Rollin' them bones till the foreman comes back...

I'm 57, pretty good at English, even wrote a "book," (which you can find and read below!)  But it sometimes amazes me what I don't know-- the things I let slip by for an entire lifetime.  For example, the phrase "rollin' them bones till the foreman got back."  All my life I have assumed it meant "resting."  I imagined the skeleton inside a sleeping person, loose, rolling this way and that.

I never looked it up.  I did puzzle over it.  Weren't they sitting in the song.  ("In the song, in the song, in the song!")

So today I watch the old video below and see Chuck act out his favorite song for the French audience, and when he sings "rollin' them bones" he rolls some imaginary dice, and I see and I understand for the first time.

You knew all along, didn't you?

You could have told me!

Anyway, here's Big Bill Broonzy doing a song Chuck probably heard as a teenager.

Chuck Berry at the Olympia, Paris, 1972

I'd seen parts of this, but not such a big chunk.  Grazie, Carmelo, per questo!

Born Under a Good Sign: Thomas Einarsson (I'd be Jealous if I had any Right to be!)

Some people just do it right.  On July 17, 2013, Chuck Berry will do yet another of his wonderful appearances at Blueberry Hill in St. Louis, and for the second time the show will be opened by the Swedish blues band Bad Sign-- a group that has also opened for Chuck Berry in Europe.  Bad Sign guitarist and singer Thomas Einarsson has made the pilgrimage to St. Louis even more often.  I saw him fill in for Chuck at a sound check in the fall of 2010, and last fall Einarsson was back to share the stage at Blueberry Hill with Chuck, the St. Louis band, and Guest star Johnny Rivers.  How's this for a scrapbook photo?  (Einarsson is second from the left.  Chuck is the one on the right with the giant smile.)

You showed up in St. Louis for the same two birthday shows that I saw last October. Tell us about your trip. Did you come specifically for those shows?

Jim Marsala told me last year that I could see three shows with Chuck during twelve days if I planned my trip right, but I could "only" make two shows. The Blueberry Hill and The Peagant (where I actually meet Themetta Berry, she is a very charming, nice lady, very much like Ingrid). My trip was very good. As always I feel very comfortable with the American hospitality. My friends are caring and taking their time with me and we usually go to see different gigs and happenings, but mostly we go guitar hunting.

I saw you at the sound check doing some wonderful Chuck Berry riffs with the St. Louis band. Tell us about your experience with those guys.

I have met Keith and Bob a couple of times at Blueberry Hill, and have had the pleasure to help them doing sound checks. They have a level of musicianship that you couldn´t ask for more.

They are brilliant and open minded and catch every curved fastball that Chuck Berry throws at them.

Charles "Butch" Berry, on the other hand has developed so much skills in guitar playing in short time it is just stunning me. Imagine that he started up playing at age of 38.   As I have learned he is a monster on knowing facts about almost everything. And he is a GREAT fellow and a great, supportive friend.

Jim Marsala is the bandleader and a good friend of mine. I consider him as one of the most important sidemen in Rock & Roll business of all time. He has always taken his time with all Chuck´s fans, and has a heart of gold.

Did you visit any other music shrines during your trips? Did you get to sit in anywhere?

I have seen some local St. Louis musicians around the “Soulard” area and was very impressed, but I have never sat in, but witnessed Jim Marsala sit in a couple of times, just for the fun of it.

Your band Bad Sign played at Blueberry Hill a few years ago. How did that happen, and what was it like for you guys?


My band Bad Sign started up in 1989 with some blues, some country, and-- you guessed it-- some Chuck Berry!! We are more into funky blues now but we are still in the same bag with some good old rock and roll. We finished a CD rcording in 2006 where we did let many of our musician friends appear, for example our music teacher, Inge Palm is laying some tenor saxophone fills.

But most important is that Jim Marsala appears on one track of the Bad Sign´s recording,

He told Joe Edwards about us, and Butch supported the idea of bringing us to play. In June 2009 Joe Edwards did let Bad Sign perform as a support act for Chuck Berry. That was an hilarious experience.

I asked Butch to introduce us because I was afraid that no one would care if we played. Just seconds before show time I told my guitarist from the very beginning, Mikael- "now we are very far from your parents chicken house", were we started rehearsals some 20 years ago. Of course I was wrong-- the enthusiastic St.Louis crowd carried us through the whole set !

I recently saw a picture of you doing a sound check in Europe with Chuck’s wine red Gibson. Tell us about that experience. How did it happen? How’d you like the guitar?

My helping hand with sound checks started with a backstage appearance in Hamburg 2006 when they needed someone to crank up Chuck Berry´s guitar and play something. And I volunteered.

To be trusted playing a guitar owned by Chuck Berry is such a great thing. This is the Holy Grail. I remember I held it as hard as possible, scared of dropping it. That guitar is very light and worn, but comfortable and has some great action, and through two sets of Fender Dual Showman amps, it can blow ANYTHING of stage.A Gibson 355 just cant sound any better through any other amp- believe me, and -Chuck has known it since the 60´s.

That might be why he argued with Keith Richards in the movie about it, during the rehearsals. (“Dont touch my amp....”)

Thomas, second from left, holding "grail" at sound check in Denmark.
Photo by Peter K.

Have you ever shared the stage with Chuck? Helped to back him at a show?

I have never played on stage with Chuck, but I have shared stage with him once in Stockholm in 1989, taking pictures (without permission) during a show. The security caught me and lifted me up and wanted to throw me in the sea, which is just behind the stage. When they sat me down, I ran like hell, cared about my camera, and I got away with it, and got some good pics on the back of the pianoplayer and Chuck too. HA !  (Editor's note: he has now!)

Do you have any favorite Chuck Berry moments—shows or portions of shows that stand out for you?

One of the moments that I think is most powerful about a Chuck Berry show is just before and when he hits the stage. I always feel the presence of something magic, and it still makes my few hairs stand and gives me goose bumps, too.

Once in Bognor Regis, England in 1994 I was sitting at the same seat two nights on a row. At the second night Chuck Berry noticed it, and asked me about it from the stage !!! FUN !

The most memorable moments I have ever witnessed was when two soul mates played together-Chuck and Johnnie Johnson ! Them together was beyond magic, at Blueberry Hill in 1999. I heard them play their hearts out. I met Johnnie after the show and he remembered me from years back in Sweden ! I still miss Johnnie a lot.

During the Scandinavian Tour in 1989 Johan Hasselberg and I followed Chuck Berry.  The promoter in Gotland didn´t have money enough to receive the promoting posters for the gig.  Johan and I did what we could and entered the local radio station to try to push the listeners a little to go buy tickets. The radiohost tried to make an angle about me and Johan following our hero during the tour, but as a radio reporter and journalist, Johan took over the show and of course put Chuck Berry and his music in focus, not us.

When Johan and I arrived at the afternoon at the arena, Kneipbyn and the promotor didn´t show up. He had a hard time bringing the money to Chuck Berry´s fee and even rented an aeroplane flying around with a banner saying Chuck Berry tonight.

It was a very hot day and the tour manager Jörgen Wiking, Johan Hasselberg and I were soaked in sweat. The bass player of the gig was Peter Jezewski, a very good singer and player of a famous Swedish Doo Wop band, The Boppers. He had listened closely to Chuck´s original recordings and was self confident until I told him to forget them. That’s when he started to sweat too. Then I showed him a little paper that I brought with the songs Chuck Berry used during the period of 1987-88 and the tempo, keys, but most important- how to play like Jim Marsala !!

Chuck Berry wanted to quit the tour without any money (understandable) and go home and things began to get very complicated for everyone. The promoter had to trade his very nice house to Chuck Berry and then he went bankrupt.

There were 800 people in the crowd, and a charming, house-owning Chuck Berry started out with Roll Over Beethoven and at the fist bars the nevous bass player played like the original recordings. Chuck immediately stared at him and showed him what he wanted -The Jim Marsala Beat !!

Of course Peter picked it up real fast and got a nice comment from Chuck-You got a fast eye !!

Can you put in words what it is about Chuck Berry that stirs you?

My passion for music starts with Rock & Roll and ends with Chuck Berry.  He is my greatest music inspiration. I studied all his live stuff since I was ten and learned a lot when I started playing guitar in my teens. I was a Chuck Berry nerd, I realized that when my older sister could remember and sing Chuck Berry´s lyrics better than me....

Chuck has fans all over, but I’d swear he has more per capita in Sweden than just about anywhere else. What’s going on there?

The Swedish people love everything of America. From the fifties we picked up the good life of having a nice car to cruise with. That created a new teenage culture named "raggare"=cruisers.

They also picked up the American music of the fifties listening to Radio Luxemburg during the nights. The Swedish radio then was monopoly, strict deciding what people should hear, and was far away from letting rock & roll go. Not very many people in Sweden did know of Chuck Berry in the fifties, Elvis Presley was well known, having good distribution, but in the late fifties/early sixties some Chuck Berry recordings found their way, and at that time NOTHING could be more cool than having a guitar and playing some rock & roll.The young people of Sweden found their favorites in Elvis, Jerry Lee, Gene Vincent, Fats Domino but the guy with all the fast songs and a guitar sounding like a ringing a bell was the MAN !

In the sixties almost every guy wanted to have a guitar, playing in the front of a band in Sweden.  Some learned his stuff from the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, but many searched for the roots and there he was, the man who started it all, everyone's hero- the MIGHTY CHUCK BERRY, doing it so much better than his followers.

The Swedish press has always been rough on Chuck. (90 percent of the reporters are lousy musicians who can’t understand why people don´t love to hear them!) That makes Chuck Berry even bigger in the people’s eyes and he´s always been popular among his loyal fans. Especially among musicians and US.car lovers-- and they are many.

If you had a single topic you could talk to Chuck Berry about for a time, what would it be?

If I could talk about anything with Chuck Berry I think it would be his inspirations in music. The guy is so smart and multitalented and picked up so much in short time it is almost unbelievable. To this day he is wise and sharp as an knife, (and still can teach a promoter how to keep a contract....).

Who SAYS Chuck Berry Doesn't Give Interviews?

Doug and Peter Interviewed!

I'd love to understand the motivation behind this one! Clearly actors.  Is it part of something bigger?

Chuck in Chile- the Complete Show, with a Surprise First Song

Chuck Berry Singing Love in 3/4 Time

A really nice, old version of Love in 3/4 Time.  Thank you Doug!

Man I Had a Dreadful Flight! (The Chuck Berry St. Louis Band in Moscow)

I love this shot from CB fan Artev Vladimir.  I'm guessing it's from the dressing room in Moscow after I don't know how many hours of crunched up air travel.  (Hope to interview Artev soon!)

Copyright 2013 Artev Vladimir

Bob Baldori Speaks (Thanks to Johan for this One.)

Listen to Bob Baldori talk about his career, including work with Chuck, HERE.

Ida May!

I had my own moment with Chuck Berry.  You can read about it HERE.

Direto de Curtiba Brasil! Ingrid Berry and Keith Robinson

Photos by Robert Lohr

My Dream, a poem by Chuck Berry (And You Can Sign The Petition After You've Listened.)

Thanks to Doug for this one!



Doug and I got to see and hear Chuck recite this in February 2012 at the Argosy Casino.  That time it was inspired by an out of tune guitar, which can be a good thing every once in a while.

Meantime, if you want to hear him recite it at the White House, sign the petition!

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/honor-chuck-berry-founding-father-rock-roll-and-one-americas-great-folk-poets-medal-freedom/xymc55Lv

Goes Nice with a Captain's Hat

Okay, you've signed!  Thank you!  Now, corner your friends and make them sign the petition to award Chuck Berry the Medal of Freedom.

We the People: A Petition to Give Chuck Berry the Presidential Medal of Freedom!

Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what Chuck did for your country, wherever in the world it is, and then take a few seconds to click here and SIGN! the petition that asks President Obama to award Chuck Berry the Medal of Freedom.

What is the Medal of Freedom?  It's America's highest civilian honor.  Previous recipients have included Bob Dylan, Aretha, T. S. Elliott, Duke Ellington, Toni Morrison and B. B. King.  Time for Chuck Berry to get his!  

After all, any man who can do this at age 85 (he was younger then) deserves a medal!

What We Really Need

is a petition to the White House.  Chuck Berry's Facebook page could easily inspire 25,000 signatures-- all that's needed to get an official response from the White House.

My Latest. Send Yours Today!

Dear President Obama:

Here's an easy one.

Give the Medal of Freedom to rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry, 87 years old and still performing.

He's one of this country's greatest living poets and songwriters, a great performer, and a man whose musical performances helped bring down barriers between the races.  He's still working-- still here to appreciate the honor.

He inspired Bob Dylan and The Beatles.  His music was sent into outer space during the Carter administration.  He was honored at Kennedy Center by President Clinton, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and more recently received the Pen New England Award for Lyrics of Literary Merit.

Yes, he got into some trouble over his life, but he made the best of it, studying business, writing a book, and always came back stronger than ever.

It's a no-brainer.  And it would be fun.  Hail to the Chief, followed by Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll!

Thanks.

(Invite me to the ceremony!)

Peter O'Neil

A Song

This has NOTHING to do with Chuck Berry.  But this morning I wrote this song and recorded it.  This afternoon I made the video.  I'd expect the royalty checks to arrive tomorrow, but it's gonna be Easter Sunday so no banks and no mail.  Have a good one!

I'm gonna guess and say 1974 or 1975.  (Thanks to Peter K. for the photo.)

Wentzville Slim

Photo and nickname provided by Robert Lohr, who's tickling the plastic here.  Taken about a year ago.

Gleason's Bar- First Big Gig after Maybellene

Thanks to Peter K. for this one.  The Kay guitar is too cool.

NOT Too Pooped to Pop!

Photo taken 3/23/2013 by TerryAnn Henke at Blueberry Hill.

Roxy, Revisited

So tonight I watched the Roxy show again, and I liked it.  Thank you Ida May and Dominic.  I especially liked the songs that come right after "Nadine," when he "begins" the show with "Let it Rock" and "Promised Land."  I like the interaction with the piano player, who seems genuinely delighted, and although I don't like his style so much, I like to see the delight of the guitar player, too, when Chuck Berry is swinging his arm in front of him.  It's fun.

I'd bet $5 I saw pretty much the same band at that casino show at Tahoe.  (I right about it HERE.)  Certainly I saw the same suit.  Jim Marsala had to be there.  There were horns.  Pretty much the same crowd, just not quite as 1980s Los Angeles hip.  It was a Tahoe casino crowd that might also have gone to see Liza Minnelli or Dean Martin, but it was Chuck's night.

It was good that he was there.  11 or 12 years earlier he would have been in the free lounge, where I saw B. B. King and Bobby Blue Bland, and Jerry Van Dyke.  (The free lounge was a strange place.  But it was free!  Two drinks got you in a tiny club with some extraordinary musicians.  And since I worked there, even the drinks were free!)

Chuck was in the main showroom-- the dinner club.  And I guess, for me, that was the problem.  I was used to old barns filled with teenagers and seeing Chuck winging it with a band that would never forget that hour.

Funny how we insist so often on having things just the way we want them.

Flashback to Tahoe, 1982

The whole thing, on Youtube.  Which made everything fall into place for me.



I own a copy of this show.  I think I watched it once.  I didn't think a lot of it.  I don't even like the sound of the guitar.  (The notes are fine-- it's the sound, which sounds like television and chintzy speakers.)

What's interesting is that other Chuck Berry fans (Ida May, Dominic) love it.  I'll have to watch again and see what I am missing.

But what fell into place today, for the first time, is the realization that I probably saw Chuck right about the time this was filmed, wearing the same white suit, in a similar setting.  Could even be the same band.

I didn't like that much either.

I was home from West Africa for a few weeks.  It was the summer of 1982.  I was visiting family and my sister Maggie and her husband Ty took a bunch of us to see Chuck Berry at a casino in Tahoe.

The setting was nearly identical to what you see here: elegant booths spreading out, with tables, and dinners and drinks.  A bunch of slightly older folks in leisure suits.  A band that had actually rehearsed.

It was not what I was expecting.  I was used to being at the foot of the stage, surrounded by long haired kids, watching Chuck in his red or purple pants and a print shirt lead a pickup band through its hour of glory.  The songs were often extended with long guitar solos.  I wasn't prepared for arrangements, horns, elegance, and older folk.

Decades later I figured out the problem was me, not the show. It didn't meet my expectations, so I didn't like it.

So I'll have to watch this one again, and see what I really think.

Just a Nice Picture

A snapshot by Patrick Rocher.  I'm told it was taken five or six years ago on an earlier trip to Moscow.  Evidently Chuck Berry didn't just invent rock and roll.  Apparently he invented cloning, too.

Chuck Berry in Moscow, Cont.

Photo stolen from Robert Lohr

Chuck Berry in Moscow!

The recent meteorites showed me that Russia is Youtube central.  Now, just a few hours after Chuck Berry's show in Moscow (tonight, last night?) you can already see just about all of it.  This rough and rousing piece will get you started.  (And as you watch it, remember, 86 1/2 years old, after God-knows-how-many-hours of plane flights and airports!  Pretty amazing!)



Also worth considering is how times have changed.  The guy started his career during the first, early blasts of the Cold War.

Back in the U.S.S., I Mean, Russia!

An Interview with Author Morten Reff: The Chuck Berry International Directory

(It seems worth repeating this interview in honor of the recent publication of Volume 4 of Morten Reff's The Chuck Berry International Directory.) 

For years I called myself the world's biggest Chuck Berry fan.  Boy was I wrong!  Here is a picture of Morten Reff,  author of a growing number of volumes of The Chuck Berry International Directory, surrounded by gazillions of Chuck Berry records, including the one that must be his favorite.  He kindly agreed to a short “interview” and when I got the picture I couldn't help but run it again.  Biggest Chuck Berry fan in the world?  My own collection consists of a dozen or so tattered LPs, a nearly unused Chess Box, four or five individual CDs, the Charley "poet" set, and the three boxed sets from Hip-O Select.  This guy, on the other hand...)

How did you first get interested in Chuck Berry and his music?

I heard his “Let It Rock” on Norwegian radio in the Autumn of 1963 ( I was almost 14). It was the swingiest music I have ever heard. The next day I ran down to the nearby shop and bought the Pye single, coupled with “Memphis, Tennessee”, and I was saved.

I grew up with swing jazz from my father’s collection. People like Benny Goodman (Charlie Christian), Lionel Hampton, Fats Waller (Al Casey) and Eddie Condon caught my attention. And my brother (6 years older) had singles with Eddie Cochran, Fats Domino, Little Richard and others, and this was something that appealed to me. I didn’t fancy the ‘60s beat stuff, never have, never will.

You must have a ton of his records. Can you tell us about your collection?

I have the most. Some 800 LPs, and about the same amount of singles and EPs, from all over the world. The latest achievement was an album from Hong Kong (1976), the very first I have seen.

The only important record I know I miss is the French EP on London from 1958. I have the vinyl but miss the EP cover. It’s a terrible situation.

But I also collect Berry cover versions and soundalikes. I have around 700 singles with different artists covering a Berry tune, and 100s of albums, both LPs and CDs, tributes and you name it. Berry’s music appeals to all kinds of artists and musical styles. That’s what makes it so interesting. I listen to music I am sure I would never have considered if it wasn’t for Berry’s music.

Can you describe what it is about the music that got you hooked?

The beat, the beat, the beat !

And of course his guitar playing and the lyrics. John Lennon said that Berry wrote intelligent lyrics when people were singing about “Be Bop A Lula”, “Long Tall Sally” and “Great Balls Of Fire”.

How many times have you seen him perform live? What are some of your best memories of that?

The first time was in 1975, in Paris at the Olympia (2 shows), which is also the most memorable moment. I thought he would never make it to Norway. Well he did, in 1977. He’s been to Norway another 7 times, and I have also seen him in Sweden once, in 1984, when Johnnie Johnson joined him for the very first time outside the US.

Who are some of your other musical heroes?

I am also a big fan of Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lee Lewis, Narvel Felts, Tommy Steele (UK), Willy DeVille (bless his soul) and would you believe Garth Brooks. But I also dig Gene Vincent, Johnny Cash (before ’94), and Elvis (‘50s & ‘60s).

You keep churning out books about CB-- can you tell us how that started?

It began already in the mid ‘60s when I started writing down cover versions, soundalikes and everything that had to do with Berry’s music. I wrote small articles for various magazines both in Norway, UK and USA. In 1982 when US author Howard DeWitt wrote a book about Chuck Berry “Rock N Roll Music” (the very first) I found that it was quite defective so I sent him a heavy envelope with material and we collaborated on the second editon in 1985. It included a discography for 100 pages. Now when the new book titled “The Chuck Berry International Directory Vol.1” came out on Music Mentor Books (UK) in 2008 the discography had expanded to 500 pages, so the one I did in 1985 was quite defective too.

What's the next one?

In 2009 came Vol.2 of the CBID, and this year will see the publishing of Vol.3 and 4. All books will have around 500 pages. Check out the web site of Music Mentor Books for contents, http://musicmentor0.tripod.com

What do you do in your other life (when you're not writing about Chuck Berry?)

Besides being married, I work daily in a nearby building supply business. However, I did run a record company, Fox Records, here in Norway from 1991-1994. I released albums with 3 Norwegian artists, one Swedish and also with Linda Gail Lewis and Narvel Felts.

Have you ever met the man?

Yes once, in Paris in 1975. That was very quick(!) In any case I have the picture.

Let's imagine you had a chance to sit down to eat with him at Berry Park. What would you want to tell him? What would you want to ask him?

That’ll be the day! Anyway, this is a very hypothetical question, but I would at least have asked him about who actually wrote “Run Rudolph Run”?*

Anything else you want to say about him?

No, but I love the music.

*Editor’s note: I think there’s only one person who could write the lines “Run, run Rudolph, Santa's got to make it to town! Can't you make him hurry? Tell him he can take the freeway down!” Freeways were a big deal in the 1950s, and celebrated in at least a couple of other Chuck Berry songs. (”Did I miss the skyscrapers, did I miss the long freeways?” ”New Jersey Turnpike in the wee wee hours...”)

Why Beethoven had to Roll

This is somewhere back there in one of the old posts, but it's worth repeating. (Thank you Mr. Rothwell).

The House of Blue Lights

More precedent. The opening chatter might not be PC, but I'm betting Chuck Berry heard and enjoyed this one. The scat singing is identical. (Of course, Ella Mae may have learned it from someone else, too.)



recedents

Here's another blog's post on Ella Mae Morse: http://soulfuldivas.blogspot.com/2009/03/ella-mae-morse-barrelhouse-boogie-blues.html