn't take long to figure out that all the shadows are behind Chuck: in other words, that he's pointing it at the sun. I wondered in an e-mail if it might have been an eclipse, and sure enough, Peter K. found out there had been two in St. Louis at around that time.<br />
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When I gave the picture to Chuck he was visibly excited. He said something like "Ooh, wee! Where'd you get this?" Then he said, "I'm going to show it to my friends, and you're going to be there when I do!" And off he went, running down the hallway to another hall where a bunch of people enjoyed his reaction to the picture. What made it even better is that my friend Doug was there, and my wife, who did some math with Chuck and his son to determine the date. (American history and practical math. We <i>lived</i> it!).<br />
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Here's the thing: You never know when you'll see a person you love for the last time.<br />
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I wasn't able to go to Chuck Berry's funeral, and I never went to another show, so it turns out that was the last time I ever saw the man. He was glorious that evening. He'd just put on a very good show. He was dressed all in black, with a black leather jacket and dark glasses. And the very, very last thing he did, before he went down the hall and into the street, was to stand in front of me, lift his dark glasses, and say "You look like Seattle!" And then he was gone, like a cool breeze.<br />
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Whatever that means, I'll take it. And what a blessing to have my last glimpse of Chuck Berry be up close, personal and so direct. Thank you again, Mr. Berry.Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-71630728539470259022017-03-19T10:07:00.001-07:002017-03-19T10:07:33.030-07:00On Valentine's Day in 1971, when I was just 14, I walked into a nearly empty Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento and saw a lone figure on stage backed by a local rock band. He was playing the blues when I pushed open the door and looked as sad and alone as anyone or anything I'd ever seen. Within a few minutes he picked it up and got us all on our feet and kept us there until, mercifully, he could leave Sacramento. But eight months later he was back with a full crowd rocking from the very start.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I haven't added to this site in a long time. I'll have two more posts, at least. A summing up, and a piece about his long awaited new album. In the meantime, I've shut down some of the more recent posts for a time to put my "book" about Chuck and my own peculiar love affair with him on top again for just a bit. Hail! Hail! Love you Chuck! </div>
Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-37010596975102317722016-07-08T14:10:00.000-07:002017-03-23T17:39:42.817-07:00Johnny B. Interesting: An Interview wtih Johnny Buschardt<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="s1"></span>Johnny Buschardt got in touch with me recently to ask if I had any old photographs of the exterior of Chuck Berry's old Club Bandstand in St. Louis. I didn't, but the question got us talking and I quickly realized that I'd encountered someone who was both a true fan and a truly interesting person. Buschardt is a former concert promoter in Texas who worked with Chuck Berry many times (and has even helped him with yard work! I feel your pain, Doug!) But in the past few weeks I've also realized he's a great story teller, writer, tourist, friend and dad; n amateur drummer and former stand up comedian; and a big, big fan of Chuck Berry. I asked him a few questions, (and now have lots more! Dang!)</div>
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<span class="s1"><b>You’re a promoter? What sorts of shows? What sorts of venues? What were some of your favorite shows over the years?</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Technically, I WAS a promoter. While I still do the occasional show from time to time, it isn’t like it was five or ten years ago, where I would do hundreds of shows in a year. Most of the shows I do now are shows were I am either friends with the artist OR the type of show I know is very low-risk. But I promoted full-time from 1994 until about 2014 or so.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">All sorts of shows! I’ve promoted artists ranging from Three Dog Night and Merle Haggard to Jay Leno and Dave Matthews. Kris Kristofferson, Gordon Lightfoot, Kathy Griffin, Anne Murray, Willie Nelson, Sinbad, Dave Chappelle, Foo Fighters, Ronnie Milsap, Alice Cooper, Huey Lewis & the News, BB King, and (of course) Chuck Berry… there aren’t many artists I DIDN’T promote over two decades.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Again, all sorts of venues. While I was promoting, I was also general manager for venues like the Historic Brady Theater (a 2,693 seat theater built in 1914) and the Mabee Center (a 17,000 seat arena built in 1970), both of which are in Tulsa. I’ve done shows in historic venues like the Fox Theater in Bakersfield, CA and in iconic venues such as Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, CO. I primarily focused on the Midwest, in markets like Kansas City, but I spanned out into Texas and California as well.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">There are a few favorite shows that stick out:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Luciano Pavarotti’s Farewell Tour was special because he only did three dates in North America for that: Hollywood, Miami, and Tulsa. I had the chance to work with an amazing team (including Sir Harvey Goldsmith, whose iconic resume includes Live Aid and Pink Floyd at the Berlin Wall) and was able to spend the week after our show with Maestro and his team in CA. So that was a special night and it was not only an evening no one would ever forget, but a chance to really shine within the industry as well.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">We did a show with Steve Winwood once that was memorable for all of the wrong reasons. His band was stranded in Chicago due to a snowstorm and we were backstage stretching our own creativity for how to pull this show off: do we bring in other musicians, does Steve do a solo set, do we add an opener and hope they make it in time? Luckily, the band arrived literally about the third song into the Steve’s acoustic set and the show was saved.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I remember a Kris Kristofferson show in San Diego once solely because Ace Frehley from KISS showed up and turned out to be a die-hard Kris fan (as well as an exceptionally nice guy). There was the Willie/Merle/Kris show in 2015 when everyone showed up backstage: Jamey Johnson, Randy Travis, Hank Williams Jr… you had to be on your toes, but it was still a great time.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>How did you get started in the business? Tell us about your early days.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">I actually started off in stand-up comedy and got to a point where I was opening for comedians like Rodney Dangerfield and Bill Cosby. At one point, walking past the promoter’s office one night during settlement, I saw how much the promoter was making and thought, “Well, man… how hard can it be?!?” My first few shows were artists I knew who let me promote them (Jay Leno, Sinbad, Drew Carey) and then I branched out after that, starting with the basics of classic rock and classic country and then developing a business model that would allow us to try new things.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>There are always stories about working with Chuck-- what has it been like for you?</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">It’s funny – I have never had a single issue with Chuck. I mean, the first time I worked with him (probably in the mid 90’s), I had heard nothing but horror stories. Still, this is Chuck Berry – he’s the reason we’re all here to begin with. Still, I never had an issue with him. I know Chuck likes me – I’ve heard from various agents and other promoters that “he and I get along well” – and I have had more than one promoter call me to defuse a Chuck situation, but I actually never had any issue with him at all.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I think the funniest thing about Chuck is how quickly his demeanor can change. I mean, if he is in a bad mood and just grouchy as hell, all you have to do in bring some children into the room and – BAM! – sweet old, grandfather Chuck comes out. His smile is infectious as hell and he truly can captivate a room. So I always tell people, if things are starting to go south, get some cute little kids in the room with Chuck. If you ever want to see Chuck Berry is his natural state, see him around a group of children.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>Why do you think some promotors report having had a bad time working with Chuck Berry? Have they told you? Can you see it backstage? </b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Like I said, Chuck and I get along well so I have gotten calls from more than one promoter in search of a quick fix. Here’s the deal: the reason most promoters upset Chuck is because they don’t do what they are supposed to do. Usually, they do something they shouldn’t have done with the absolute best of intentions. For example, if Chuck is set to go on at 8:00, he may not arrive at the venue until 7:55… and that is NOT an exaggeration. When he walks in, all Chuck wants is two things: to be handed his payment and to be shown the stage. Most promoters will make the mistake of trying to put food in Chuck’s dressing room, for example. Well, Chuck’s contract doesn’t ask for food… and food is a show expense that is taken out of the receipts before the split is determined – in other words, it’s less money to Chuck. Of course most artists want food in their dressing room – but Chuck isn’t most artists. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Another issue is the backline (which is the instruments used in the show). Chuck plays with a Fender Dual Showman guitar amp – that is part of his contract. Now, if you (as a promoter) are unable to secure that amp, you have a choice: don’t sign the contract or pay Chuck $2000 in cash before he goes on stage. See, Chuck has the right to demand anything he wants: as an artist, he has a very specific tone and sound that he wants to achieve and he knows how to get it. If you are worth a lick of salt, you should be able to find the amp. Even if you can’t, though, all you have to do is tell Chuck in advance and have the $2000 waiting for him. It is when you DON’T tell Chuck that you can’t get his amp (and he finds out when he appears to play) that he gets upset… and rightfully so.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The reason Chuck is seen as “difficult” is simply because he calls people out on their mistakes. If you don’t provide the amp, Chuck will call the promoter to the stage and have the promoter tell the audience exactly how they messed up… and why the audience isn’t hearing Chuck’s signature sound the way he wants them too.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I always tell people this: do exactly as the contract states and you’ll be fine. If you can’t get the amp, let Chuck know and his cash waiting for him. However, if Chuck gets so angry that he starts referring to himself in the third person… well, at that point, you’re screwed.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>Chuck Berry often worked with local musicians. What’s it like for the band members when they know they are going to back up a legend?</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Aside from possibly St. Louis, Chuck never travels with a band. Part of his contract dictates that the promoter must provide a quality backing band. The tough part isn’t finding folks who want to play with Chuck Berry – I mean, who wouldn’t want to? The tough part is finding folks who have the skills and the knowledge of every Chuck Berry song. See, Chuck doesn’t provide a set list to the band – he simply starts playing a song and the band needs to be able to jump in immediately without any heads up or guidance. Remember, Chuck arrives literally five minutes before a show – there is no rehearsal, no sound check, no stage blocking… you just jump right into and do a line check off the first song. I have three or four bands I use exclusively with Chuck – they have worked with him before and can get the job done. Of course, every artist is thrilled to play with Chuck Berry. I mean, the man is the reason we are all there to begin with, so I have yet to meet an artist who didn’t consider it a thrill to play with Chuck Berry.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>Do you feel like you got to know Chuck by working with him? Talk about that some.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">LOL! I don’t think ANYONE knows Chuck Berry! Chuck will always be his own man and I don’t think anyone will ever be able to fully figure him out. I mean, maybe Toddy knows him – they have been married for more than 65 years, so she may have some inside scoop. but other than that, I don’t think anyone can claim to know Chuck. Francine may know the man – but I don’t. I just keep it simple: I give him things I know he likes (Indian food, grape soda, etc.) and stick the plan as much as we can. Chuck really likes things like yard work – even when he doesn’t play guitar (and yes, he will go weeks without picking it up), he still likes to work with his hands. Aside from that, though, Chuck is just… Chuck.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>If you could ask him one question, what would it be? (Something he’s not expecting!)</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Hmmm… I think most of the questions I would ask I already have asked. I would probably ask him about the night he met Johnnie Johnson. Or maybe about when the Johnnie Johnson Trio became the Chuck Berry Trio. I think those two moments are probably two of the most pivotal in rock and roll history… but I don’t think they have come up specifically. Although, it was always a treat to hear Chuck talk about playing the Cosmo back in the day… man, to have been a fly on that wall!!!</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>You went through St. Louis recently. Did you include music in your visit? Did you hit any of Chuck’s historic sites? </b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">You know I did!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Johnny at the site of the Cosmopolitan in East St. Louis.</td></tr>
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<span class="s1"><b>It’s surprising after so much time in the business you are still a fan!</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">It’s Chuck Berry – how can anyone NOT be a fan?!?!?!</span></div>
Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-53528819472041419032015-02-03T09:20:00.003-08:002017-03-23T17:39:42.822-07:00He WAS a Contender! He COULD have been anything! Bob Dylan Talks About Chuck Berry.<div class="p1">
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<b>Bob Dylan talks about Chuck Berry’s greatness in the current issue of AARP:</b></div>
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"Chuck Berry could have been anything in the music business. He stopped where he was, but he could have been a jazz singer, a ballad singer, a guitar virtuoso. He could have been a lot of things. But there’s a spiritual aspect to him, too. In 50 or 100 years he might even be thought of as a religious icon."</div>
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Bob Dylan, on our hero's importance, as told to AARP Magazine. You can read the whole thing (including more about Chuck Berry) <a href="http://www.aarp.org/entertainment/style-trends/info-2015/bob-dylan-aarp-the-magazine-full-interview.1.html">HERE!</a></div>
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Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-13669336398657352202014-11-22T12:51:00.005-08:002017-03-23T17:39:42.809-07:00Jack Hadley Talks about The St. Louis Sessions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For a year or two now I've been remotely following a Colorado musician named Jack Hadley after first hearing about him from Bob Lohr. A few months later things started heating up with word of recording sessions and big Italian meals in St.. Louis's Hill neighborhood. A couple weeks ago I got my hands on the results, a CD called Jack Hadley: The St. Louis Sessions, and decided it was time to revive the website again. After all, here's a record that includes a couple of Chuck Berry's current musicians, recorded by one of his older ones right in Mr. Lohr's "Blues Rock Ground Zero." So I sent Mr. Hadley some questions and got back golden prose. <a href="http://www.jackhadleymusic.net/id3.html">So, buy the CD HERE</a>. And enjoy!<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>How did a blues man from Colorado end up recording in St. Louis?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In April or May of 2013 I was invited to play at the Rauma Blues Festival in Rauma, Finland with Bob, Keith Robinson and bassist Terry Coleman. The original performer, Chicago guitarist/singer Chainsaw Dupont, was scheduled to play at this festival, but he had some health issues couldn’t do the tour. My wife is from St. Louis and we had been down there visiting her family. While we were in town I played at BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups with these guys. When we got back to Colorado Bob called and asked if I had a current passport. I said “Yes” and that was it. One thing led to another, the promoter checked me out and gave me the green light. The festival went very well (took place in July 2013). When we got back to the USA, Bob said I should come down to St. Louis and record some new music. The vibe is completely different there. And that’s how I ended up recording “The St. Louis Sessions.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>Tell us about the record. What were you trying to do? How do you feel about the result?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Well, I was trying to make a blues record, period. I have a lot of different influences in my playing and songwriting: folk, reggae, fusion, rock, blues, and many others. Bob Lohr was instrumental in keeping me on the blues road, musically speaking, while still keeping my own voice in the mix. For example, when I sent the rough mix of “I Need Somebody” to Bob, he said I needed to “shuffle-ize” it, make it more blues. I didn’t understand it at first. But I changed the rhythm guitar approach and turned it around. It’s a shuffle done my way — a little bit outside, if you know what I mean. I fingerpick a lot, and that’s the approach with this song. And I know it resonates with people, on the radio and especially on the dance floor.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I played a lot of funk and R&B music in the past, and it shows. I also have the Hendrix thing which is also a huge influence for me. I needed to reign in the funk (although that style is prominent in “Something So Bad”), and bring my inner B.B./Robert Cray to the forefront. I wanted to showcase the blues/soul feel that I have and focus on good songs. I’m very happy with the result. I think we avoided a lot of blues clichés…and God knows there are so many out there. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I have to give props to Nichole Olea, a great St. Louis-based photographer. She and Bob are friends and she took the fantastic shots that I used on the CD and all of my promotional material for “The St. Louis Sessions.” I also used K-Line Guitars courtesy of Chris Kroenlein, another St. Louis bad-ass. This guy makes custom electric guitars that are second to none. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>How long did the process take? How long were you in the city?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The recording process took a little more than 4 months. I live in Boulder, Colorado, right outside of Denver. I flew into St. Louis every 6 weeks or so, working on my own here in Colorado and the songs were refined in St. Louis. My wife is from St. Charles and I was able to stay with my mother-in-law, drive to the studio, and take care of business. I couldn’t have made this CD without her help. The recording process started in September 2013 and finished up in January 2014.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The next phase was mixing the tracks. David Torretta worked his magic and Bob sent the tracks to me as he moved forward. This took 2-3 months. When the final mixes were done, we sent them to Matt Murman for mastering. This took a few more months. Matt has a worked with tons of blues artists, people like Lurrie Bell, Arthur Crudup, Big Joe Williams, Eddy Clearwater and Roosevelt Sykes, to name a few. The engineering of David Torretta, the guidance of Bob Lohr and the final touches by Matt Murman really brought this project to a higher level. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>Did you make it out to the local clubs to hear some of the local musicians?</i> </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I didn’t really have time to do that. But I’ve spent time at BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups before. I have played there a few times with Bob, Keith and Terry before the CD was recorded. In fact, the inside cover shot was taken on the roof of BB’s. Very cool experience. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>Is the record getting some airplay? Do you have any plans to tour with the guys who are on it? Your own band?</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“The St. Louis Sessions” is already getting tons of airplay. The official release date was Oct. 20</span><span style="font: 7.3px Geneva; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><sup>th</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">, 2013. We are working with Todd Glazer Promotions and he’s made all the difference. You need a professional to get your music heard on the radio. I get reports from Todd on a regular basis. The CD has been added to playlists all over the U.S. and Canada. And it’s increasing every day. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I’m definitely planning on touring with Bob, Keith and Terry, collectively known as The St. Louis Blues All-Stars. I’d like to hit the European festival circuit sometime in 2015, do some shows in America, too. I’m already playing most of these songs with my current trio, The Jack Hadley Band, here in Colorado.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>Is it my imagination, or does St. Louis have a special sound and feel? And where does that come from?</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is not your imagination. There is a St. Louis sound. I noticed it the first time I heard Bob Lohr play at a festival here in Colorado a few years ago. And when I came to St. Louis I heard it immediately at BB’s. Drummers know how to play a shuffle in that city – as well as everything else. The guys in the St. Louis Blues All-Stars can play all kinds of different music. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It could be that St. Louis is much closer to the South, musically speaking. The roots of blues, Rock n’ Roll, gospel, soul and R&B are really apparent. I also think there is a respect for the blues, and people take it seriously. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>What’s the blues scene like in Boulder and Denver? Is there any real history to the music there?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The blues scene in Boulder and Denver is complicated. There is a blues scene but it’s not like St. Louis. There are very few “blues” clubs, and — like many other places — many people only want to hear blues-rock. The blues audience here is a predominately older, White audience. Most Black musicians I know are not interested in the blues, period. A real blues history in Colorado? I would say no. And many of the people who are involved in the local blues scene come from somewhere else. It’s odd. This is almost a reverse segregation with Black people on the R&B/funk/smooth jazz end of the scale and very little crossover. And I’m saying this to you as a board member of the Colorado Blues Society and a musician. I see it every day. The audiences I’ve seen in St. Louis are much more diverse.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The West is a more laid-back environment. It’s easy to live out here. And there are a lot of distractions that might take away from a real interest in what many people consider to be “old” music. People are outside quite a bit since we have lots of sunshine, and you get the impression they would rather hear classic rock or a DJ. Anything but real blues.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>Your music seems to mix straight up blues with some really pretty melodies. Who were your influences? Where does that sound come from?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">You are correct. I listened to all kinds of music. My Dad is from Louisiana and my Mom was from the Philippines (I was born there). We had Nat King Cole and the Platters on the stereo, never heard any blues. And living in the Bay Area as a kid was a different experience, too. I listened to folk music, started out playing the acoustic guitar, still love finger-picking. Joni Mitchell, CSN&Y, Dylan, you name it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I like pretty melodies and straight blues. Growing up with all these styles made me realize that I should play what I like. I listened to Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Chambers Brothers, Curtis Mayfield, all that stuff growing up. I enjoy funky stuff, too, but I drifted away from R&B because it isn’t guitar-oriented music. Modern R&B has been keyboard/bass/vocal dominated for a long time. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">My guitar influences are all over the map, but in the beginning: Hendrix, Clapton, B.B. King. I think I was influenced by their approach to the guitar, how they construct their solos, their voicing. I dig Hendrix’ inversions, the sting of Robert Cray, the soul of B.B., the raw blues power of Albert King. I love any great music played by masters of the Telecaster, people like Albert Collins, Redd Volkaert and Danny Gatton. Jazz players like Bireli LaGrene and Wes Montgomery. This is all beautiful music to me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I came to the blues through the back door, listening to everything my friends were into, and realizing much later this is actually another version of the blues – the original pop music. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>Can you talk a bit about your early work in music? Were you in bands as a kid? What were you playing?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I was 12 or 13 when I started playing the guitar. Nothing serious because it was difficult to play. I didn’t realize that a guitar needed to be set up for you in order to play it. As a teenager I played a lot of folk music, rock (courtesy of Hendrix, the Beatles, etc.) I also started playing with other people in bands, sometimes acoustic duos. I remember playing in a duo with a friend of mine playing any kind of music with great harmonies, like Simon & Garfunkle, CSN&Y, that kind of stuff. We played wherever we could, parties and church ceremonies. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Later on I started playing music by Sly & The Family Stone, early Commodores, Parliament Funkadelic and Slave. I’ve always had one foot in soul music. I’m a huge reggae music fan, too. I played with some guys from Trinidad for a few years in the ‘80s. Another form of soul music, for me, coming out of the Caribbean. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>Your St. Louis sessions brought you in contact with a lot of Chuck Berry’s people-- Bob Lohr, Keith Robinson. Dave Torretta has been working on the “new” Chuck Berry record and played bass on one of my all time favorite unknown CB numbers. What was that like?</i> </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">These guys are some of the best musicians I’ve ever played with. Again, the St. Louis thing: the ability to play real blues, not just pretending to play it. The depth of these players can’t be overestimated. When you’re playing with musicians at this level it changes everything. It’s the right sound and you can’t deny it. Terry Coleman on bass? You can’t touch him. Good people, too, with some crazy stories from the road and just the life of a musician.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Casa Del Torretta was a very easy place to record. David Torretta has this dialed in. There are instruments hanging on the walls, small guitar amps, great vocal mics — all the right elements to make good music. And that’s what we did. When we hit a wall we’d take a break and have some great Italian food and a few beers on The Hill, and then get back to work. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Yes, I’ve heard about the unknown CB tracks. Apparently they’ve been in the works for some time. Hopefully they will be released sooner rather than later.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>When you’re working with musicians in St. Louis, can you feel the presence of the greats who started there? </i> </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Oh, hell yes. And when you’re on the Walk of Fame on the Loop and you realize how many great musicians have come out of St. Louis, it’s overwhelming. It makes you want to play well, do the best you can. I didn’t want to half-step on stage or in the studio.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>And I have to ask: did you meet Chuck while you were there?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Yes. My wife, Jill, and I did meet Chuck at Blueberry Hill one night in 2013. Bob brought us in through the backstage door. I was speechless. I didn’t want to make a fool out of myself and ask for an autograph so I just said hello and that it was an honor to meet him. We talked for a few minutes, then joined the audience for his one hour set. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. </span></span></div>
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Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-30490245285558407272013-12-12T01:28:00.001-08:002017-03-23T17:39:42.813-07:00Chuck Berry LIVE at The House of Blue Lights<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well, not really! It was Chuck Berry and Company at Blueberry Hill, the 11th day of December, 2013. But as you'll see, with my old camera and no flash, there's a blurry blue light that captures the event better than the cold, hard light of my flash.<br />
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It was a fun night. Sometimes it was so much fun Chuck seemed to think we were laughing at him. "I hear you talking and laughing. But no man is perfect!"</div>
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But never, Mr. Berry. Everybody loved every moment.</div>
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It began, as ever, with "Roll Over Beethoven," followed by a long, beautiful version of "Wee Wee Hours" and a short half version of "Maybellene." Then a long rock and roll instrumental in G, where Chuck and his band hit the St. Louis groove that I became more familiar with on this trip. "That was pretty good!" he said, with considerable understatement.</div>
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Someone yelled "We love you, Chuck!"</div>
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"Thank you girls," he said. "I know a girl when I hear one!"</div>
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There was a moment in the set where Chuck Berry tried to show us all his hearing aid. "This one's gone," he said, pointing to his right ear. "If you spend 52 years in front of a drummer you pay a penalty!"</div>
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"I didn't say 'a penny,'" he added. "I've paid this one plenty!"</div>
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But that hearing aid obviously helps. There were some flubbed notes, but on "Wee Wee Hours" and a couple of the instrumentals, Chuck was killing it. So was the band.</div>
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He did "School Days (Ring Ring Goes the Bell)," but forgot to let us sing "Hail! Hail!"</div>
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He launched into a short one about no poem as lovely as a tree and admitted "We've never played this one before." The band members agreed.</div>
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When he asked what Chuck Berry songs we wanted to hear I used my position in the front row to lobby for one I've never heard him play. "No Money Down!" I yelled. I hold a perfect record on that one. I still haven't heard Chuck play it-- he stood there listening while Ingrid and the band did a great job on the song. That made me feel a little bad, but I was consoled by a high five from the rhythm guitarist. Anyway, it was a great Chuck Berry song that ought to be played more!</div>
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To get himself back on track Chuck launched into another rocker instrumental, and once again, they killed it. Then he asked Bob Lohr what to play. "How about Johnny B. Goode?" And they rocked that one, too, with some lyrics I've never heard but that I liked: "a little boy who looked a lot like me!"</div>
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Ingrid did a slow blues next. "You know what I'm talking about ladies, don't you. I work hard every day taking care of castle keep."</div>
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And then a wonderful version of "Reelin' and Rockin'," with the vocal highlight coming from bass player Jimmy Marsala. At a quarter to 12 Chuck began singing "I didn't know if I was...". And when he paused for just a breath Jimmy filled the void with "going to Hell!" Charles was laughing so hard he was unable to play guitar for at least four bars.</div>
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A band called Palace opened. We heard their soundcheck and knew they were good, but during the first few numbers the sound equipment faltered badly and they had to stop mid-song two or three times. One of their singers-- a very pretty young woman-- told stories and jokes and answered silly questions from the audience while BBH's sound man figured out the problem, and then they went back to work with a shortened by triumphant set of rhythmic pop that mixed bits of Brian Wilson, Queen and The Beatles. The crowd loved them, so did I, and so did Charles Berry, Jr., who applauded their professionalism afterwards.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kvDl4W0N8gg/UqmBaBw_2PI/AAAAAAAAC74/zldloWvtLCc/s1600/IMG_5869.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kvDl4W0N8gg/UqmBaBw_2PI/AAAAAAAAC74/zldloWvtLCc/s200/IMG_5869.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a>All in all, a wonderful night. We topped it off by staying up way past our bedtimes to see a bit of Roland Johnson's set downtown at The Beale. I guess I'll pay tomorrow. Tonight, I'm just pleased we came back to St. Louis one more time.</div>
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(Unbelievable! Just lost all the pictures I was trying to show you. It was taking forever, so I'll do a <i>selection</i>!)</div>
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<br />Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-79438523848290354512013-12-11T08:36:00.000-08:002017-03-23T17:39:42.826-07:00A Night of Blues and Soul in St. Louis<br />
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(<i>I didn't go out in St. Louis with the idea of writing about what I'd seen and heard, so I didn't take notes. But what I saw and heard was worth recording somehow. Here's the best I can do under the circumstances. The way to find out what it was really like- head there yourself!</i>)</div>
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I’ve never been to New Orleans (I’m saving it up) but I <i>know</i> about New Orleans-- that it’s a place famous for its musicians. I know about Memphis, Nashville and Austin (though, come to think of it, I’ve never been to to a couple of those, either.) Everybody knows these places are music places, and still lively that way.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">But I didn’t really know about St. Louis. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">Which is odd, considering that my hero and the lifelong object of my obsession hails from St. Louis, and considering that I associate the city names like Albert King, Miles Davis and Ann Peebles. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">But after a quick trip back to St. Louis this December-- one of several that I’ve taken in the last five years-- I’ve finally begun to scratch the surface and learn a little about the city’s still thriving Blues scene. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">In the course of three nights-- December 7, 10 and 11-- my wife and I saw five great performances by artists like Boo Boo Davis, Marquise Knox, Eugene Johnson, Kim Massie and Roland Johnson. It was easy to do since all of them performed at two cool venues that sit across from each other a few blocks south of the Arch on South Broadway-- B.B.’s Soups, Jazz and Blues and Beale on Broadway.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">I’d gone to St. Louis to see my old hero Chuck “one last time.” (He keeps fooling me.) But these two clubs-- and I’m sure there are a half a dozen more to add to the list-- are worth a trip to St. Louis all by themselves. The drinks are big and cheap. The food at B.B.’s is good. The crowds ranged from boisterous on the weekend to intimate on a Wednesday. The music was consistently stellar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">Every night we found a new mix of musicians, always with some crossover from a prior night. Bassist Gus Thornton played for both Marquise Knox and Kim Massie. Guitarist Stephen Martin backed up Massie and Roland Johnson. Drummer Gerald Warren played with Eugene Johnson and stayed to provide beats for Kim Massie. Keyboardist Robert Lohr was with Delta blues great Boo Boo Davis on Saturday night and on the following Wednesday crossed town to back Chuck Berry. Eugene Johnson led his own group on Tuesday but also appears on Marquise Knox’s newest cd.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">I can’t pretend to know much about these musicians, (and I went to enjoy the music, not to take notes; I wish now I’d written a few things down) but bassist Gus Thornton provides an example of the depth of talent. Watching him back up the remarkable Marquise Knox, I was struck by Thornton’s easygoing smile and the effortless way his fingertips touched the five strings of his bass to drive the songs. A couple of days later Bob Lohr clued me into Thornton’s background playing bass for people like Albert King. You can check it out yourself and read a good interview of the man <a href="http://www.stlblues.net/gus.html">HERE.</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">Guitarist Stephen Martin, who played with Massie and Roland Johnson has a similarly angelic smile but plays devilishly good stuff on his pale blue Telecaster. Massie was complimenting him on a new haircut when we saw them together. You had to crane your neck to see him, tucked away in a corner behind Thornton, but you could hear every lick, down to the subtlest little bent “twing” that got drummer Gerald Warren laughing and nodding at the end of a song. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">And that’s one of the best parts: these musicians, who collect themselves in different groups every night, (or twice a night,) seem to really enjoy hearing and playing with each <i>other</i>. In Memphis, on Beale Street, we saw some fine musicians putting on a fine show for us toursits, but at Beale on Broadway we saw fine musicians making music with and for each <i>other</i>. Which works out fine for the audience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">At the Marquise Knox show one young woman danced with half the men in the place, enticing them to all sorts of silly acts of lust which she then rejected with a grin. Kim Massie brought out post-it notes and a vase to collect requests and big bills. (She got plenty!) Eugene Johnson invited a drummer he’d met in Europe to sit in. The drummer, who took the sticks from Warren, might have regretted his decision about half way through “Brick House,” but it proved just how good the Warren and the other regular musicians are. Another guy who took the stage before Roland Johnson’s set had better luck. He borrowed Stephen Martin’s guitar and began to sing and strum a bit timidly. We thought it was going to be a disaster, and one man made a face and laughed. But the further he got, better it sounded, and one by one the musicians began to join him on stage. Lew Winer, III, comedian of the group, played some wonderful sax, Eugene Johnson added bass, and Roland Johnson even tried to play the drums. It was downright pretty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">As for the stars, dang! To hear voices like Kim Massie’s and Roland Johnson’s from ten feet away restores a soul. Both are great performers, too. Johnson is as close as I’ll get, in attitude, to seeing Otis Redding alive, and Massie’s <i>all</i> attitude. (To see Johnson and his band Soul Endeavor live, check out this clip of them playing at the Blues Deli in St. Louis's Soulard neighborhood. <a href="http://www.soulendeavor.net/movies/index.html">Follow this Link!</a>) Between great songs Massie fires off wickedly dry one liners and singled <i>me</i> out for a cruelly shouted line questioning my manhood! (It took a while to forgive her- but you can’t hold a grudge against a voice like that!)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: xx-small;">Boo Boo Davis, who plays the first Saturday of every month at B.B.’s Soups, Jazz and Blues, was the old timer of this group, a veteran Delta Blues musician and drummer who helped nurture the current St. Louis blues scene back in the 1970s. B.B.‘s is a long, narrow place with a long bar that opens into a dining room and stage. You can eat there, too. When we arrived Davis, resplendent in black leather and bordello red, was seated at the front of the house just beneath the stage taking visits from audience members. Boo Boo Davis was preceded on stage that night by singer and harmonica player Tom “Papa” Ray, who did a rhumba style “Summertime” on a very cold fall night backed by a group that included Robert Lohr on Piano, Nephew Davis on bass, Carlos Hughes on drums and Larry Griffen on guitar. Then Boo Boo Davis, who alternates his deep growl of a voice with harmonica. A man claiming to be his little brother sat whooping and hollering a few feet from us. I decided his claim might be true when he said “the Wolf’s in the house” just before Davis launched into a startling imitation of Howlin’ Wolf.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">When Davis’s first set was over we crossed the street to see and hear Marquise Knox. At Beale on Broadway, the stage is right next to the front door, so as soon as you enter your are slammed with blues coming full force from a line of old guitar amps that seem to be stationed permanently against the back wall. We paid our 7 dollars and sat on stools right next to the door while Knox, just 21 years old but completely mesmerizing, leaned forward to do a medley classics and originals. (One song takes the title of a Billy Peek classic, “Can a White Man Play the Blues?” and makes it relevant to Knox by asking if a young man can.) (The answer, in both cases, is that if it’s the right one, yes indeed.) Here's a sample.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">I don’t know if Chuck Berry will get me back to St. Louis again, but I know I’ll be back, and that when I return, I’ll go wherever these folks are playing. And then I’ll head down the river to New Orleans. ‘Cause I haven’t been there, yet.</span></div>
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Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-6743037163594125092013-07-03T23:22:00.000-07:002016-07-23T15:32:40.787-07:00Chapter 2 - A Gift from Stevo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My brother Stevo is the one who first told me about Chuck Berry. It came in two conversations— lectures really, because there was no give and take. And I doubt that he was talking to me. We weren’t close then. He was older. My guess is that he was talking to Danny, who was closer to Stevo’s age, and that I was sitting nearby, listening. <br />
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If I were to guess again, I would say we were in a car, Danny at the wheel of his 1958 Chevy sedan, Stevo riding shotgun, pontificating with lots of hand motion and no eye contact. I was likely in back. But that is only a feeling, because this first lecture is disembodied in my memory, just Stevo’s words describing an old rocker who was “better than Elvis.” This was no recommendation. The Elvis I knew made bad movies and sappy ballads. <br />
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Though I have no visual of Stevo talking—only that vague sense of a moving car— I recall exactly the visual I formed of this Chuck Berry fellow. For me “Chuck” meant blond, with freckles. Chuck was the catcher on my little league team. Chuck was the actor who played “The Rifleman” on TV. So the mental image I formed was a 1950s rocker, tall and a bit menacing, with Connors’ high cheek bones—David Bowie with a blond pompadour. He wore a checkered shirt and played an acoustic guitar.<br />
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Then one day I was listening to the beginning of The Mike Douglas Show, a daytime talk show and after school favorite of mine. I liked Mike. He seemed genuinely nice, and took time to talk to the musicians who appeared on his show. <br />
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This time I have actual memories. It is before my parents separate. I am in the swanky, suburban rambler that we occupy from the time I am nine until I am fourteen. I am listening to the chatter of a small black and white television when the announcer says that Chuck Berry will be on today’s show. That gets my attention.<br />
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It is October 22, 1970. Four decades later I learn the date from a reference book and, through the miracle of YouTube, I watch again.<br />
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Mike Douglas sits with Cher and Sonny. He says: “In the rock era of the fifties he was an innovator, with tunes like “Maybellene,” “Rock and Roll Music” and “Johnny B. Goode. Here is Mr. Chuck Berry!” Sonny and Cher applaud without enthusiasm. <br />
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Chuck is standing on a series of risers that look like giant building blocks about four feet tall and three feet square. He’s crowded by the mike stand. One misstep and he’s an innovator with a limp. <br />
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He’s wearing yellow pegged slacks that tighten about three inches above his shoes and show skinny ankles. He’s got the purple paisley shirt I’ll see in hundreds of pictures and at a couple of performances over the next 20 years or so. His upturned pencil mustache is mimicking Salvador Dali or Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux. He has giant sideburns and slicked back hair. He has the high cheek bones I envisioned, and he might have freckles, but the pompadour is not blond. <br />
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The guitar intro is flawless. When he starts to sing he recoils from the volume, but someone adjusts it and he settles into a grim, nearly joyless performance of “Johnny B. Goode.” No wonder I wasn’t overly impressed. The band plays a lifeless arrangement with bass and drums that are too neat and horns that are dorky. (A comment posted on YouTube says : “Man, that band is really dragging Chuck down. That bass player flat sucks!”) During the instrumental break Chuck has to climb down from the riser without tripping over his guitar cord and killing himself, all the while picking a complicated solo. You can see his relief when he finally gets to the stage where he can dance and do his “scoot.” With his too-short pants he looks a bit like what Michael Jackson will look like 10 or 11 years later at the Motown 25th anniversary show except that these pants are totally uncool.<br />
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I watch, interested, but unchanged. <br />
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Why I remember that show I’m not sure. I had no real stake in Chuck Berry then. The obsession didn’t hit until four months later, in winter. It is a testament to whatever Stevo told me about the man that I filed away fragments of this event as lifelong memories. It’s as if Stevo’s words were an injection of live virus for which I had no antibodies.<br />
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A few months later, in December, on the other side of the same split level rambler, I’m awakened by loud music and voices. This has to be just days or weeks before our life at that house will end— days or weeks before we will leave my father and move to an old Victorian farm house on the edge of town. It can’t happen too soon. The house and our life in it have become disturbing. There’s too much craziness. Even the dark paneling on this side of the house—the side where I sleep— is nightmarish. In my young mind the dark waves of wood grain are like shrieking ghosts, the incarnation of what scares me about our life in this place. <br />
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This night Stevo and Danny are in the sunken, paneled room where my father usually watches television. It’s around midnight. Danny and Stevo are watching the Dick Cavett show at high volume. They are laughing and talking. I sleep in the next room, but as Chuck says, no use of me complaining, my objection’s overruled. I get up and walk to the den, bleary with interrupted sleep. <br />
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I remember colored stage lights and glinting chrome. “Who is this?” I ask. <br />
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“Chuck Berry,” says Stevo. He’s not lecturing now, he’s annoyed at my interruption. <br />
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It’s a color television and a more exciting performance than I saw on Mike Douglas. I watch, but I’m too groggy to be affected. I go back to bed and to sleep.<br />
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And then, (because all of this happens over a fall, and a winter), maybe a few months later, Stevo again holds forth on Chuck Berry. I know this is later because we have left the suburban rambler. We are living in changed and changing circumstances— released from a five year nightmare of alcohol and insanity in the suburbs. The drunken howling is no more. The scary paneling is behind me. My mother, my sister Ann and I have moved, just weeks prior, to a dream world: a yellow Victorian in Orangevale, with a three story tower, a rock garden, small pastures and barns. <br />
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Stevo is short, stocky and Irish in a half Irish family where the men tended to be tall and (in our youth) lean. He’s got a mustache and goatee. He wears his brown hair pushed back, a bit like the man he’s talking about. It’s continuation of the same lecture he started months before: Chuck Berry 101. He’s describing a show he attended at the Fillmore in San Francisco, a show that was mostly blues. </div>
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“He’s not really a blues guy,” says Stevo, “not like Muddy Waters, or B. B. King, or Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland.” Stevo, at age 20 or 21, has been toughened by fights and car crashes and stints in jail. His face is scarred. There is a round half circle punched into his cheek by the steel rim of a steering wheel hub. </div>
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“You can tell he came up playing in blues clubs,” he tells us. “He knows that stuff. He’s good at it, too.” </div>
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Stevo probably knows nothing about Chuck Berry’s actual and specific history—how he started in North St. Louis and East St. Louis, playing blues and bits of country music at places like The Crank Club and the Cosmopolitan— but he’d seen Chuck Berry play a bluesy set and had processed it through his tremendous stores of pop culture knowledge and is here to testify, to teach, to bear witness. He leans over my mother’s old baby grand piano and picks out bit of two or three fingered boogie-woogie.</div>
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“He ain’t a bluesman, but he can play it! He’s good at it!” </div>
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I’m 14 years old. I don’t know what a bluesman is, or who Bobby “Blue” Bland is, or that the boogie-woogie music Stevo is playing is what formed the backbone to so many of Chuck Berry’s early rock ‘n’ roll hits. But Stevo’s words have altered me, and within weeks or months I will feel raw, slow guitar pouring bent blue notes through the doors of an old civic auditorium, and when I push those doors open, my life will change forever. <br />
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<i>(This is part of a 33 Chapter "book" on my imaginary life with Chuck Berry. You can keep reading <a href="http://goheadon.blogspot.com/2012/10/chapter-3-infection.html">HERE</a>!)</i><br />
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Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-45756845234600485342013-06-30T14:08:00.001-07:002023-03-19T23:13:34.836-07:00Chapter 4 - Why He Matters, Part One: Chuck Berry as Songwriter<br />
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One night I challenge my wife Rebecca to name someone with more cultural impact than Chuck Berry. </div>
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“Shakespeare,” she says.</div>
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She gets me, first time.</div>
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“Okay, but he’s the only one!” I stammer, less confident.</div>
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I am quick to acknowledge other musical geniuses—greater ones: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk.</div>
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There are many better singers. There are better guitar players (though not many who could be called more important or more influential). I’m not sure there are better entertainers—just different ones. Few songwriters can match him.</div>
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But Chuck Berry’s importance goes beyond the music, or the songs, or the poetry, or the performance. He is one of the big daddies of modern history. In the pantheon of important and great Americans I think he matches all but two. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Lincoln are alone at the top. But when you accept that an artist can be as important as a military leader, or a politician, or an industrialist, or an inventor—and I certainly do—then he is up there with the most important. Compare Chuck Berry to the self important— to murderers for hire like Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney. See who actually matters. Some men are distinguished only by the slaughter and heartache they cause, or what they stole. Chuck Berry changed a culture.</div>
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He didn’t do it alone, and though his art and his career moves were carefully calculated, he didn’t exactly do it on purpose; but he was part of a movement that delivered us from days of old to a new and different and in many ways a better place. And there is something unique about his individual role. He wasn’t just a singer, or a star, or a guitarist, or performer, or poet, or songwriter, or businessman, or felon, or genius, or icon—he was all of that. It is no accident that he was born and stayed at the very heart of the country and continent, on a river that has symbolized the soul of that country from the time of Twain until the time of Dylan. Nor is it mere coincidence or happenstance that in his fourth recording session he told Tchaikovsky the news and then, in the 60 years that followed, lived up to the boast.</div>
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He might deny his importance. He once told a reporter “I ain’t no big shit.” But he is a big shit— a popular artist who achieved uncommon results in the vernacular. Our Dante. Our Shakespeare. A man who does everything Mark Twain did, but backwards, with a guitar. And like both Twain and Shakespeare, he did it as much to earn a living as to make art.</div>
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It starts, of course, with the songs— dozens and dozens and dozens of them. Hundreds, actually. Written, Chuck Berry will tell you, for commercial purposes. “I was writing commercially then,” he says of “Johnny B. Goode.” In the film Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll he says “Half the young people go to school so I wrote about school… Half the young people have cars and I wrote about cars. And mostly all the people, if they are not now, they’ll soon be in love—and those that have loved and are out of love remember love, so write about love. So I wrote about all three.”</div>
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The vast majority of Chuck Berry songs are “good” songs. (There are definitely some clunkers.) But then there are the great ones— the two minute ditties with the fast folk poetry and searing 10 second guitar breaks, the songs recorded at Chess Records between 1955 and 1964, with Johnnie Johnson, Otis Spann, or Lafayette Leake on piano, Willie Dixon on bass, and Ebby Hardy, Fred Below, or Odie Payne on drums—those songs—“Johnny B. Goode,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” “School Day,” “Memphis,” “Nadine,” “No Money Down,” “Maybellene,” and more— those songs come as close to perfection as we human beings get. They have it all: energy, poetry, youth, sass, nostalgia, family, fantasy, comedy, rhythm, rhyme and blues.</div>
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The poet Cornelius Eady, who wrote a poem entitled Chuck Berry about Chuck Berry, wrote in an e-mail that “John Lennon once called CB one of America's great poets, and I have heard (and read) little to dis sway me of that notion."</div>
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Consider “Johnny B. Goode,” recorded by hundreds of different groups and individuals, played by hundreds of thousands of small time singers, guitarists, and bands, in millions of performances, a song that was sent out to the galaxy on both Voyager spacecraft to represent humanity’s better angels to other worlds. “This is a present from a small, distant world,” wrote President Jimmy Carter to whatever distant life form first spins “Johnny B. Goode” on that ultimate, intergalactic gold record, “a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.” (The joke, on Saturday Night Live, is that the first radio message received from aliens in outer space says “Send more Chuck Berry!”) It’s a song so overplayed and omnipresent that it should be cliché, but Chuck’s original version, recorded in 1958, never grows old. And no wonder— it has everything: ringing guitar, pounding bass, Lafayette Leake’s rippling piano, great drums, inventiveness, a perfect title (the economy of turning “be” into an initial), a timeless story, and vivid imagery: the log cabin “made of earth and wood,” the gunny sack, the tree, the railroad track, the great name envisioned in lights. (He wrote it after seeing his own name on the marquee of a theater in New Orleans.) It is pure and perfect poetry, the best all around rock and roll song ever recorded, and probably the greatest American song of all time—that famous “Great American Novel” crystallized in two minutes and 42 seconds of perfect sound.</div>
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But wait—there’s more! The ode to broken homes called “Memphis, Tennessee!” “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” rock and roll’s first manifestation of black pride. There’s the angst and excitement of young love in “Carol” and “Little Queenie.” There’s the sexual frustration of “No Particular Place to Go,” and the sexual riot of his live version of “Reelin’ and Rockin’.” There’s the youthful frustration of “Almost Grown,” the youthful fantasy of “You Never Can Tell,” the youthful energy of “School Day.” There’s the geography and history of “Promised Land,” the insane, unstoppable energy of “Let it Rock!” the crushed spirit of “Oh, Louisiana,” the hard blues of “Have Mercy Judge,” and the charming innocence of “Sweet Little Sixteen.”</div>
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New York Times writer Verlyn Klinkenborg called “Memphis” a “short story,” and found herself haunted by “the metrical precision of the lyrics, its emotional realism and, of course, the revelation in the penultimate line. You know the one: that this is a father’s mournful love song to his daughter, Marie, who is only 6 years old.”</div>
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“What I really find myself listening to,” wrote Klinkenborg, “is Chuck Berry the sociologist of incredible economy. It’s the open-ended plea to that disembodied personage, ‘Long-distance information.’ It’s the household where uncles write messages on the wall. It’s the geographical precision of Marie’s home, ‘high up on a ridge, just a half a mile from the Mississippi bridge.’ Undercutting it all is the very hopelessness of the singer’s plea.”</div>
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“Too Much Monkey Business,” almost a protest song, is the certain inspiration for Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and a probable inspiration for the Stones’ “Satisfaction.” In his autobiography Berry said he wrote it to describe “the kinds of hassles a person encounters in every day life” and says he “would have needed over a hundred verses to portray the major areas that bug people the most.”</div>
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It begins with Chuck’s lead guitar ringing exactly like a bell.</div>
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Deedlee-dee, deedlee dee,</div>
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deedlee-dee, deedlee-dee,</div>
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deedlee dee, deedlee-dee,</div>
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deedlee-dee-dee.</div>
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Then Willie Dixon’s jazzy acoustic bass, answered by Chuck‘s chords and Johnnie Johnson’s rippling piano. The song doesn’t have the boogie-woogie rhythm guitar work that Chuck Berry became so famous for (almost none of the early songs have it); the roots here are jazzier, with strummed chords. The sound is incredibly light and clear, like a flat rock skipping over wind dimpled water on a bright day. It swings. But when the band jolts to a stop to make room for the lyrics, it’s pure rock and roll.</div>
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Running to and fro</div>
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Hard working at the mill</div>
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Never fail in the mail here come a rotten bill</div>
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Chuck’s 29 when he sings that first verse, but his voice sounds older. Unlike “School Day” or “Oh Baby Doll,” this isn’t teenage stuff—it’s real world frustration, “16 Tons” with a backbeat. He doesn’t use the fine diction his mother insisted upon here—“business” is pronounced “bidness,” or just “bi’ness,” “here” is “hiya.”</div>
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Salesman talking to me</div>
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Tryin’ to run me up a creek</div>
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Says you can buy it go and try it</div>
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You can pay me next week—Ahh!</div>
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This is where Mick Jagger, an accomplished Berry scholar, first hears absence of Satisfaction:</div>
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Man comes on to tell me</div>
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How white my shirts can be,</div>
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But he can’t be a man cause he doesn’t smoke</div>
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The same cigarettes as me.</div>
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I can’t get no</div>
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And it’s a radical song. In 1956 Chuck Berry sings:</div>
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Blond hair, good lookin’</div>
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Trying to get me hooked</div>
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Wants me to marry, settle down,</div>
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Get home, write a book. Hmmf!</div>
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In 1956 it’s against the law in many states, and frowned on in all of the others, for Chuck Berry to marry a blonde—especially, it seems, in 1958 Missouri, where what passed for the law routinely stopped, prosecuted, and once imprisoned the man for dalliances with any female not black. How dare he sing these words? Of course, maybe it’s not Chuck— but we know it is: it’s Chuck rounding third and heading for a once forbidden place he admits had always tantalized him; and somehow, in a way, predicting his own future, since in just two months (according to his Autobiography) he’d meet the good looking blonde who would share much of his life and ultimately help him write his book. (Maybe the book is off by a few months. Maybe he’d already met her.)</div>
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That same day he recorded “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” whose first hero is “arrested on charges of unemployment.” Another radical song! It ends with another hero smacking the game winning home run. It so happens I was born a month after that song was recorded. My wife, Rebecca, once bought me an old LIFE magazine from the week that I was born. It’s a pretty scary document. There’s an ad for Heinz that tells how to make “Baked Fish in Ketchup Sauce.” There’s a Cadillac ad that would have got Chuck’s attention. In another a bunch of women hold up enormous panties that would make Bridget Jones’ boyfriend laugh. A dozen or so ads for Bourbon explain my father’s taste in tragedy. But the only brown eyed man in the whole magazine is Willie Mays, who, an ad for Wheaties explains, hit 51 homers the year prior. That makes me happy. I’ve always compared Willie and Chuck. Willie was described as a five tool player, who could hit, hit with power, field, throw and run. Chuck can write, write with poetry, sing, perform, and play. As a kid I saw Willie Mays in San Francisco, and I always figured it was Willie who was rounding third and heading for home in Chuck’s song of black pride.</div>
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If you want to appreciate Chuck Berry the singer, try to spit out the first line of “No Money Down”— “Well Mister I want a yellow convertible”— in the space allotted. (Pronounce it “convoitable.”) The syllables just keep coming, like circus clowns from a broken down old ragged Ford. Cars are, of course, everywhere in Chuck Berry songs, from the sleek “Flight DeVille” to the beaters in “Dear Dad,” “Come On,” and “Move It.” In “You Can’t Catch Me” Flat Top “comes movin’ up with me, then goes waving goodbye, in a little old souped-up jitney.” Pierre and the Mademoiselle also owned “a souped-up jitney, ‘twas a cherry red ’53.” Nadine and Maybellene are last seen in Cadillacs— a coffee colored one for coffee colored Nadine. Girls disappearing in Cadillacs are a big reason why the hero of “No Money Down” has to get out of his “broken down old ragged Ford” and into a “yellow convertible four door De Ville,” but it’s twice the Caddy.</div>
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I want air conditioning</div>
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I want automatic heat</div>
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I want a full Murphy bed</div>
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In my back seat</div>
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I want short wave radio</div>
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I want TV and a phone</div>
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You know I got to talk to my baby</div>
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When I’m riding alone…</div>
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“Let it Rock” is a grown up work song. I’m pretty sure it’s one of Chuck Berry’s own favorites. I don’t recall a show where he didn’t sing it, and with plenty of room for guitar, it always gets him going.</div>
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In The Heat Of The Day Down In Mobile, Alabama</div>
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Working on the railroad with the steel driving hammer</div>
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Got to make some money to buy some brand new shoes</div>
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Tryin' to find somebody to take away these blues</div>
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She don't love me, hear ‘em singing in the sun</div>
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Payday's coming and my work is all done</div>
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This isn’t “Johnny B. Goode.” No one’s going to make a motion picture. It’s a song about energy, motion and an unstoppable force.</div>
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Everybody's scrambling, running around</div>
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Picking up their money, tearing the teepee down</div>
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Foreman wants to panic, 'bout to go insane</div>
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Trying to get the workers out the way of the train</div>
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Engineer blows the whistle loud and long</div>
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Can't stop the train, gotta let it roll on</div>
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Another wild one is “Promised Land”—the same sort of motion, but this time across the country by bus, train and plane to California. The song starts with an abbreviated Carl Hogan guitar intro and then rolls unstoppably, like the train in “Let it Rock,” the only pause being a T-bone steak “a la carty” high over Albuquerque. It’s never seemed like a coincidence that “Promised Land,” written a matter of months after the terrorist bombing of a church killed three little girls, talks about “trouble that turned into a struggle in downtown Birmingham.” Nor is it coincidence that the “Po’ boy” wants to get “across Mississippi clean.” Chuck Berry was nearly lynched in Mississippi by drunken frat boys who feigned outrage when he returned the kiss of a white girl who jumped on stage. Guess who got arrested.</div>
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In 2011, I would learn more about history and more about the lyrics of Promised Land. I was watching a television show celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders—a racially mixed group of young people who attempted to integrate commercial busses in 1961. A group of them are attacked in the Rock Hill bus station. The police who are supposed to protect the riders vanish.</div>
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No wonder the Po’ Boy’s Greyhound chooses to “bypass Rock Hill.”</div>
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And no wonder these songs grow larger and more powerful with time. It is like Chuck Berry dipped deeply into the Missouri or the Mississippi Rivers and pulled up what makes us who and what we are.</div>
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The untroubled vocals and sprightly guitar disguise something weightier and more important. This isn’t a silly trip on busses, trains and planes. This is the same Promised Land that Martin Luther King saw, but viewed through Chuck Berry’s unique perspective. Think how a ballet dancer’s art makes his partner look weightless. That’s what Chuck Berry does with his humor and his guitar. Don’t be fooled.</div>
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Rebecca was right, Shakespeare has more significance. But not many others.<br />
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(<i>This is part of a book length piece. It continues below.)</i><br />
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Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-74024687642715170162013-06-29T08:29:00.001-07:002023-03-19T23:14:16.651-07:00Chapter 5 - The Golden Decade<br />
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It’s a small miracle that Rasco Tempo has any Chuck Berry at all. He is not exactly top of the pops. He has just played to a crowd of hundreds in a downtown hall that seats thousands. And Rasco Tempo isn’t downtown. It’s in Citrus Heights, a small, bleak patch of suburban Texas transplanted to the outskirts of suburban Sacramento. (We live across the invisible line in Orangevale, a patch of Oklahoma.)</div>
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Rasco Tempo (“a Division of Gamble-Skogmo, Inc.”) is where I pass bored hours looking at models and hardware, but I shall learn over the coming year that Rasco Tempo’s record bins, though small, hide interesting treasures. I will buy a great Jimmy Reed record there soon, and one day I will find, for .66 cents, “Best of the Biggest,” with two songs each by Howlin’ Wolf, Ray Charles, Elmore James, B. B. King and Bobby Blue Bland. </div>
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But this day I find a double album called “Chuck Berry’s Golden Decade.” The outer packaging is a bit ugly. There is a gold record on the front, surrounded by black, with black lettering that looks like the rub-on decals from the hobby shop. I hold it and know that I am embarking on a new sort of musical journey— one that clearly doesn’t benefit from the slick and expensive marketing that the Beatles and Rolling Stones enjoy. The gold isn’t rich looking—it’s drab, faded, and nearly colorless, like Rasco Tempo itself. <br />
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The back cover has a nicer esthetic— pure white, with gold lettering that lists the 24 songs. It looks a little like The Beatles white album, though its original release actually predated the Beatles record. <br />
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When I get it home and tear off the plastic wrapper I find four black and white photographs inside that capture my attention for several years. Three are from recording sessions. In the biggest Chuck Berry is at the mike, singing, and strumming the guitar with just his thumb. The strings are vibrating. He’s in a white shirt and thin black tie. He looks his true age at the time—probably mid-to late 30s. There’s an authenticity to this and the next two shots that mesmerizes me. He’s a working musician, with no frills. (We are in that age after Woodstock where almost every rock and roll and soul star wears clothing with fringe, brocade, leather, and glitter.) In the next shot the tie is off and the guitar is a fatter one. He’s sitting down. He looks ageless. Actually, he looks about 50, although I’m sure he’s in his 30s. He’s looking at music on a stand and gesturing, as if there’s a discussion about how the song should be played. In the next he’s young and lean and sucking hard on cigarette. There is bare insulation in rafters up above. <br />
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On the front cover are the misleading words “The ORIGINAL Two Albums.”<br />
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Not quite. “Golden Decade” included 24 songs released between 1955 and 1964. The songs originally had been scattered over six or seven albums and a bunch of singles. But they were originals, and thank goodness for that. And thank goodness for small lies. Without those words I might have bought one of the records then available on Mercury Records. If I had bought Chuck Berry’s greatest hits as re-recorded years after the fact for Mercury, my life would have unfolded differently. I would have listened, yawned, and lived to tell the story: “Yeah— I saw Chuck Berry once.”<br />
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I might have been normal.<br />
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But I got the real thing—the originals recorded for the Chess Record Company in Chicago between 1955 and 1965. <br />
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Chess Records was one of the great, small record companies that helped change world music in the late 1940s and the early1950s. It was run by brothers Leonard and Phil Chess. The company became famous by producing a string of hits for bluesmen like Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson II and Howlin’ Wolf. A big single might sell 10,000 copies. But then Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry showed up. The Chess brothers recognized they had something new, and suddenly a company the company was pressing and selling hundreds of thousands of copies and producing top hits on the pop charts. The beautiful thing is that it was the same music, played by many of the same studio musicians, just tweaked a bit for a younger, and often whiter, generation of fans.<br />
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And at 14 I’m even younger! I come to this music 16 years late. “Maybellene” and “Wee Wee Hours” were recorded before I was even born.<br />
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I’m up in the tower room of our old house—a room with windows on four sides but nearly empty except for a bed, my drum set, and an old stereo. It’s where Stevo sleeps if he’s visiting. I put down the needle and feel mounting excitement as song after song blasts from the speakers, each wittier, wilder, raggedier, and better than the last: “Maybellene,” “Johnny B. Goode,” “Nadine,” “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Thirty Days,” “Memphis,” “Almost Grown,” “School Days,” “Reelin’ and Rockin’,” “Bye Bye Johnny,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Rock and Roll Music.”<br />
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When I’m not dancing my head is between the speakers. The sound is full of rough edges and reverberation—the raw, energetic sound of creation. I used to describe it as sounding like it was recorded in a garbage can. It was a bad analogy, but not too bad. I’ve learned since that some of the vocals were recorded in the bathrooms at Chess to capture the prehistoric reverb of a ceramic tile bounce. Once electronic reverb was available Chess records were flooded with it. But this didn’t result in a spacey sound. The bass is deep. The piano is sharp. The drums are slamming. And there is an electric bite to Chuck and Muddy’s guitars that I’ve seldom heard elsewhere.<br />
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In other words—Chess records sound like live performance.<br />
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It helps that they were, essentially, live. Mistakes hardly mattered compared to the energy—and that energy could only result from a single, charged performance with all instruments blasting. (A little overdubbing of lead guitar doesn’t neutralize the vibrancy of the original jam.) <br />
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The sound may have been Leonard Chess’s peculiar genius. He knew what he wanted, and got it, even if he had to kick out the drummer and slam the bass drum himself. It also had a lot to do with Malcom Chisolm, a Chess recording engineer who sat almost anonymously at the center of cultural history and who worked on Chuck Berry’s records as late as the “Back Home” album in 1969, and maybe longer. <br />
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Berry’s short guitar solos take flight and tell stories as interesting as the lyrics—musical stories with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The guitar can ring like a bell, or cut like sharp teeth, or burn like fire depending on the urgency of the moment and the setting on the amp. The drums echo. There are maracas on “Maybellene,” horns on “Nadine,” background voices on “Almost Grown,” and behind all of it, a rippling, roaming piano that never stops.<br />
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As I listen I begin to see my first images and make my first feeble connections—the mother waving, doors flying back, police with billy clubs, Nadine’s long leg and nice behind. And I see context. The Beatles, though disbanded, are still a very big deal. I hadn’t known until the night before that two of “their” songs—“Rock and Roll Music” and “Roll Over Beethoven”— are Chuck Berry songs. But there’s more. As I listen I figure out that the song “Back in the U.S.A.” was the inspiration for “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” and when I hear “Ol’ Flattop” come “movin’ up quickly” in the song “You Can’t Catch Me”—a line recycled in The Beatles “Come Together”—I just about flip. <br />
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<i>(Read the earlier chapters in "Pages," to the right, or follow the link to <a href="http://goheadon.blogspot.com/p/dear-dad-prologue-and-chapter-one.html">Chapter One.</a>)</i><br />
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<br />Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-8106831618121900172013-06-26T14:22:00.001-07:002023-03-19T23:14:35.858-07:00Chapter 7 – Why He Matters, Part II: Chuck Berry as Guitarist<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Yp-DC1biMC4/T_0N9tAA4rI/AAAAAAAABu8/u1fBK6GZdOM/s1600/The+brown+guitar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>The guitar matters all by itself. Some people think it’s easy. Those are the ones who can’t do it. An interviewer for Guitar Player magazine pointed out that most people who try to play “Chuck Berry” guitar don’t get it right. “Have you noticed that people who approximate your sound often play a watered-down version—more pentatonic or bluesy, less moving around the fingerboard, less major scale?” Chuck is too polite or diplomatic to respond directly, but the question is right on. Although his music is based mostly on the blues, it departs frequently from the so-called “blues scale,” both on the guitar itself, and in the melodies. A good example is the song “School Day” (or its melodic twin, “No Particular Place to Go.”) Most of it is a pure blues shuffle with riffs older than Robert Johnson, but during the guitar solo on “School Day” there’s something more, major scale riffs Chuck Berry must have copped from his teenage years listening to big band swing, but done in Chuck Berry’s unique “double-stop” style, where he plays two strings at a time. He talks in his <i>Autobiography</i> about the day he became “fluent enough picking the guitar to fill in full choruses without repeating licks.” The guitar tells its own stories. According to Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, “he would build his solos so there was a nice little statement taking the song to a new place, so you're ready for the next verse.” </div>
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The best Chuck Berry guitar measures include remarkable rhythmic back flips, with chords and double-stops that jab, punch, and counter. (The next to last bars of the “School Day” solo are a good example.) As a rank and sporadic amateur on guitar I can follow and imitate to a point and then just have to laugh and enjoy. <br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zuJ4eK3wRlo/T_0QWIN88nI/AAAAAAAABvc/rgL-E9WaH0A/s1600/keith-chuck-2-2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zuJ4eK3wRlo/T_0QWIN88nI/AAAAAAAABvc/rgL-E9WaH0A/s200/keith-chuck-2-2012.jpg" width="200" /></a>The best guitarists admit it isn’t easy. “He is rhythm supreme,” says Keith Richards. “He plays that lovely double-string stuff, which I got down a long time ago, but I'm still getting the hang of.” (A funny, well known scene from the movie Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll shows Chuck giving Keith a painful tutorial in one double string slur.) “A lot of people have done Chuck Berry songs,” says Aerosmith’s Perry, “but to get that feel is really hard. It's the rock and roll thing—the push-pull and the rhythm of it." The early records emphasize that tension between the skipping shuffle drum patterns and Chuck’s sometimes straight ahead rock and roll rhythm work. “His guitar leads drove the rhythm, as opposed to laying over the top,” said Perry. </div>
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The sound is unique and instantly recognizable. Like other great musicians he took bits and pieces from his predecessors and created something new and fresh that changed music as we know it. “We're all part of this family that goes back thousands of years,” said Keith Richards. “Chuck got it from T-Bone Walker, and I got it from Chuck, Muddy Waters, Elmore James and B. B. King.” <br />
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Berry is up front about his own influences. “There is nothing new under the sun,” he says frequently. He is quick to cite influences that include T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian, Lonnie Johnson, Carl Hogan, Elmore James, and even his old St. Louis friend, Ira Harris, the man who first taught him to play. “He was into jazz, and the way he could manipulate the sound, I knew I had to do that. He played a bit like Christian, and a lot of what he showed me is a part of what I do.” </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g4rwruxEnFA/T_0OnXrducI/AAAAAAAABvE/8t2cGPhLHrI/s1600/cb+and+louis+jordan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ca="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g4rwruxEnFA/T_0OnXrducI/AAAAAAAABvE/8t2cGPhLHrI/s1600/cb+and+louis+jordan.jpg" /></a>I remember the first time I heard T-Bone Walker on record and recognized the familiar slur that Chuck Berry uses so often, most famously during the intro to “Johnny B. Goode.” And I remember the first time I ever heard the guitar introduction to Louis Jordan’s “Ain’t that Just Like a Woman,” a jazzy, single string version of the familiar intro to Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” and about half the songs Chuck Berry plays live. Jordan’s guitarist, Carl Hogan, must have invented the phrase, and Berry made it his own, adding the double string approach and topping it off with the T-Bone Walker slur. (And then we all copped it from Chuck, and say we’re playing “Chuck Berry” when we do a simplified version!) Old blues records continue to surprise me. Recently I heard what I’ve always considered a uniquely “Chuck Berry” lick coming off a guitar played by Louis or David Myers about a minute and 20 seconds into the Little Walter instrumental “Sad Hours,” which was on the R&B charts back in 1952, when the journeyman Chuck Berry was developing his professional chops at the Cosmopolitan Club in East St. Louis. I had a similar experience listening to Benny Goodman play his clarinet on “Flyin’ Home”—because suddenly there it was, a “Chuck Berry” lick, twenty years early, on woodwinds!</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UfMpVRPUDa4/T_0PTZeMZyI/AAAAAAAABvU/awwpyt3wZzM/s1600/weird+guitar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ca="true" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UfMpVRPUDa4/T_0PTZeMZyI/AAAAAAAABvU/awwpyt3wZzM/s320/weird+guitar.jpg" width="310" /></a>But wherever it came from, it’s a sound that just about everyone who followed considered indispensible. “He’s really laid the law down for playing that kind of music,” said Clapton. He was a favorite of Jimi Hendrix, of Keith Richards, of Perry. Clapton copied him in his early years. The Beach Boys, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones built their early careers off his songs and his style. </div>
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B. B. King and Jimi Hendrix are the only two guitarists who have had such a direct impact on rock guitar players. King’s style (like Berry’s, rooted partly in T-Bone Walker, but with bent single string runs and tremolo) is probably just as influential as Berry’s. Both men rose from similar influences at the same moment in time. Every modern rock and roll guitarist owes a great deal to one or both. (Add their student, Jimi, to the list and it’s done.) True—since they all learned from T-Bone Walker you could argue that his influence is larger, and since Robert Johnson informed just about everyone, you could say the same of him. But for the rock side of rock and roll, Clapton had it right: Chuck Berry laid down the law.</div>
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Not only that, but he did it with so much cool, energy and style that guitar moved front and center. At the start, maybe piano was king. But when Chuck Berry put the guitar out front, played it like crazy, danced with it, gave it a hero named “Johnny,” and made everybody want one, he changed the face of popular music for generations. </div>
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Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-79030890226626268432013-06-23T22:31:00.000-07:002017-03-19T09:58:36.670-07:00Chapter 8 - My Very Own (Imaginary) Berry Park<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I’m fifteen or sixteen. I’ve got a spiral bound notebook and a ball point pen. I fill a page with a large square. At the bottom is a straight country road. I plant trees and shrubs along the road. Like Gretta Garbo in Grand Hotel I want to be alone.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I draw a long, curving drive from the road to a small house. The house is surrounded by more trees. There is room inside for me and the mystery woman who will accompany me in life. I don’t draw it but there is a room with guitars, drums, a keyboard and a four track reel to reel tape recorder. I have vague plans for a one man band that will use cheap amps and instruments to produce low fidelity sound. Out back is a small wooden structure with a roof that rolls off onto raised wooden tracks. Inside that shed is a large telescope bolted to a concrete pier. I draw rows of garden crops. We are self sufficient. I put a gate on the access road. We are safe. But while the goal is a sort of protected solitude, I’m frightened enough of the country and the pickups that hurtle past on that dark road that I draw outlying cottages for close friends and family. I give each its own gravel road. The only rent is to protect me.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Though I don’t yet know it, I have designed my very own Berry Park.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Early on I developed the ability to draw a line between myself and the unhappiness that surrounded me. I still have it, though with age and responsibility the line has deteriorated. I’m no longer able to insulate myself so thoroughly—especially when it’s something that involves my children or my granddaughter. But as a kid I learned to protect myself even if it meant losing myself in an estate imagined on 8 ½ by 11 inch lined paper.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I recall at age 12 training some classmate to do my paper route. He was going to be my substitute. I’m not sure how or why he got the job—he wasn’t my friend. We didn’t hang out together. We hardly spoke. He was a chubby, pushy guy, with an awful mom, who wound up taking almost all my profits for one day of work each week. I remember his sour faced mother pushing him to my front door at the end of the month and forcing me to hand over just about every penny I’d collected. (My problem was that customers didn’t pay me. I paid my substitute and my distributor, delivered the papers, and at the end of the month the customers hid, sipping desperate gin behind shut doors.) Anyway, one morning at 5 am this unpleasant kid and I were on the front porch folding papers. It was still dark. We were going to strap canvas bags of newspapers to our bikes and ride around the neighborhood and deliver them as gifts to evil deadbeats. Suddenly the front door opened, and there was my dad, in sagging underpants and a t-shirt, swaying, bleary, still drunk enough from the night before to burp and slur his words.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">“Wha tchou doing?”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I saw the kid look, bewildered, but with growing understanding, at my dad, drunk at 5 am. His eyes swelled with enlightenment. “O’Neil’s dad is a drunk!” I knew instantly that he’d share this vignette at school with whoever it was that he hung with.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">There weren’t many such instances. I made sure of it. Once I asked a friend named Kevin to spend the night. I’d never done such a thing. It was night and we were in my room when I began to hear howling and craziness migrate through the house. Kevin was Irish and probably had a life similar to mine. He became very excited. His eyes lit up. He became hyper. He wanted to see what was happening. I knew all too well what was happening: my kindly old dad was drunk and berserk. I could hear the house erupt in a battle to get him back into his room. Kevin became diabolical. “What’s going on?” he asked, again and again, with a manic grin. He was ready to pop like a party favor. My mom and sister came to my door and told Kevin and me to stay put. I remember my mom’s worried face. I suspect my own expression was the same. My father bellowed and howled. There was banging and thunder all over the big house.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">That was my last sleepover.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I didn’t bring people home unless they were very good friends— a pattern that stuck even after I’d grown. I’ve never had much use for acquaintances. I don’t ask coworkers to lunch. I rarely go drinking with the boys. I don’t even know the boys. I’m quite satisfied with family and a few close friends, even if the friends are far away.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Even my hobbies and interests are solitary.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I’m writing, for example. I like to read, write, and listen to music. I jog long distances, alone. I hit golf balls at the range, and might enjoy golf, but hate foursomes. I even make music alone, playing two or three guitar parts, and adding drums, bass, keyboards and a droning vocal.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">It was the same as a kid. One of my hobbies was stargazing. It still is. You can’t get more alone than to sit under the night sky with a companion that is a hundred million light years away. That is being alone. As a young teenager, I’d lay outside nights with a tiny telescope and a star map. The skies were still dark in those days, and my little scope, purchased for $10 at a big discount shop, could show me the rings of Saturn, the Orion Nebula, and the cratered surface of the moon. I even found Uranus once—a tiny, cold blur that I marked in my atlas of the stars. The Milky Way still glimmered faintly in our sky then, and the immensity of it all thrilled me.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I inherited my interest in telescopes from my seventh grade friend Peter F., one of the rare kids I really allowed into my life. He knew my secrets and I knew his—(chiefly that we stole half a dozen packs of his dad’s Tareytons and smoked them in a “fort” that we dug behind his house.) We could laugh at our problems, even my dad and his drinking. We could make the skeleton in my closet dance a bit for our amusement.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TQESmHssZZs/UApGoLdEu3I/AAAAAAAABxA/hdBVacWGGgk/s1600/edmund4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #2187bb; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="249" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TQESmHssZZs/UApGoLdEu3I/AAAAAAAABxA/hdBVacWGGgk/s320/edmund4.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Peter was a natural engineer. We built mock spacecraft together. He taught me about Estes model rockets. He showed me catalogs from a company called Edmunds Scientific, filled with telescopes, telescope kits, and parts. Edmunds sold a three inch reflector for about $30, and a six inch mirror kit for about $13. I chose the latter and spent several months gamely trying to grind a telescope mirror using instructions from The Standard Handbook for Telescope Making, by Howard Neale, and Star Gazing with Telescope and Camera, by George T. Keene. The unfinished mirror is still in my closet. But in middle age I found the $30 reflector in mint condition at a flea market for $15, and just recently I purchased and built an Estes model rocket with my six year old, Rafferty. Thank you, Peter.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gtXCfPhY6nk/UApGv7KH8gI/AAAAAAAABxI/d910s-xg-eg/s1600/edmund6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #2187bb; float: right; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="128" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gtXCfPhY6nk/UApGv7KH8gI/AAAAAAAABxI/d910s-xg-eg/s320/edmund6.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I played drums. After I’d learned some basics on Stevo’s set, my former brother in law, Rich, gave me a set of sparkling red Kents. Later I bought a set of used Ludwigs painted black. I wasn’t Stevo, but I could keep a few beats and do some simple fills. Although I participated in a band, of sorts, most of my drumming was done solo, to records.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FjzfpXHioRs/UApHrUHjMrI/AAAAAAAABxQ/rG4nSf8-iXY/s1600/1098c.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #2187bb; float: left; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FjzfpXHioRs/UApHrUHjMrI/AAAAAAAABxQ/rG4nSf8-iXY/s1600/1098c.gif" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I stopped playing when I went away to college but I kept the Ludwigs and resurrected them recently. The drums are now “vintage” and somewhat valuable.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">My mom loaned me her old Argus 35 millimeter camera and I roamed our property shooting pictures. I still have the negatives. When she saw I was using her camera she bought me a darkroom kit that I set up in my closet. I made prints of our goat, our house, and bits and pieces of my room. A sign that said “Income Tax.” Hand puppets that my sister Ann had made. A pair of overalls blowing in the wind. A tiny bottle of some product called “Death to Moles.” For a time I bought photography magazines and studied not only the artistically nude women and the Ansel Adams photographs, but also the black and white ads in the back crammed with deals for cameras from Germany and Japan sold in shops on 42nd Street in New York City. I sent for a $33 German Exa IIA single reflex that I could focus and adjust. (I still have a postcard from 42nd Street informing me that my camera had been shipped.) My pictures improved just slightly. Eventually the camera broke and the enlarger was retired, but I still have both, and the pictures, too. I hang on to important things.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iqBD0HJWjTw/UApImY6e3qI/AAAAAAAABxg/B_poD5-0NY4/s1600/good-life1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #2187bb; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iqBD0HJWjTw/UApImY6e3qI/AAAAAAAABxg/B_poD5-0NY4/s200/good-life1.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px; position: relative;" width="200" /></a></div>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PivCdHNNCrY/UApI0QrBSSI/AAAAAAAABxo/1guevjUuxBk/s1600/159132574_2887c45fda_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #2187bb; float: right; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PivCdHNNCrY/UApI0QrBSSI/AAAAAAAABxo/1guevjUuxBk/s1600/159132574_2887c45fda_m.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I hung out in the non-fiction part of the library and scoured shelves for anything that interested me. I liked science and practical things. For a few days or weeks I read all about pigeons and dreamed of building a coop. I read books on astronomy. I’d become interested in some weird topic like horse-shoeing, or rabbits, or gold-panning, and try to learn how to do it. (I suspect you can’t actually learn horse-shoeing from a book.) I read Helen and Scott Nearing’s “Living the Good Life” about a New England couple who built their own home, and “Living on the Earth,” by Alicia Bay Laurel, about imaginary hippy skills—how to live in flimsy shelter without clothing. It seemed appealing, in part because there were pen drawings of pretty naked women, arms outstretched beneath the sun. I wanted to live among them. I see now that much of the knowledge I sought focused on self-sufficiency and freedom. I loved “Summerhill,” a book about a free school in Leeds, England, where the children had an equal vote. I wanted to go there, but instead I got Peach Tree, a school just as good, maybe better, run by an African American woman who wanted a decent school for her own children during turbulent times. It was no “free school.” Mrs. Brunberg was strict but loving. She let you argue. She didn’t let you win, but she allowed you to. Our teachers were young and smart. The kids were a collection of delinquents and misfits who quickly became family. We did cool things. In one class we built a big raft of plywood, two by fours and styrofoam and floated it overnight down the Sacramento river. We made movies. We protested at Dow Chemical. We saw Ralph Nader when he was still a hero.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Our art teacher once assigned us the project of writing our “philosophy of life.” I wrote about what I called “Some necessities”:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><br />
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<i>“a Steinway piano, or any spinet or grand piano; a record player of extremely high quality; three or more acres of land; a four track tape recorder; my drums, my Silvertone to be; my Teisco to be; my gorilla; a typewriter; interesting books with pictures; an eight inch telescope; a small basketball court; four cars of varying prices ($62-$22,000); and of course, the girl or woman of my dreams (depending on how long it takes to get my wishes).”</i></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">It’s funny how close it is to what I now have. I have my drums. I have several guitars. (They are not Silvertones or Teiscos, but they are equally unique.) I own a four track recorder but don’t use it. Technology has changed. I use a computer. But I have a good telescope, plenty of books, a $20,000 car (they ain’t what they used to be), and the woman of my dreams. All that’s missing is the acreage, which I still covet.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The desire for rural privacy stems from the place we lived when I was a teenager. When my father’s drinking got too crazy my mother, my sister Ann and I moved to the outskirts of Sacramento, a part of town that almost qualified as country. There were trucks and cowboy hats and threats of violence. Low rolling hills climbed past Folsom Prison towards the Gold Country. There were a couple of small sad shopping centers and drive-ins between empty lots of wild oat grass and powdery brown dirt. People there talked like “Okies,” and after a while, so did I.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X99xjjWBPv8/T-k6iJq8UfI/AAAAAAAABro/KbQDOfHbDEs/s1600/ovale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #2187bb; float: left; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X99xjjWBPv8/T-k6iJq8UfI/AAAAAAAABro/KbQDOfHbDEs/s320/ovale.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Our house was magic—a yellow Victorian on two and a half acres divided into small pastures. There was a lot to explore and photograph. We had a dark tool shed, painted brick red, and a small red barn where we kept two goats. Everything was old and a bit funky and exactly what I wanted after five years in a posh, suburban home where the vacuum system was built into the walls and floor, a sprinkler system was built into the lawn and terror seemed to bleed from the woodwork. I needed old paint and country. A Singer automobile rusted on blocks on the western side of the property, and to the east there was a forest of bamboo. Huge trees hung over us, including a cork oak, a magnolia, and lots of elms and maples. There were olive trees, too— enough that a neighbor gave us a gallon jar of them in exchange for the rest of the harvest; and grapes that crept up the side of the house from an old fashioned arbor. (Once my mother and I used them to make wine, but my brother drank it and replaced it with colored water.) The yard was lush and grassy, with beds of violets around the edges. Out front, a long gravel driveway led to the main road and the back end of a great Mexican restaurant. Our white goat would sometimes wander back from the restaurant with an orange face after getting into the garbage cans.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">So there I was open, curious, living a little out of the mainstream, increasingly fatherless, insulating myself more and more from what ailed me, and I found this wandering rocker with slicked back hair and a red guitar, a man who could do incredible splits and dance moves and who made me laugh.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Some part of his appeal was probably genetic or accidental—a predilection for certain sounds, rhythms and rhyme. Maybe, deep in my bones, I needed the vibration of an old Gibson guitar cranked hard through the tubes and speakers of a huge Fender amplifier, or songs about “Milo Venus” and “Nadine.” But that can’t be all of it.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Maybe it was just timing— that simple twist of fate leading me to the exactly right thing on the right day. There’s a moment in life when we are ready to be swept away by whatever we really see or hear, and it behooves us that day to find something real. I got lucky.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Maybe it was the recognition of some real aspects of his personality. It didn’t escape me that he was described, in his private life, as something of a “loner” who shut out people and amused and insulated himself with a large piece of property. It didn’t escape me that he was self sufficient and managed his own businesses. Nor did it escape me that he was fit and sober, unlikely to die at an early age.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">And maybe there was some real connection that runs deeper than my small mind can imagine.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iaed2VADio4/UApMqCXscgI/AAAAAAAABx0/zUa3nAu_VIE/s1600/berryeleven-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #2187bb; float: left; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iaed2VADio4/UApMqCXscgI/AAAAAAAABx0/zUa3nAu_VIE/s1600/berryeleven-1.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px; position: relative;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In 1973, I learn from an old snapshot on the inside cover of a record called “Bio” that Chuck Berry used a darkroom as a kid. In the picture he is standing, leaning against a counter where we see trays of developer and stopper. He’s probably 12. His head is bowed as he studies something in his hands. A portrait of Abraham Lincoln, out of focus, gazes upon him. Because I have a darkroom of my own I can practically smell the chemicals. I know the magic of watching an image that I created appear in the dark bath of developing solution.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Then, when I am much older, I see another photograph of the pre-teen Chuck, this time using a telescope. It thrills me beyond imagination. It’s my hobby! The snapshot is probably taken the same year as the darkroom picture, but this time Chuck is full of energy and dressed to the hilt in coat, tie, and two-toned leather shoes. He’s got a cap on—either a beanie, or a baseball cap, backwards. The telescope’s spindly wooden tripod is on gravel, and behind Chuck are four or five parallel lines or lanes. At first I think he is at a running track. It takes a while for me to decipher that he is on a rooftop, and that the lines are created by sheets of tar paper tacked to a sloping roof.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The photograph is taken in broad daylight, and I first assume he’s just posing with a new toy. But I notice the shadows are all behind little Chuck. This means he’s pointing his telescope at the sun. I realize that front lens of his telescope—which I had thought was some tiny, prehistoric lens— is covered by a solar filter to protect his eyes from the blinding rays of magnified sunlight! Chuck Berry is using his telescope to observe the Sun— an act that probably puts him in the top five percent of telescope owners. I wonder if, perhaps, he is observing an eclipse. I e-mail Peter K., the Chuck Berry fan in Sweden who sent me the picture and who, I have learned, is good at internet sleuthing. Peter K. shares my obsession with Chuck Berry and also my interest in astronomy. I offer my theory. Within minutes Peter K. sends me details of two solar eclipses that passed through St. Louis when Chuck was a youngster—one when he was 12.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">So I am reasonably confident that Chuck Berry once shared my geeky interest in stargazing, and did it at a level that raised him above the typical department store telescope owner.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In that moment I feel an almost magical connection.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Maybe if 12 year old me had met 12 year old Charles on that rooftop, in a world untouched by reality, or by Jim Crow, my imaginary friend could have been my real friend!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Ah but that’s imagination again.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">(<i>This is part of a book length piece about my lifelong fascination with Chuck Berry. You can find every chapter on this blog! Read it! Only free book this side of your local library. Almost.</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">100</span>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-85619370336571701162013-06-19T17:22:00.000-07:002016-07-08T23:05:36.248-07:00Chapter 10 - Family<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The melancholy of Chuck Berry is hard wired—as much a part of his personality as the humor. He’s often at his best when he is most nostalgic, as in “Wee Wee Hours,” “Memphis,” or “Oh Louisiana.” Sometimes it’s a sweet melancholy— “Time Was,” or “Oh Baby Doll.” It’s rarely the hard blues of Muddy Waters. His deepest feeling is the dull ache of faded memory, of loss, of aloneness. “In a wee little room, I sit alone and think of you,” he sighs in “Wee Wee Hours.” Or watch him sing “Cottage for Sale” or “I’m through with Love” in the film Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll. He is on the floor, leaning back, eyes half closed, strumming slow, simple chords, and yet it’s the emotional highpoint of a film about a “rock and roller.” This is Chuck Berry’s real blues, the blues he feels at his core. It is why, despite his own protests, or Stevo’s musings, he really is a bluesman, and a great one. <br />
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Imagine the hours, days, and weeks he has spent alone, in hotels, on planes, backstage, in wee little rooms or big ones; the separation from his family and home; the forced isolation caused by a society that jailed him unjustly at the peak of his career; the self-inflicted injuries caused by his own bad choices. When I have seen him onstage with his daughter Ingrid, or son Charles, or his grandson, or backstage with his wife, it is obvious how much family means to him— but how much time with them did he lose or throw away?<br />
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Then again, is there a single Chuck Berry song that takes ownership of any part of that loss? It is always the other party’s fault. “Her mom did not agree, and tore apart our happy home.” “You ain’t done nothing, darlin’, but ruin a happy home.” “She put me in shame and in sorrow.” Is there an apology anywhere? <br />
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Maybe one. “I stayed away from you too long,” he sings in “Oh, Louisiana.” If there is a single regret that rises from his astounding career, I’m betting it’s that.<br />
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Family has always been a part of it. <br />
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He wrote “Roll Over Beethoven” in part because of the struggle for time at the family piano bench. His older sister Lucy played classical and got first dibs. Chuck wanted time at the keyboard to learn boogie-woogie. It was a musical family. Another sister, Martha, sang on some of his early 1960s recordings.<br />
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Or think of the families in his songs: Johnny’s mother, spending everything she could earn or borrow on Johnny’s future, then waiting anxiously by the kitchen door for his return; Little Marie’s father living, presumably, at his uncle’s place, missing his daughter and family; Sweet Little Sixteen’s pushover mommy and dad; Henry Ford’s junior, who asks his dad for a competitor’s car.<br />
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When I first saw Chuck Berry, he made a point of including everyone in the crowd as family, walking back and forth across the stage, eyes wide, head twisting this way and that, feigning surprise as we chanted “Go! Johnny, Go!” <br />
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“Sing it, children!” he’d say, marveling like a proud dad. “Just look at you! All my children! All my beautiful rock and roll children!”<br />
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Nowadays he usually shows up on stage with his son Charles and his daughter Ingrid at his side, and sometimes even grandson Charles III, who plays guitar. Out front some of his “rock and roll children” hobble in on walkers, because hey— Sweet Little Sixteen is sweet little old 70 something these days! But remarkably, there are usually lots of young people in the crowd, too, because Sweet Little Sixteen will always be 16, and Little Queenie will never be more than an interesting year older.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BzCs1IzbiG0/UBQRIQKHZMI/AAAAAAAABzo/eDj8o_O6-AM/s1600/with+grandson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" sda="true" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BzCs1IzbiG0/UBQRIQKHZMI/AAAAAAAABzo/eDj8o_O6-AM/s1600/with+grandson.jpg" /></a>An early instrumental was called “Ingo,” presumably after his daughter Darlin’ Ingrid Berry Clay. It bops and bounces along like a happy little girl. Ingrid is a regular part of her father’s shows in St. Louis, blowing harp and singing blues and harmony. She started early. When she was still a little girl she walked onto the stage at the Apollo Theater in Baltimore, Maryland (not to be confused with the better known Apollo in Harlem). “Mother was holding me pretty tight so Alan Freed intervened and said ‘Oh, let her go,’ you know. I was shaking and shimmering, trying to get away from Mamma, and I broke loose and ran on out there and first thing that struck me were the lights, the people in the audience, the musicians,” Ingrid told an interviewer for a St. Louis oral history project. “The first thing I did was just stand there for about a few seconds and then I had this little guitar that Dad bought—a little toy guitar and I just strummed it and went across. And that was the first time too, that I ever did the "duck walk," which Dad has in his show.”<br />
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She didn’t stop at the Apollo. Ingrid helped with vocals on some of his Mercury recordings, and then on the 1975 album “Chuck Berry,” where she harmonized on a couple of numbers including Jimmy Reed’s “Baby What You Want Me To Do.” <br />
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There’s evidently an unreleased song about Ingrid—one I haven’t heard. The New Yorker reported in 2006 that Berry had written a song called “Darlin’.” <br />
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Darlin', your father's growing older, I fear; </div>
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Strains of gray are showing bolder each year. </div>
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Lay your head upon my shoulder, my dear: </div>
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Time is fading fast away.</div>
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It’s part of a mountain of unreleased material that Berry has recorded since 1980, some of it probably bad, some reputedly wonderful. <br />
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Though Ingrid has been a regular part of her father’s shows and tours since the mid-1970s, I didn’t see her live until 2010. She is over 60 now and has matured into a powerful harmonica player and blues singer but obviously remains her father’s little girl. I have a snapshot, taken in early 2012, where she stands beaming, hands clasped in delight or prayer, while her 85 year old father bunny hops across stage with his guitar. <br />
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In the same shot is Charles, Jr., the very accessible moderator on Chuck Berry’s website and social networking pages, where he calls himself CBII. (He has also used the clever screen name “Son of Rock and Roll,” a bit of wordplay worthy of the lineage). In the photo Charles’ smile is proud and amused. He shares the enthusiasm of fans, and offers amazing tidbits of history. My favorites have been his descriptions of the wine red Gibson that Chuck Berry has played for the last 35 years or so. The guitar is scratched, busted, with missing knobs and other parts tossed as useless. A funky steel bracket is screwed to the front, evidently to accommodate a thumb when the guitar is played on a shoulder or behind the back. A strip of yellow tape has cut across the butt of the guitar for several years now, holding the strap in position. It reminds me, in many respects, of Big Joe William’s nine string guitar, with all of its added hardware. Despite this cosmetic charm, Charles, Jr., who appears to love cars and guitars as much as his father, says it’s a powerhouse, and one of the best his father has played. At a 2012 show at a casino in Alton, Illinois, Chuck told the audience “I love this guitar. It’s scratched and raggedy, but it’s really good!” He’s not the only one who loves it. A picture that Swedish fan Peter K. took of that guitar backstage draws more people to my blog than almost any other single thing. In Peter’s photograph the guitar sits casually next to snacks and drinks. Another Swedish fan, Thomas, calls Chuck’s old guitar “the Holy Grail.” Thomas has actually held it and played it—an honor. There’s a video on YouTube of Charles, Jr. playing the guitar during a sound check in France. With the old Gibson in hand, the genetic link between father and son becomes audible as Charles plays chords that would make me jerk with recognition from halfway down the street. That guitar is family, too.<br />
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Charles seems determined to protect his father on stage, and to protect his father’s legacy off stage. I occasionally see him pop up on the internet to comment on his dad or his dad’s equipment. Usually he’s fan-friendly and polite, but I saw him sharply rebuke some anonymous commenter who called Chuck Berry a “jerk-off” on a list serve. Poor fool didn’t see it coming— didn’t know the “son of rock and roll” would read his rude post about the father of same.<br />
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There are less public children. One daughter seemed to give her name to Chuck Berry’s music publishing company. Another—a health care administrator— showed up in the news talking about Obamacare. All of the kids seem intent on protecting their dad. A Berry family friend once told me that “gate-keeping” within the family is formidable. When Charles, Jr. was remembering bits and pieces of his past on Facebook, one sister appeared with the gentlest comment—Charles’ nickname, followed by three dots. I can’t know it, but I got the impression she was reminding him that discretion is a Berry family value. <br />
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Family is everywhere in his songs, but also, touchingly, in the movie Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll, when Chuck and his sister sit with their father and tell stories. There’s one about “Daddy” losing his eyesight as a child but regaining it when “they pierced his ears.” Charles and Ingrid sound just as adoring in a BBC interview when they talk about how Chuck still mows his own lawn, and occasionally makes “crop circles.” “I think they’re beautiful!” says Ingrid.<br />
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When I see Chuck Berry now, 15 years older than my dad ever got, surrounded by his children and grandchildren, I realize that it was not such a bad choice for a desperate 14 year old to make, searching for someone to symbolically take the place of a dad who was slipping away. And as I’ve grown older the bond I felt as a kid grew even stronger. Here was a “dad” I could watch grow old. When he first started showing his age, at about 55 or 60, I didn’t like it. I wanted the young guy back. But now that he’s elderly and I am showing my own age it gives me great comfort to have him around. I go to see him now and then. I sit or stand up close. I bring small gifts in case there is a “meet and greet” after the show. <br />
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I love him.<br />
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As for my real father— I keep him as near as I can, and hope that maybe someday I’ll be truly lucky, go backstage, and meet him again, for the first time.<br />
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<em>(For the rest of this story, from the beginning, see the "pages" section to the right. Or keep reading below!)</em><br />
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<em>163</em><br />
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<br />Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-28589500961625965572013-06-18T12:01:00.001-07:002020-09-24T10:17:17.501-07:00Chapter 11 - How a Small Town Promoter Held the Great Chuck Berry Hostage!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>(40 years after meeting Chuck Berry between sets at Lake Tahoe I learn why he was sitting there!)</i><br />
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Five months after my first Chuck Berry show a distant relation passed through Orangevale on her way from Lake Tahoe to her home in the Bay Area. It was my brother’s sister-in-law. I hardly knew her. She lived 90 miles away. It therefore says something about the state of my madness, five months after that first Chuck Berry show, that she said “You’re a Chuck Berry freak, right?”<br />
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She bore glad tidings. <br />
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“He’s going to be at Tahoe this weekend!” <br />
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Say but the word. A few days later I found myself at Lake Tahoe, where my family had owned a small cabin for decades, and where my brother Danny was living that summer to earn some cash at the casinos. My mother drove me. A girl from my school and her friend got there separately by Greyhound. <br />
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The show was at a small hall built from the shell of a former grocery store just across the highway from the lake. We didn’t know it but the grocery store setting was historically appropriate. Chuck Berry’s professional career first got serious in the early 1950s at an East St. Louis grocery store-turned-club called The Cosmopolitan. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yep, Chuck Berry Played Here. A Great Show. A Long Show.</td></tr>
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This time, unlike the February show in Sacramento, the joint was rocking and the place was packed—so much so that my friends and I didn’t get near the stage. My friend’s friend was vaguely neurotic and afraid of the jammed crowd, so we stayed in the back, fifty or sixty feet from stage, in a loosely populated area where men in motorcycle club jackets twirled their partners around us.<br />
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At the time I had no idea who was backing Chuck Berry. I remember being embarrassed when the drummer, a thin black man with an afro and goatee stepped onto the stage. Half the crowd cheered, evidently thinking it was Berry. (There weren’t many African Americans at Tahoe in those days.) Chuck Berry never wore an afro. He wore his hair processed and slicked back. Nor did he ever have a goatee—at least to my knowledge. He usually sported a razor thin mustache. <br />
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Even from the distance of 40 years I remember that the band was a good one, well suited to the music, and that the show didn’t have the mournful quality of the Sacramento show in February. Otherwise my memories are fragmentary. I don’t recall what he sang. I remember the fifties style dancing in my part of the hall, and that I tried to do it with Lara, and how she laughed once she realized, quickly, that I didn’t know the first thing about dancing. (“You know you can’t dance but you wish you could!”) I remember that Berry played two sets—the only time I’ve ever seen or heard of him doing so. And I vividly recall walking away across the parking lot with the music still booming— the only time I ever did or ever will leave a Chuck Berry show early. I think we left because of my friend’s friend, who was feeling claustrophobic—but that’s how long the show was: I was satisfied. <br />
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But what I remember most clearly from that night is the handshake.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tp_uL-ODOGA/UcFAe-cG23I/AAAAAAAACoE/0Ptz5XW-FYc/s1600/Chuck_Berry_-_Back_Home-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tp_uL-ODOGA/UcFAe-cG23I/AAAAAAAACoE/0Ptz5XW-FYc/s320/Chuck_Berry_-_Back_Home-2.jpg" width="320" /></a>During the break between sets I spot Chuck Berry sitting near the stage, looking somber, like the model<br />
on the cover of his most recent album, “Back Home.” He’s smoking a cigarette and talking with a big, bearded guy. I assume they are old acquaintances, or that the big guy is making interesting conversation. I’m a shy, skinny kid, but I’m brave enough to push forward, hold out my hand, and blurt: <br />
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“You’re my idol!” <br />
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Even then I know it’s an idiotic thing to say, but I’m fifteen and it’s all I can manage. <br />
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Chuck is serious but gracious. He studies me, nods solemnly, and shakes my hand, probably pondering the market implications suggested by this skinny, long haired, fifteen year old. I’m the width of a pencil, with baggy jeans and wisps of fine hair on my upper lip. Aware that I have absolutely nothing to add to his life or store of knowledge, I leave him to his conversation and his cigarette. <br />
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Forty years later, having progressed but little, I will meet Chuck Berry and tell him, stupidly, about that handshake. I suppose it makes sense. I suppose, if Juan Diego met the Virgin Mary 40 years after the incident at Guadalupe, he’d mention their earlier encounter.<br />
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“You appeared before me once before, oh Blessed Mother, and we built a sanctuary for you on that spot!”<br />
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“Whatever,” she’d think. But she’d respond politely. Chuck did.<br />
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But here’s the real point of the story: forty years later I learned why Chuck Berry was sitting there, and who the big guy was. <br />
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By then I was blogging about Chuck Berry, and using the blog as an excuse to resurrect and reconstruct the dim, fading fragments that constitute my memory. This work was important to me. Some people remember everything, but I retain only broad strokes and a few specific details of what has happened in my life. I had a vague idea when these early shows occurred, and I remembered bits and pieces of each show— but I wanted more. I wanted more detail. I wanted corroboration. I wanted to verify my own memories, and to see how they fit into the chronology of my life. <br />
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Once, in the early days of the internet, long before I began blogging and at a time when I didn’t care much about Chuck Berry I actually saw someone advertising a poster for this Lake Tahoe show. He was asking $35. This was before PayPal. You had to send an e-mail, and follow it with cash or check in an envelope. I tried to buy the poster, but never heard back from the seller. Now I spent hours googling permutations of “Chuck Berry South Lake Tahoe,” trying to find that poster again, or any evidence of the show that might tell me what I’d seen, who’d backed him, when it was—anything. I did the same for shows in Sacramento and Monterey. <br />
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And one day, after months of repetitious googling, it paid off. I stumbled across a website where aging musicians and middle-aged former teenagers exchanged memories of teen dances at Lake Tahoe. (The internet is an odd but sometimes wonderful place.) <br />
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I posted an inquiry asking for anyone with a memory of the Chuck Berry show: “What was the name of the rock hall on Highway 50 at Bijou in a little grocery store building?” I asked. “I saw Chuck Berry there in about 1971— though I'd love to pin down the actual year. If anyone remembers that show, or who backed Chuck Berry, or when it was, I'd love to know.”<br />
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I got a couple of responses. Someone named Eddie told me he’d been to the show but got kicked out for being underage. (He must have been kicked out for another reason. It was an all ages show or I wouldn’t have been there.) And I learned the name of the place—either The Sanctuary, or The Fun House, depending on the year. <br />
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But then, a week or so later, I hit pay dirt, with a response from J.B.<br />
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J.B. is a name I knew. He was a local legend at South Lake Tahoe. I remembered him chiefly from signs posted outside the old American Legion Hall near our family’s cabin. J.B.’s band played teen dances there, and his name was always on the sign out front. When we were children my brother Danny thought J.B.’s name was funny, probably because it contained letters from the word “burp,” and if Danny thought it was funny, so did Ann and I. Now I learned that J.B. promoted the Chuck Berry show I’d seen at Lake Tahoe, and that his band backed Chuck Berry. “Peter,” he wrote, “I would have to dig up the exact year for you. I can tell you it was the last year that I operated the Fun House or the Sanctuary they were one in the same. My band backed Chuck Berry. More to that story.” <br />
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I was thrilled. I had found a witness to my history. Not just a witness—a perpetrator, the man who’d helped to create the object of my memory and obsession. He’d actually performed with Chuck Berry that evening. <br />
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But where I wanted to learn about the show and the music, J.B. appeared obsessed with the contract.<br />
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<em>I had paid Mr. Berry half of his money when the contract was signed. The night he was to perform he asked for the balance (normal). After he got his money he refused to sign the contract and said he would be doing a short set. I reminded him what he had agreed to do in his contract and he said ‘What contract?’ I remember telling him there would be several hundred disappointed young people. He shrugged his shoulders.</em></blockquote>
Then came the killer line:<br />
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<em>I asked our security to escort Mr. Berry to the stage and escort him back in 90 minutes, the time he agreed to do and that's exactly what happened. </em></blockquote>
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He asked security to “escort” him back! This was fascinating stuff. But I was so excited to finally get information and hopeful to learn more about the music, I missed the full import of what J.B. was telling me. I replied, saying it was one of the longest, best Chuck Berry shows I’d seen. J.B. responded with more details about the contract.<br />
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<em>I too was and still am a Chuck Berry fan. It is disappointing when you have to do business with someone you admire. At that time the band and I like a million other bands were doing Berry songs. I know about his royalties and he had every right to make all he could performing.</em><br />
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<em>He has or had a strange sound and tech rider, in it he asked for a fender bassman for his guitar I made the stupid mistake of thinking surely that was a mistake and provided him with a fender twin.</em><br />
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<em>That was unacceptable to him. While I was trying to work this out with him and get him on stage you might remember the hall was packed and there were another 700 or 800 hundred people outside (police estimate) trying to break the doors down. </em><br />
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<em>I never called the police to either the Legion Hall or The Fun House, but that night I did. </em><br />
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<em>After the night was over I sat down and decided that maybe after more than 10 years at the Legion and almost three at the Fun House maybe it was time to hang that part of my life up. </em><br />
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<em>There is a lot more to this story but that was my last promotion at Lake Tahoe. I’m still a Berry fan and I don't blame him in any way.</em><br />
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<em>[J.B.]</em></blockquote>
Fender is a guitar company. The Fender Bassman is an old powerhouse of an amplifier built for bass but often used by guitarists that Chuck Berry probably did favor at one time. The Twin Reverb is a smaller Fender Amp with a cleaner sound. Chuck Berry fans know all about the business of the amplifier. Chuck Berry has a sound. It’s the simple sound of a good guitar played loud through a good amplifier. So Chuck Berry’s contract always specifies exactly which amplifier the promoter is to provide. For several decades now it’s been the Fender Dual Showman.<br />
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In the book Brown Eyed Handsome Man author Bruce Pegg explains that Berry “developed a system of fines for unscrupulous promoters who failed to live up to their side of the contract.” Pegg quotes two regular Chuck Berry sidemen who describe how Chuck dealt with promoters who provided the wrong amp. The first, Robert Baldori, is a Michigan attorney and musician. He has performed with Berry countless times, including two albums and dozens of live shows. In Brown Eyed Handsome Man, Baldori describes a gig in Indianapolis: <br />
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<em><em>“[O]ne of the amps isn’t there. Well, you can make do, but the promoter has breached the contract, and Chuck says, ‘You’ve breached the contract, I want another $2000, ‘cause I’m going to have to go up there.’ Well, the guy on the other end of the deal says, ‘You’re screwing with me here, you’re ripping me off;’ he goes and gets the cash, Chuck takes it and goes on. And the other guy walks away telling people, ‘Chuck Berry’s temperamental, hard to work with, and he fucked me on this deal,’ and Chuck just looks at him and says, ‘I’m not screwing with you.’ And he’s not!”</em></em></blockquote>
The amp is a pretty simple requirement. Berry expects it to be honored. <br />
<br />
J.B. admitted in his internet post that he’d breached the contract—what he called the “strange tech rider.” And I liked that J.B. still respected Chuck Berry despite the dispute. I filed his name away, thinking that if I ever got to Las Vegas I’d look him up and see if he could find those files he talked about. <br />
<br />
But I didn’t have to go to Vegas. A year or so after our internet conversation a story appeared in the online edition of the South Lake Tahoe paper celebrating the return of J.B. to one of the Lake Tahoe casinos, and a good chunk of the article was about the Chuck Berry show at the Funhouse. The article said the show occurred on July 4, 1971, and called it “the day the music died in South Lake Tahoe” because, it caused J.B. to stop producing shows and dances. <br />
<br />
<i>
“I put 50 percent of the money up and he knew he was coming into a facility that would only hold less than 2,000 people,” J.B. is quoted as saying. “They put guys at the door with counters, so there was no way around that. Like a lot of things, he didn’t pay any attention to the contract. He signed it and took the money. Then when he shows up he comes back to the office with one other guy. He said to me as I was counting out the cash, ‘What about the percentage?’ ”</i><br />
<br />
The rest of this is taken straight from the newspaper.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em style="font-style: italic;"><em>[J.B.] reminded him of the limited Fun House capacity and the contract he had signed.</em></em><br />
<em style="font-style: italic;"><em><br /></em></em>
<em style="font-style: italic;"><em>“He didn’t like that,” [J.B.] said. “He wanted extra money. I said. ‘Look, I’ll pay you for this now.’ He took the money and when he went to sign the check to give me a receipt for it, he shoved it back to me and said, ‘I didn’t see no receipt,’ and he turns to his friend and says, ‘I have an idea this is going to be a real short night.’ </em></em><br />
<em style="font-style: italic;"><br /></em>
<em style="font-style: italic;"><em>“It hit me wrong,” [J.B.] said. “It ticked me off. I always look at it from the artist’s standpoint but that was just ridiculous to me.”</em></em><br />
<em style="font-style: italic;"><br /></em>
<em style="font-style: italic;"><em>To make matters worse, the truculent Berry, who was to be backed by [J.B.]’s band, said he wouldn’t plug his guitar into the Fender twin amp he was provided.</em></em><br />
<em style="font-style: italic;"><em><br /></em></em>
<em style="font-style: italic;"><em>[J.B.] had had enough. If the speaker was good enough for Jerry Garcia, he thought, it was good enough for Berry.</em></em><br />
<em style="font-style: italic;"><br /></em>
<em style="font-style: italic;"><em>“I had security there that were football players,” [J.B.] said. “They were with the 49ers who were here for high-altitude training. I hired them for summer to keep peace in my hall. I said, ‘Walk Mr. Berry to the stage and don’t let him off until he’s done what he’s agreed to do.’ ”</em></em></blockquote>
<em style="font-style: italic;">
</em>So, forty years after the fact I learn why Chuck Berry was sitting by the side of the stage talking to the big guy. The big guy was a San Francisco 49er. One false move and the “Father of Rock and Roll” was going to be tackled.<br />
<br />
To get some perspective, let’s imagine we want some work done on our kitchen. The contractor signs a bid but adds a “strange rider” that says it's my job to provide a functional table saw. When he arrives there's no table saw. The contractor gets grumpy and says "This might be a short day." So I call in my large buddies to keep the contractor there until the job is finished. <br />
<br />
That is what might be called that false imprisonment—a crime and a tort. Generally speaking, you can't hold someone against their will. And Chuck Berry never breached the contract. He made a crack about a short show. It was the promoter who breached the contract by providing the wrong equipment. <br />
<br />
My favorite bit of reporting is when the reporter calls Chuck Berry “truculent” and writes that if the speaker was good enough for Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead, it was good enough for Berry. What’s ignored is that the “truculent Mr. Berry” spent 20 years developing a guitar sound that Garcia, may he rest in peace, honored and sometimes imitated. Not many groups have covered more Chuck Berry songs than the Grateful Dead. <br />
<br />
At any rate, the “truculent” one stayed and played two of the best I've seen him do, backed by J.B.'s very good band. It wasn't a short night. <br />
<br />
J.B. says he was “ticked off.”<br />
<br />
Ah well. Lucky for him, and lucky for me, the “truculent Mr. Berry” endured the humiliation of being held hostage by a local promoter, honored his part of a dishonored contract, and kept on rocking— for another 40 years and counting. <br />
<br />
<br />
<i>(For more of this story, go to the "Pages" section on the right, where an entire book is being published! Or find the first chapter <a href="http://goheadon.blogspot.com/2012/10/prologue-and-chapter-one.html">by clicking here</a>!</i><i> Free!)</i><br />
<i><br />80 6/18/13 92</i><br />
<br />Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-80503528880485398652013-06-16T13:46:00.000-07:002013-06-16T13:46:11.203-07:00Chapter 12 - Why He Matters, Part IV: Chuck Berry as Businessman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Which leads to the next topic— because beyond the art, the poetry, the songs, the performance and the pure presence, there are a couple of other things that make Chuck Berry’s long career so notable. <br />
<br />
<br />
He fought for himself as an artist—and continues to do so. He makes sure he is paid in advance for his performances. He manages his own career. He insists that every promoter provide the bare bones necessary for him to put on a proper Chuck Berry show: i.e., a few professional musicians, the proper guitar amplifier, and cash. When they fail, he lets them know. <br />
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Various people have criticized Chuck Berry’s insistence on being compensated for work performed, including later generation rockers who take in unimaginable riches and have riders demanding assorted wines and chocolates, or tea served in china cups, and who undoubtedly leave most details to legions of attorneys, agents, handlers, publicists, and hangers on. <br />
<br />
Eric Clapton said “I still love his music, but meeting him in some senses took the edge off it for me. I found out bit by bit that he was so concerned with money and himself, and he is such an ambitious man, that in a way it kind of spoiled the feeling for the music.”<br />
<br />
This is ironic commentary from a man who, with The Yardbirds, The Bluesbreakers, Cream, Derek and the Dominoes, and as a solo act, has gathered more windfall from the inventions of African American and Jamaican musicians than whole armies of the original artists. As best I can tell, from what I admit is only idle knowledge of his music, Clapton himself invented nothing and has written just one truly good song. Instead, like a good second story man he lifted the good stuff, polished it beautifully, and then fenced what he took at great personal profit. Good for him—that’s music. Musically Chuck did much the same thing (though he added several dozen beautifully crafted songs to the mix). But where, then, does Clapton get off talking about ambition, money and self importance? He’s got all of that in spades.<br />
<br />
Or listen to Keith Richards, who started his own career covering hits from Chess stars like Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. In my mind he deserves more artistic credit than Clapton—Richards helped write whole bunches of great songs. But discussing the 1986 film Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll he said: “Chuck said to the promoters that he wanted to bring his piano player, but only if they pay him. Chuck’s about bucks.” The Rolling Stones reportedly earned more than $400 million from its “Bigger Bang Tour,” and in 2001 the British paper The Guardian once reported that Richards was worth 130 million pounds. I guess with $200 million in your pocket, a busload of roadies, and a bunch of lawyers, managers, accountants and hangers on, you can be all about the art.<br />
<br />
I got the Clapton and Richards quotes from John Collis’s Chuck Berry: The Biography. Collis himself chimes in: “Berry’s prudence with money, his fascination with its accumulation, is legendary. He loves it more than he loves rock ‘n’ roll. The deal is what matters to him, and he reads a contract with X-ray eyes.”<br />
<br />
Collis’s quote is probably “on the money,” and less judgmental than the statements by the two well nourished rockers. Chuck Berry would never deny that he’s interested in the money. He remembers how much he was paid at his first gigs in the early 1950s. He remembers how much he was paid to paint the walls of the club, too. (“When the money got larger, I put the paint brush down, picked the pick up, and fiddled!”) He remembers the cost of old cars, tape recorders, guitars, even an $8 pair of pants. As an African American born in 1926, he is a child of both Jim Crow and the Great Depression. Yes, money means something to him.<br />
<br />
And to his art! The pecuniary details are as important to his songs as the machines, the safety belts, or the young love. Johnny’s mother remembers where she got the bus money and the money for the guitar, which she bought at a pawn shop. The protagonist of “No Money Down” knows exactly how much he’s got left to spend to insure his “yellow convertible four door de Ville.” The “little money coming worked out well” for Pierre and the Mademoiselle.<br />
<br />
There’s a scene in the film Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll where three legends gather around a piano at Berry Park. Bo Diddley starts talking about his early recording contracts. Little Richard admits he never read them. Bo says he did, and begins to say how much he earned per record. Half a cent says Chuck. The records sold for 59 cents. “There were 58 other pennies going somewhere,” says Chuck. “I majored in math. I was looking at the other 58 cents!”<br />
<br />
At another point in the movie he talks about the payola scandal, and about finding two other names credited on his first hit record, “Maybellene.” “I knew Alan Freed. I heard him on the radio. He was the disk jockey in New York that played the records. Who was Russ Fratto? He owned a stenography store—a stationary store that supplied Leonard [Chess] with his stationary.” <br />
<br />
“Maybellene” is now credited to just one man—Chuck Berry. Berry and his record company also fought to get royalties owed to him by the Beach Boys for using the melody of “Sweet Little Sixteen” to make “Surfing U.S.A.” Even John Lennon had to settle with Berry (he agreed to record more Chuck Berry songs) in return for using Berry’s line “here come old flattop” in The Beatle’s song “Come Together.” Call it hardnosed, or call it smart, or call it taking care of his family and his legacy— it was the right thing to do. How many blues and R & B stars died homeless, their efforts ripped off and returned home by foreign invaders? Not Berry. There’s a mansion on the edge of Berry Park that wasn’t there when my car stalled in 1978. (And that’s his other home. I’m pretty sure the big one is down the road a piece.)<br />
<br />
His own musicians sure respect him. “The money's always right and on time,” says Bob Lohr, Chuck’s long time St. Louis piano player. “The touring conditions are the absolute best as well— five star hotels, sometimes first-class airfare, all expenses paid.” Fellow pianist Bob Baldori agrees. “I have never found Charles difficult to work with. He's always been 100% professional and easy going with me.”<br />
<br />
If Chuck Berry reads a contract with “X-ray eyes” it’s because he’s a businessman who has been burned and would prefer to avoid it. “I have tried to curb the manners in which I have been ripped off so that it doesn’t happen again,” he told an interviewer from the BBC. “Which has given me a reputation of being—cynical, is it? It’s not that I’m distrustful—it’s just that if the same type of dog comes up and you think that he’ll bite you, well, move out!” <br />
<br />
In his book he talks about his first and only manager. Chuck fired him when he learned he was stealing money. After that Berry managed his own career with the help of a few trusted agents and friends.<br />
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He wasn’t alone. The great Chess Bluesman Howlin’ Wolf also paid attention to money matters. Wolf paid his musicians’ taxes, social security and unemployment insurance—all unheard of in the blues world of the 1950s. When he fired a musician, or there wasn’t work, that musician could still get a check. When the musician retired, he’d get social security. Wolf also insisted on following the rules of the musicians’ union. Once, Elmore James put Wolf’s name on a poster without Wolf’s permission. Wolf fined James $25.</div>
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One of Wolf’s contemporaries talked about Wolf the same way some people talk about Chuck Berry. “He was mostly about money,” the musician said. “He conserved his money and he was always singing about money…. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him broke… He really was into that money thing and he had some money!”</div>
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Berry and Wolf, entertainers, sometimes clowns on stage, and undeniably great artists and musical innovators, were serious business people who insisted on being treated with respect, dignity and fairness in the financial rough and tumble of the music business. Musicians should thank them, not just for paving the way musically, but for helping turn the rough and tumble music business into a viable and dignified profession. It is a legacy almost as great as the music itself.<br />
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<i>(Earlier chapters of this book length piece can be found in the "pages" to the left, and scattered throughout the blog. I'll be publishing additional chapters once or twice a week throughout summer. It starts <a href="http://goheadon.blogspot.com/p/dear-dad-prologue-and-chapter-one.html">HERE.</a> Or to read the next chapter, click <a href="http://goheadon.blogspot.com/2012/08/chapter-13-buyin-dannys-guitar-and.html">HERE.</a>)</i><br />
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<i>1162</i><br />
<br />Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-26347350228203677142013-06-14T18:27:00.000-07:002017-03-19T09:58:36.628-07:00Chapter 13 - Buyin' Danny's Guitar and the Rhythm of Bye Bye Johnny<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Not long after seeing Chuck Berry at Lake Tahoe I found myself riding back in that direction with my brother Danny to buy a rock and roll electric guitar.<br />
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Danny took up guitar while living in a cave in a neighborhood of Gypsies and Flamenco dancers somewhere in the south of Spain. Danny liked the rhythm guitar he heard Gypsies play. Spain was still burdened by Franco and fascism. Its economy was so weak Danny could live there for practically nothing. He got a great guitar for practically nothing, too— a beautiful Spanish classical with mother of pearl inlays for the equivalent of $50. I think he’s still got it, though it now has a big hole worn through the soundboard by Danny’s pick. It’s that Gypsy influence—Danny strums fast and hard. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OGCOe3a6-SQ/UCVWXjPHojI/AAAAAAAAB1w/yjm2NJlhmRM/s1600/h850305granada_sacromonte.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OGCOe3a6-SQ/UCVWXjPHojI/AAAAAAAAB1w/yjm2NJlhmRM/s200/h850305granada_sacromonte.JPG" width="200" /></a>But like many of Chuck Berry’s rock and roll children Danny had fantasies—a vision of his name in lights— so one day he and I drove from Sacramento to Reno in search of an electric guitar. Danny’s theory, no doubt true, was that out of luck casino musicians would lose their paychecks at the craps tables, hock their instruments, and guitars would be plentiful and cheap. So we went to a Reno pawn shop and Danny found a Fender Mustang.<br />
<br />
The Mustang was originally marketed by Fender as a budget guitar for students. It became a favorite of surf musicians. If you want to see a Mustang, close your eyes and imagine three or four young white men lined up with short sleeved shirts and snazzy looking guitars. Those are Mustangs. They earned even greater cult status when Fender stopped making them and Grunge rockers started using them. <br />
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So Danny got himself a classic. Someone had painted over the original glossy finish, but given its age—probably a mid 1960s Fender—it was a pretty great guitar—one with both a history, and a future. (Danny’s experience finding a Mustang at a pawn broker’s shop must not have been unique. Fender now sells a re-released “vintage” Mustang that it calls the “Pawn Shop Special.”)<br />
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One reason Danny needed an electric guitar was so that he could play “Bye Bye Johnny” with the garage band that I formed with my high school friends John and Greg. John played guitar. Greg played piano. I played drums. It is not self deprecating to say that our band was the worst I’ve ever heard perform in public. We played the State Fair and attracted one fan. I saw him rocking back and forth, but learned afterwards that he was mentally and physically disabled and that his rocking motion was involuntary. He seemed to like us, though. The grizzled manager for youth events at the State Fair wasn’t so sure. He invited us back but we drove a hard bargain. We needed to rent an amplifier and electric piano. We told him we’d play again for $10. That sealed the deal. We were unemployed.<br />
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The name of our band was “Keg.” Our highest aspiration, evidently, was to be a party band for people too drunk to care (“Barf” would have been a more appropriate and visionary moniker). We never achieved that goal. Our only professional gig was playing for a group of 10 year old kids at a swim party. <br />
<br />
But if practice was at my house, Danny would often find us, plug his Mustang into John’s big Fender Bassman amp, and play his favorite Chuck Berry song, “Bye Bye Johnny.” Danny liked everything about that song. I remember him commenting on the squeaky guitar lick (it sounds like someone twisting a cork from a bottle) that Matt “Guitar” Murphy puts between the cries of “Bye Bye Bye.” And Danny liked the rhythm of “Bye Bye Johnny.” I remember him talking about it the same way he talked about the squeaky guitar lick.<br />
<br />
I should have taken Danny’s interest in the rhythm of “Bye Bye Johnny” as a clue that there was something special there. I should have taken my record upstairs and tried to work out the drum part—or at least some version that paid homage to the original beat. But I didn’t. That would have made too much sense. It never occurred to me as a young musician to go to the original, which I’d listened to hundreds of times without actually hearing. I thought music was a strictly natural process, and that it would be cheating to actually learn something from real musicians— so when we played the song I flailed away in my normal, clunky fashion, whacking a badly split cymbal that sounded like the crack of a horsewhip in a western theme song. Rawhide! Whack!<br />
<br />
I remember, decades later, watching the 76 year old Berry instruct a local bass player on that same “Bye Bye Johnny” rhythm. Berry strummed it on the guitar: ba-<i>bum</i>, ba-<i>bum</i>, ba-<i>bum</i>, ba-<i>bum</i> (<i>and<b> one</b></i> and two <i>and<b> three</b></i> and four). When the wide eyed the bass player (middle aged, but cowering under the direct tutelage of the master) started doing the same thing as Chuck, he got one of those big Chuck Berry stage smiles and Chuck returned his attention to the rest of us. It was a lesson in how to play Chuck Berry by Chuck Berry. <br />
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That same rhythm has become a career for Chuck’s longtime bassist Jimmy Marsala, who plays it often during live shows, and is probably the closest thing you’ll find to the heartbeat of Chuck Berry without putting a stethoscope to his chest.<br />
<br />
And then one day, still later, spurred by comments in Fred Rothwell’s book Long Distance Information: Chuck Berry’s Recorded Legacy, I finally listened to “Bye Bye Johnny,” comparing the original mono version to the pitifully “Altered Electronically for Stereo” version that I’d grown up with. (They also alter cats and dogs.) It was like night and day. The altered version was flimsy and weak. No wonder I hadn’t fully heard what was there! <br />
<br />
But the original was glorious! Strong, clear, poundingly direct. And there it was, in its original glory: the chugging of a locomotive piston driving the song, as played on snare and high-hat by the inestimable Mr. Odie Payne. It’s not the bass or the guitar this time— it’s Payne launching each half measure with what two successive whacks on his snare drum— and-one and two and-three and four and-one…. You hear it on the altered version, but in mono it’s up front spewing smokestack lightning. <br />
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Odie Payne was a blues drummer par excellence, a founding father and innovator, who can be heard on dozens of classics by Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Magic Sam, Buddy Guy and Otis Rush, and on some of Chuck Berry’s greatest recordings. Once I started noticing his omnipresence I looked him up on YouTube and found a video of him playing drums in a small bar in the 1980s and imagined what it would be like to wander into such a place and find such a hero there. YouTube, always a miracle, allowed me to do so. <br />
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These so-called “sidemen” are often glorious and deserve more recognition than they got or get. Musicians and record producers knew them, of course, but the general public only knew or know their sounds. And only a particular public, like Danny, fully appreciated what he heard.<br />
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As an untaught and unlearned musician, (“uneducable,” my wife might say, in a lofty mood), I assumed that all of the musicians I loved were either born that way or educated only by nature or their hard knock lives. But Odie Payne studied music in high school and after a stint in the Army, at the Roy C. Knapp School of Percussion in Chicago, then hit the road with one of greatest blues guitarists and singers in history, Elmore James. Where can a musician learn more than on stage, night after night, in live performance, especially with a genius the caliber of James? Payne became a sought after session musician. At Chess he worked with a variety of stars, and helped Chuck Berry create his second generation of hits in the early 1960s, including “Nadine,” “You Never Can Tell,” “No Particular Place to Go,” and “Promised Land.” He was famous for the “double shuffle,” where he played cymbal and snare together, and which he played, rather famously, on “No Particular Place to Go.” A master of the shuffle, it is ironic that he helped Chuck Berry move from the shuffle to the straight ahead rock beat he has used since recording songs like “Nadine” and “Promised Land.”<br />
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And “Bye Bye Johnny!”<br />
<br />
As an old man, I hobbled downstairs to my dusty old drum set and tried to recreate that “Bye Bye Johnny” rhythm. It wasn’t easy. It’s almost backward to the backbeat I normally do, where the emphasis is on the two and the four. But I bet it’s exactly what Chuck asked Odie Payne to play 50 or so years ago. <br />
<br />
“Like a train, you know? Cha-chah! Cha-chah!” <br />
<br />
“Like this, Chuck?”<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Odie Payne, Jr. has got to be the guy with the space age headphones, second from the right.</td></tr>
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And there’s that heartbeat, Johnny B. Goode’s metronome, the locomotive that brought Johnny’s mother to the kitchen door to see if her son was home at last. <br />
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I always knew it was there—I just didn’t know what I knew, or listen to what I heard. When “The London Sessions” came out it made me crazy to hear the crowd sing “Go Johnny Go!” when Chuck was obviously playing “Bye Bye Johnny.” He switched gracefully over, or tossed the lyrics, and the show ended. But there it was—that driving rhythm, this time on guitar, which the bassist picked up. (The drummer on the “London Sessions” plays it like I did.)<br />
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But “Bye Bye Johnny” doesn’t end with that magical beat. The lyrics are full of the rich imagery and rhythmic detail that make Chuck Berry songs Chuck Berry songs: The Southern Trust, the gathering of crops, the Greyhound, the kitchen door, the tears falling from happiness—this song is as good as it gets. <br />
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And how did Johnny get his guitar? Johnny’s mother “remembered taking money earned from gathering crops and buying Johnny’s guitar at a broker’s shop.” <br />
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A pawn shop! Like the one Danny went to. So what more fitting song for Danny to play on his broker shop guitar? <br />
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I never put these bits and piece of life together until decades later, when I started writing about my life under Chuck Berry’s spell. I started telling the story of Danny, and his guitar, and the song, and all of a sudden I saw the connection. <br />
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Chuck Berry songs don’t come true. They are true.<br />
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And it keeps going.<br />
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A year or two after we bought the old Fender in Reno, Danny, my sister Ann and I picked honeydew melons west of Sacramento. We earned $2.32 an hour. <br />
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It was my first introduction to hard work, and Ann and I were good at it. (Danny— not so much, but he kept showing up.) The supervisor gave us a sharp carpet knife and a long row, and we’d stoop and cut and lay the melons in a straight line. If you were lucky you found a cantaloupe every now and then to cut open for a snack. Ann and I kept ahead of all but the two best—a middle aged Mexican woman and her teenage son, who worked twice as fast as anyone else in the field. They liked us because we didn’t slouch and complain like most of the white kids. I kept my spirits up and passed the time by humming my way through all four sides of the Golden Decade. <br />
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Our supervisor was a quiet, tall Mexican man with sunglasses and a white cowboy hat. We were hard working, but always started a little later than the Hispanic workers. He’d see us come and smile. “You like honeydew?” he’d ask, day after day, and laugh. It didn’t take too many tons of honeydew to give you a strong response to that one. I used to worry he wouldn’t pay us enough. I watched him when we arrived. He never took out a pen or paper. He never wrote anything down.<br />
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When pay day came and our work was all done we went to the El Rancho Motel in West Sacramento to pick up our check. It was a sprawling place—pretty nice—and my memory is that they used to host interesting music there—performers like Ray Charles, and some of the big bands. Our supervisor was there grinning from behind his dark glasses. It would be our last time meeting him. Our days as farm laborers were done forever. When he handed us our checks, with his characteristic smile, I checked it quickly, certain I would be cheated, but somehow, without ever taking a note when we arrived or when we left, he had it perfect—exactly what I’d calculated myself, down to the last quarter hour.<br />
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I cashed the check and went to a little music store on Auburn Boulevard and bought a $150 Japanese copy of a Fender Telecaster. It was beautiful guitar- a buttery cream color with a maple neck and fret board, and a pretty hard case. I used that guitar and a little Fender amp that I picked up in Los Gatos, California to learn my first real Chuck Berry licks, then took it to Italy for a year, where I’d stand in front of the mirror and enthrall invisible masses with nearly silent versions of “Reelin’ and Rockin’” and “Johnny B. Goode.” It was my first love affair with a guitar. But love is cruel. Eventually I traded my it for a semi-hollow body Ovation that looked like the Gibson that Chuck Berry played. <br />
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I still have the Ovation. It, too, is a beauty—with golden brown spruce on the front and buttery brown maple on the back. But I never forgot my first love, the guitar I traded to get it— so 30 years later I bought a Mexican built Fender Telecaster that looks just like my old Japanese copy. <br />
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And one day, playing it, I remembered what I’d never before realized: that I’d bought my first real guitar with “money earned from gathering crops,” just like Johnny’s mom.<br />
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Which goes to show that what I say is true: Chuck Berry songs don’t come true. They are true.<br />
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(<i>This is part of a book length feature. You can check out the first chapters <a href="http://goheadon.blogspot.com/2012/10/prologue-and-chapter-one.html">HERE.</a> For more, find the Chapters in the "Pages" section to the right.</i>)</div>
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<br />Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-4336467911560787752013-06-13T19:43:00.000-07:002023-03-22T17:04:30.758-07:00Chapter 14 - Back Home<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Tower Theater in Downtown Sacramento</td></tr>
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Although Rasco Tempo held scattered treasures it couldn’t satisfy me for long, so in late spring or summer I found myself visiting the outlying sections of Tower Records on Watt Avenue. Tower was one of those rare points of pride in Sacramento. I’m not sure what the others were— Shakey’s Pizza? Tomato juice? Tower began at a downtown Sacramento drugstore, spread to the major capitals, then disappeared instantly and forever like some ancient civilization. So much for Sacramento’s contribution to arts and culture. <br />
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I got my first job in Seattle at Tower through a Sacramento connection. We set up the store. It was hard work, carrying boxes of records one direction and books the other. We worked 12 hour days, which meant lots of overtime. A man from corporate supervised. One day he watched me carry boxes of vinyl record albums that would break my back today. He offered help. “Could you use some amphetamines, Peter?” <br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Lw3G94gHrYU/UCvP3T6wGNI/AAAAAAAAB3I/8NfuGtuQf9E/s1600/59208.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="127" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Lw3G94gHrYU/UCvP3T6wGNI/AAAAAAAAB3I/8NfuGtuQf9E/s200/59208.jpg" width="200" /></a>But this is still 1971, and I’m at the second Tower, on Watt, exploring sections I haven’t visited before. There’s a section called “Oldies,” and a few feet away, a section for “Blues.” This is where I’ll stay. This is where I’ll find my first T-Bone Walker record, and my first Robert Johnson record. Both are marketed almost directly to me. The cover of the Robert Johnson record is a comfortable cartoon of Johnson recording in a hotel room. It is warm and welcoming. Who knew that the early bluesmen were surrounded by doilies? (They probably were!) The notes on the T-Bone Walker record say “Surprisingly often these old timers sound pretty good in the quaint authenticity of their period styles.” Jesus! But at 15 I miss the condescension. To me everything about the record is strange and wonderful, from the cover shot with the brown suit, thin socks and strange Gibson guitar, to the music itself, where I hear roots of my new master.<br />
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But today we’re talking about my second Chuck Berry record, an album called “Back Home.” I find it in the oldies bin. It isn’t an oldie. It was released five or six months prior, in November 1970, a few weeks after I first saw the man climb down from those perilous risers on the Mike Douglas show, and a few weeks before I saw him again on Dick Cavett. <br />
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The cover of “Back Home” has a high contrast black and white portrait of my new hero printed in sepia tones. Remember, they are marketing to me, and old is new. Butch Cassidy. Granny glasses. Chuck is seated in front of a crinkly backdrop holding his Gibson. He looks serious, like the hostage I met at Tahoe. The famous, large hands (“like baseball mitts,” said his friend and original piano player, Johnnie Johnson) caress the shoulder and neck of the guitar. A similar shot from the same session will be used on the back of his next album, “San Francisco Dues,” which I will find at the same branch of Tower a few months later. <br />
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On the back there are more photographs, not so somber. He’s clowning, doing posed versions of his “scoot” and duck walk. He’s mugging, flipping a peace sign, hugging his Gibson like a girl some he’s met backstage and will take home. These are charming portraits that will absorb my attention for hours. I will stare and ponder. Decades later, reading a biography of Howlin’ Wolf, mesmerized by the stunning cover shot- Wolf, with eyes half shut, drawing hard on a cigarette- I will see that it was taken by the same photographer, Peter Amft, who took these pictures of Chuck Berry. <br />
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I listen, I stare. I read. The liner notes on “Back Home” by writer Michael Lydon keep me absorbed almost as long as Amft’s photographs. Lydon is both a fan and a scholar. He wrote a <i>Ramparts</i> magazine article about meeting Chuck Berry at Berry Park that will be instrumental in causing me to stall my car there a few years hence. His notes dance at the edge of my 15 year old understanding. He compares Chuck Berry to Charles Chaplin and B. B. King, and drops important sounding names I only vaguely know, like Norman Mailer, Kerouac and Lenny Bruce. He takes my new hero seriously. He calls him a “comic genius,” makes reference to Huckleberry Finn, the Supreme Court, and the Montgomery bus boycott. He says “To dance to, sing along with, or just dig Chuck Berry body and soul, was not only to celebrate him and oneself, but to celebrate the celebration. That doubling of involvement created an intensity like that of full participation in ritual.” Chuck Berry knows this. Twenty-five years later he will tell Rolling Stone “I’m not an oldies act. The music I play is a ritual— something that matters to people in a special way.” At 14 or 15 I have begun to participate, learning the songs, joining in the call and response- Go, Johnny Go! Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll! Deliver me from the days of old! Sweet Little Sixteen! Got the grown up blues!<br />
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By the time I buy “Back Home” I know Chuck Berry’s classic 1950s sound— ringing guitar, pounding drums, piano and acoustic bass, all with plenty of rhythm, reverb and energy. Here is something similar but distinctly different. The album begins with a twist on the familiar “Chuck Berry” intro—the guitar lick that begins songs like “Johnny B. Goode” and “Roll Over Beethoven.” It takes me years to decipher the difference. One day I pick up my guitar and figure it out. Instead of playing it the normal way, fretting the two thinnest strings at the same fret then dropping an octave, he goes up the frets and then drops to his normal position. The result is familiar in structure but altogether different in feel— which is a good description of the entire album.<br />
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“Back Home” doesn’t always have all the energy of Chuck Berry’s best early stuff, but there are some great songs and a new refinement. In the 1950s he was a brash innovator. There’s nothing innovative on “Back Home,” but 15 years on the road have made Chuck a virtuoso. In the liner notes Lydon writes that Berry’s guitar has “the bitingly fine quality of etched steel”—a perfect description of the Berry’s guitar on this record. <br />
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I listen with interest. I’m happy that the man I’d seen battling through that sad set in an empty hall is making new songs. Even though I recognize the contours, I can feel the passage of time in these songs. The sound had been modernized. The bass is electric. There’s not a teenage song on the album. It is a serious adult record. A couple of songs are forgettable, but a few stand with the best he ever recorded. <br />
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“Tulane” is often called the last great Chuck Berry song. (Not true. It’s great. It’s not the last.) It’s the story of Johnny and Tulane, who run a novelty shop but keep the best stuff—the “cream of the crop”— under the counter. There’s an assumption by most writers that “cream of the crop” means drugs, but we’re talking Chuck Berry, so who’s to say what’s actually down there? When “one day lo and behold an officer comes,” Johnny and Tulane take off—or try to.<br />
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Johnny jumped the counter but he stumbled and fell</div>
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Tulane made it over, Johnny fell to the yell</div>
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Go head on, Tulane!</div>
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If this is Johnny B. Goode, Johnny’s gone bad. His name’s not in lights, it’s a number, on a mug shot. He spends the next several verses yelling fevered instructions to the real hero of the song, a girl named Tulane, who’s faster, stronger, and long gone.<br />
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Which is no surprise. The best Chuck Berry characters are his women, who are always a step ahead of the men. Maybellene disappears over the hill in another man’s Cadillac. Her long-limbed sister Nadine moves around like a wayward summer breeze, always just beyond reach. And Tulane, the youngest and fastest, jumps the counter and runs like East St. Louis native Jackie Joyner-Kersey.<br />
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Johnny, neither nimble nor quick, winds up in jail, singing “Have Mercy Judge,” a hard blues about hard prison and Berry’s best blues after “Wee Wee Hours.” <br />
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Chuck Berry once told a writer "Look, I ain't no big shit, all right? My music, it is very simple stuff. I wanted to play blues. But I wasn't blue enough. I wasn't like Muddy Waters, people who really had it hard. In our house, we had food on the table. So I concentrated on this fun and frolic."<br />
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But one place Berry lived hard is in the justice system. As a kid he high-jacked a car and was sent to reform school. As a rich, middle aged rock star he did what many rich people do- avoided taxes- and got what a lot of rich people deserve but don’t get: a sting in prison. But as a young, handsome, black rock and roll star, rivaling Elvis, he got what he no doubt didn’t deserve—a felony conviction on trumped up charges of transporting a minor across state borders for immoral purposes. The charges were essentially bogus, and the first judge was so insistently and clumsily racist that the original conviction was grudgingly overturned. But they tried him again in front of a better judge, convicted him, and put him away for 20 months at the height of his artistic and commercial success. All of which is simply to say that Chuck Berry was definitely “blue enough” to sing about the penitentiary. “I was thirty-five years old, really set back, out of contact, feeling more black but still intact, and determined to make the best of it,” he said in his Autobiography. <br />
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And he did. He made “Have Mercy Judge.”<br />
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Berry has too much to say on “Have Mercy Judge” to be restricted to the AAB pattern so common to the blues where the first line of each verse is repeated. Here every line advances the story. “Lord, have mercy, I’m in a world of trouble,” he begins. “I’m being held by the state patrol.” He is “charged with traffic of the forbidden” and has “almost finished doing my parole.” <br />
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Now, I'm on my way back downtown.</div>
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Somebody help me! Have mercy on my soul.</div>
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Chuck Berry is usually a cool singer— a Nat King Cole/Charles Brown wannabe. But he almost shouts these lines, and no wonder. He lived all of this. He had been held by the state patrol. He had been in a world of trouble. He’d been “charged with traffic of the forbidden”- twice. <br />
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I go to court tomorrow morning</div>
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And I got the same judge I had before</div>
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Lord, I know he won't have no mercy on me</div>
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'Cause he told me not to come back no more</div>
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He'll send me away to some stony mansion</div>
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In a lonely room and lock the door</div>
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The final lines of “Have Mercy Judge” go to the girl who jumped the counter. “Have mercy on my little Tulane,” he sings. “She's too alive to try to live alone.” And in some ways, except for songs to mother, or child, this seems like Chuck Berry’s only true love song.<br />
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“I know her needs,” he sings, “and although she loves me, she's gonna try to make it<br />
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While the poor boy's gone.” </div>
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Somebody tell her to live</div>
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And I'll understand it</div>
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And even love her more</div>
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When I come back home.</div>
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It’s a rare and unusual line in the blues- and fitting for the author of odes to Maybellene and Nadine, girls who aren’t waiting, anyway. <br />
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This pairing- “Tulane” and “Have Mercy Judge”- is the only example I can think of where a song and its sequel play in consecutive order on an original album. They are among Chuck Berry’s best songs and come fifteen years after “Maybellene” and “Wee Wee Hours” introduced him to the world. <br />
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Another great one, perfect for an album about returning home, is a reinterpretation of the Benny Goodman/Lionel Hampton/Charlie Christian classic, “Flying Home.” The song is a deep vein of Chuck Berry influences. Goodman's guitarist, Charlie Christian, was one of his heroes, and Berry cites Hampton’s saxophonist, Illinois Jacquet as another important influence. <br />
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Jazz is a series of stepping stones. You jump from one artist to the next as sidemen become headliners and hire sidemen of their own. Goodman had Christian and Hampton. Hampton, when he went on his own, hired Jacquet. All four are famous for versions of "Flying Home." And Chuck Berry should be famous for it, too. He recorded the song three times, trying to get it right, and this time he did, making it very much his own. It has the same “I Got Rhythm” chord changes as the original, and if you listen carefully, you’ll hear Chuck putting his usual twist on the tune, but those snippets of the original melody are overpowered by Robert Baldori’s wailing harmonica. Chuck and pianist Lafayette Leake (who played on “Johnny B. Goode” and “Sweet Little Sixteen”) have fun trading chords and riffs—but my favorite moment comes from Leake, whose crescendo of piano notes at the end of the bridge perfectly reflects the exhilaration of an overdue journey home. <br />
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My third Chuck Berry album, after “The Golden Decade” and “Back Home,” was “San Francisco Dues.” It’s an album I associate with my failed effort to grind a telescope mirror. I still have the chipped Pyrex mirror blank stored in a plaid lunch box, and I still have that original record, its cover frayed and worn, the vinyl scratched and dusted with finger prints (though not nearly as worn out as “Back Home,” which I bought twice, and wore out twice.) It’s been called Chuck Berry’s most “cohesive” album, but I don’t think so. (I give that nod to “Back Home.”) If it’s cohesive the glue is a hideous “wah-wah” on one of the guitars. (“Why-why” I would ask?) To me the record has a patched together feel. And no wonder. Most of the songs were recorded in 1971, just a few weeks before I’d first see him at the Memorial Auditorium, but two older songs were thrown in as filler. The older songs are okay- among the better songs on the album- but they are teenage songs that Chuck Berry wisely left behind when he recorded “Back Home.” Even as a kid I found it vaguely weird that a middle aged man was singing about “Lonely School Days.” <br />
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The new songs on “San Francisco Dues” are a mixed bag. “Festival” is dippy—a long recitation of every band Chuck Berry could think of and make rhyme. (The Beatles are tossed in at the end like minor characters in the Gilligan’s Island theme song.) The title track has a nice bluesy feel, but the hip lingo of 1967 was already dated by 1971:<br />
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Went on a little trip last night</div>
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And the boys was playin' some of them old Fillmore Blues</div>
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And every head was right on in there diggin'</div>
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Beautiful vibrations, had some heavy grooves.</div>
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“Bound to Lose” is another semi-blues and rings truer.<br />
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Now I've lost the only one I really loved<br />
And I'm bound to this pain in my heart.</div>
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Who knows what goes on in the heart of Chuck Berry? He gives us his songs and his stage presence, not a confession. But some of his truest songs— “Memphis” or “Have Mercy Judge”—reflect the fall from wild times to the sometimes painful consequences. There’s no better example than the bluesy “Oh Louisiana,” which I consider to Berry’s last truly great song. Louisiana is both a place and a person. He remembers “quaint porches and windows,” the local food and “bayous of green.” Like many so Chuck Berry songs, it is steeped in place. <br />
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Oh, Lou’s’ana, I'm flying on Delta 903</div>
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Right over St. Louis, high over Memphis, Tennessee</div>
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On southward to the sea</div>
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Where I long to be</div>
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But when Berry sings about Louisiana’s “beautiful delta,” it’s hard to imagine terrestrial geography, and his final cry, “Oh, take me back!” is sung with a raw emotion rarely heard from Chuck Berry. “Oh Louisiana,” probably played once or twice in the studio to fill an album and then forgotten, is a song that should be played, either by Berry himself, or by anyone smart enough to cover it. <br />
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Berry went on to create three more albums at Chess. They were like most Chuck Berry albums—a couple of great songs, some good ones, some filler. (He once called the filler “sausage.”) “The Chuck Berry London Sessions” had a brilliant version of “Mean Old World,” and an entertaining instrumental (the real “Concerto in B. Goode”) called “London Berry Blues.” The album “Bio” produced at least three good songs, including the title song and a loose-limbed shuffle called “Woodpecker.” (“Bio” is one of only two 1970s songs that he has kept playing. The other is the show-ending “House Lights.”) The final Chess album, simply titled “Chuck Berry,” was a disappointment—but more about that later. <br />
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Berry’s 1970s music seems to be getting more respect. A lot of the songs have received a democratic “thumbs up” on YouTube where people post them from time to time. The record company Hip-O-Select put out a collection of the 1970s material that contains everything recorded from 1969 through 1975. (You almost wish it wasn’t everything. Like most Chuck Berry collections, it’s good, bad, sometimes spectacular, and occasionally very, very ugly. The best “new” release on the set is a solo performance of Robert Nighthawk’s “Anna Lee” which Berry recorded as “Annie Lou.”) <br />
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I’ve often thought a carefully selected compilation of the best material from these final Chess records would make a good double album, and could change the stubborn perception that Chuck Berry never made a good record after his “golden decade.” But that idea has probably been rendered obsolete by I-tunes, and the new, fragmented way that music is marketed. <br />
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I’ve spent a lifetime imagining such things. As a kid in my room I foolishly imagined how I’d tinker with Chuck Berry’s career to make it more perfect, more interesting, more enduring. (Ha!) I planned tours with a regular band. I mentally storyboarded a concert film I hoped to direct. I lay in bed nights and produced “all star” albums with superstar lineups (that weren’t half as good as the personnel on the original Chess records!) And I never really outgrew these childish fantasies. As an older fellow I imagined encouraging Chuck Berry to sing or re-cut neglected songs like “Oh Louisiana.” In my mid-50s, when I first heard “Annie Lou,” I imagined the impact it might have had if it had been released in the 1970s—made part of the album “Bio,” perhaps— and how it might have lifted from Chuck Berry the burden of always playing his big hits and “oldies.” <br />
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What foolishness. <br />
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One day, not long ago, I read where someone asked Bob Dylan if he ever thought of collaborating with Chuck Berry. Dylan laughed. "Chuck Berry?" he says. "The thought is preposterous. Chuck doesn't need anybody to do anything with or for him.”<br />
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That’s it, exactly. Chuck Berry is, was, and ever shall be exactly what he is.<br />
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Hail! Hail! And Have Mercy.<br />
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<i>(This is a chapter from a longer, book length piece about how Chuck Berry grabbed onto my imagination when I was 14 and never let go. To find the very beginning, <a href="http://goheadon.blogspot.com/2012/10/prologue-and-chapter-one.html">CLiCK HERE!</a> The whole thing is here on these pages. Comments appreciated!) (Usually!)</i><br />
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<i>56</i><br />
<br />Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2676806289104794676.post-32063712135127771712013-06-12T08:40:00.000-07:002023-03-22T17:04:35.216-07:00Chapter 15 - Hard Workin' at the Mill, Why He Matters Part V<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Nowadays Chuck Berry plays with the words of “Johnny B. Goode,” singing “Maybe someday your name will be back in lights,” as if the marquee had gone dark. It never has, though. Because I first encountered him at a poorly promoted I used to think Berry’s situation could be found in the song “Sergeant Pepper,” going in and out of style, guaranteed to raise a smile. But I was wrong. Chuck Berry never went out of style. The music is too authentic and too good. The performances, though sometimes lambasted, were too strong. He’s got it in spades, but style has nothing to do with it. <br />
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The records didn’t always sell. Even during the so-called “golden decade” he had fewer giant hits than you might imagine. “School Days” peaked at Number 23 on the pop charts. “Roll Over Beethoven” got to 29. “Promised Land” was Number 41. “Little Queenie” was a lowly 80. (Of course, the pop charts, like the old so-called “Major Leagues,” were overrated. Berry’s songs did considerably better on the R & B charts, where he did have number one hits. Think Negro Leagues. Think Satchel Page, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron. Think Chuck, Muddy, Wolf, B.B., and Little Richard. It’s pretty clear, in baseball and in music, that there was more than one “major” league.) <br />
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But where most songs that peak at number 80 are quickly forgotten, Chuck Berry’s aged well. They got bigger and better with time. They entered the charts as minor to moderate hits and became major cultural landmarks. <br />
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He had three clear bursts of record sales— 1955-1960, 1964-1965, and 1972— and it probably would have been an uninterrupted selling spree from 1955 to 1965 if he hadn’t been stopped by an outlaw legal establishment. The Missouri State Highway Patrol and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals tried to put a world of hurt on him. They locked him up at the height of his success. But they couldn’t actually stop him. He came out of prison with “Nadine,” “No Particular Place to Go,” and “Promised Land.” And he must have been practicing in that stony mansion, because almost as soon as he got out he recorded one of his best ever live shows. (The 10 song set—with backup by a group of Motown studio musicians— is a good reason to buy the boxed set “Chuck Berry: You Never Can Tell: His Complete Chess Recordings 1960-1966.”)<br />
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In between record sales he was out doing concerts, keeping his name in lights. That 60 year record of professional performances, from 1952 until present, is one of his most outstanding legacies. The man worked, and still does. He has gone out night after night, just him and his guitar, to clubs, stadiums, bars, barns, fairs, fraternities, colleges, casinos, theaters, gyms, television studios, movie studios, festivals—wherever they booked him. He demanded cash, an amplifier, and a band, and he supplied the rest—in big towns, small towns, in auditoriums all over the world. (He showed the same work ethic in prison, where he studied typing and business law, and wrote a book.)<br />
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He does a great job describing the earliest years in his Autobiography—first the bars and clubs of St. Louis, then a few solo shows, then the bus tours, and finally, the lonely and sometimes dangerous one-nighters as a solo act. <br />
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In 1964, a year after getting released from prison, he made two tours of Europe, focusing on England, where his influence was huge. Groups like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and many others recorded his songs and talked up his music. They took a lot, to be sure. They built careers off his music. But they also gave back. Their recordings earned him royalties and helped grow his reputation. <br />
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But mostly it was his own work, day after day, year after year.<br />
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In October 1964 he was part of The T.A.M.I. Show, a live concert that included Marvin Gaye, James Brown and the Rolling Stones. It came out on film in 1965. (Berry’s performances in The T.A.M.I. Show are short and sweet—but the cameras cut him off at the waist to focus on the go-go dancers behind him.) <br />
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In 1965 he showed up on teen shows Shindig and Hullabaloo, (Stevo probably saw him), and seemed to spend a lot of time on the European continent. This resulted in a couple of extended television appearances, including an extraordinary show at the Salle des Fetes in Paris that includes some of the wildest Chuck Berry performances ever recorded. <br />
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In 1966 he left Chess Records and signed a five album deal with Mercury. He didn’t produce any hits during the next three years, but he recorded at least one good album, “Live at the Fillmore” and a nearly good one called “Chuck Berry in Memphis,” which he cut at Willie Mitchell’s Royal Studios. The Mercury contract was a good deal for Berry—something like $30,000 per record— but even though he recorded some good songs (“Back to Memphis” is a Chuck Berry classic) the Mercury records didn’t have the sound that came from the Chess studios and for the most part just don’t match the quality of the records Berry cut at Chess. (Part of the deal was to reproduce his biggest hits for Mercury. He did a competent job, but the recordings have little of the spirit or fire of the originals.)<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ketchup, mustard, relish, onions...</td></tr>
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In 1967, things took a new turn. Berry was courted by San Francisco’s Bill Graham and became a staple headliner at Winterland and the Fillmore. The pay was bad—at least initially— but the venue introduced Berry to an important audience—boomers born a bit too late for the original hits, but who probably heard “Nadine” and “No Particular Place to Go” as teeny boppers. This is a big wave that runs from my brother Stevo, who introduced me to Chuck Berry, all the way to me. And Berry worked it, dazzling the crowds, demanding better pay from Graham, (but always staying at the same cheap, transients’ hotel), doing it his way, frustrating reporters but delighting surprised fans. Before long he was big again, playing landmark events like the Rock and Roll Revivals in New York and Toronto. He returned more to the blues, played long, drawn out numbers, and his guitar playing, though perhaps less fiery than in 1955, became more refined. <br />
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And he kept making records—some of the first I was able to buy, including 1970s “Back Home” and “San Francisco Dues,” recorded in 1971 with Robert Baldori’s Michigan rock band, The Woolies. <br />
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He had no publicist or management to speak of, but the crowds were big. Baldori describes what it was like flying under the radar with Berry in the early 1970s, drawing huge crowds without the monkey business of a manager or publicist.<br />
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“We were on the road night after night with Charles playing to sold out houses, and there was hardly a mention of it in the media. Charles didn't have a manager or a marketing department, so the fan base was really a testament to the power of his show and his material. But the power was definitely there, and the shows were electrifying.” <br />
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Although I didn’t ever see him with The Woolies, I can attest to it, having seen Berry perform to ecstatic crowds throughout 1971 and 1972. <br />
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But then two things happened. First, Berry was invited by John Lennon to appear on the Mike Douglas show. It happened in mid-February 1972, about a year after I first saw him at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium. By then I was a “long time” fan of exactly 12 months. I’d seen him live three times, had shaken his hand, had three or four of his albums, and I was thrilled to see a Beatle fawning over my idol. <br />
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And then, a few months later, “The London Chuck Berry Sessions”—a mammoth hit that told everyone who was my age exactly who Chuck Berry was. It was a good album, not great, a thudding, British, hard rock version of Chuck Berry, but it gave a glimpse into the power and humor of his live act and the hastily recorded studio side had at least two wonderful performances. “London Berry Blues” is a dictionary of Chuck Berry guitar riffs, with a beginning, a middle, a quiet spot, and a rousing finale—an instrumental with a story line on a record where most of the lyrics lack Chuck Berry’s usual literary touch. (One song’s chorus is an endless repetition of the words “I love you.”) The other notable song—the best on the album—is a powerful rendition of Little Walter’s “Mean Old World” mixed with lyrics from “Last Night.” It is one of Chuck Berry’s most powerful blues performances on record, and the studio musicians rise to the occasion. The other half of the record, recorded live at an arts festival in Lancaster, England, is a pox on his fans because of “Ding-a-Ling,” but a pox with genuine humor that allowed Chuck Berry to earn money long overdue on accounts receivable for less commercially successful masterpieces such as “Promised Land,” “Let it Rock,” “Tulane,” “Oh, Louisiana,” and “Have Mercy Judge.” <br />
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Chess cashed in on his superstar status by releasing a slew of old material in two more volumes of “Chuck Berry’s Golden Decade.” Volume Two was sort of the Rolling Stones’ collection, with “Carol,” “Little Queenie,” “I’m talking ‘Bout You” and “Come On.” It was a rougher edged Chuck Berry than I’d gotten to know on the original Golden Decade set—songs with more reverb, and a bit less polish. And there were songs that should have been put on Volume One. “You Never Can Tell” and “No Money Down” were as intricate and poetic as anything on the first volume and could easily have replaced lesser numbers like “Too Pooped to Pop” and “Anthony Boy.” “Promised Land,” with its hints of the civil rights struggle, was as important as anything he ever did, and I’ve often thought “Let it Rock” might be Chuck Berry’s favorite Chuck Berry song— the song that so often gets him going these days, even in his old age. <br />
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Volume Three of the Golden Decade gets raunchier still. Some of my favorite songs are ones Chuck Berry didn’t write but might have. “Time Was” has the nostalgia enough to be a Chuck Berry song. <br />
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Time was</div>
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When we had fun on the schoolyard swing</div>
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When we exchanged graduation rings</div>
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One lovely yesterday</div>
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Chuck Berry also didn’t write “House of Blue Lights,” a boogie-woogie about dancing, food and fun times recorded the same day as “Time Was” and “Carol,” but he made it his own, and then made his own version, “Carol.” Compare the opening lines of “House of Blue Lights” to those of “Carol.”<br />
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Come on down and we’ll cut a rug</div>
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Dig that jive as it should be dug</div>
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A real home coming for all you cats</div>
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You keep a walkin’ till you see that welcome mat</div>
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Fall in there, lose your lead</div>
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At the House, the House of Blue lights<br />
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It could be the same place—the biggest difference being the sheer number of syllables that Chuck Berry can squeeze into every stanza.<br />
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Climb into my machine so we can cruise on out</div>
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I know a swingin’ little joint where we can jump and shout</div>
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It's not too far back off the highway, not so long a ride</div>
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You park your car out in the open, you can walk inside</div>
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A little cutie takes your hat and you can thank her, ma'am</div>
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Every time you make the scene you find the joint is jammed</div>
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For a while then—three or four years, from 1972 through 1975— he was a huge star again, and everywhere: on shows like “The Midnight Special” and “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.” He even did “Soul Train.” He was featured in the film “Let the Good Times Roll,” along with Little Richard, Fats Domino and Bo Diddley. <br />
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In 1973, Chuck put out another good album on Chess called “Bio” which included the only post-1960s song he still plays on a regular basis—the autobiographical blues shuffle that gave the album its name.<br />
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For me it was a time of affirmation. The subject of my odd obsession had caught the world’s imagination yet again. And Chuck Berry kept playing, show after show, in halls, auditoriums and festivals, bigger than ever, working it day after day, night after night. <br />
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One day while blogging it occurred to me how important this was. He wasn’t a pampered rocker who did a tour every few years. The man did what his fans have to do. He worked, day after day, night after night, year after year, and still does at age 84 and counting. It’s something he hasn’t been given enough credit for. I’ve read now and then that he “mailed in” a performance—but he keeps walking to that post office, buying stamps, licking them, and sending it to us. <br />
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If he never went out of style, if the name remained in lights, if he remained significant, if there’s now a bronze statue in his home town, there’s no mystery to it.<br />
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He earned it. The man worked, and still does. <br />
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(<em>This is part of a book length, personal tale of how my life was rolled over by Chuck Berry. Feel free to leave comments or your own Chuck Berry story. You can read the other chapters, starting with the Prologue, to the right in a section called "Pages" or by clicking <a href="http://goheadon.blogspot.com/2012/10/prologue-and-chapter-one.html">HERE</a>.)</em><br />
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<em>112</em>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16028212499171228040noreply@blogger.com2