He Nails It

I shouldn't be surprised.

No Particular Place To Go!

I'd never seen this one!

LL, JJ, BB, DD and RL

Fans of Superman will remember that many of the important people in the hero's life had LL names, like Lois Lane, Lex Luther, and Lafayette Leake. 

Wait!  Leake was a Chess piano player, who backed up Chuck Berry on lots of the big hits-- "Rock and Roll Music," "Sweet Little Sixteen," Johnny B. Goode," and, of course, "Tulane!"  I think Leake is also featured in the Montreux session that produced one of the best moments in Chuck Berry film history-- Chuck Berry backing T-Bone Walker on "Every Day I Have the Blues."

Of course, not all the Chuck Berry piano players had two Ls in their names.  Take Johnnie Johnson, for example, or Bob Baldori, or Daryl Davis or ... Dang!  Except for Robert Lohr, four of Chuck Berry's five long-standing piano players have double initials!

But that's nothing.  After all, 40% of them are lawyers.

Robert Lohr-- the exception that proves the rule.

Big Joe Williams and Chuck Berry, Luthiers

When I was at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale I saw Big Joe Williams' nine string guitar-- a do-it-himself sculptural and musical masterpiece.  Chuck Berry's ES355 is beginning to take on a bit of the same luster, with it's scratches and duct tape, electrical tape and bits of hardware screwed on.  You know he did it himself, too.  After all, he started out as a carpenter.

Chuck and Ludvig, BFF

It was an amazing act of precognition (is that a word?) for Chuck Berry to tell Beethoven to "roll over."

It was the tenth song he ever recorded-- about two years into the odyssey that we call rock and roll, and less than a year into Berry's own public life. And there he was, telling one of the most important composers of all time to get lost.

He wasn't the first young person to get boastful. But he sure pulled it off.

The United States has produced a number of composers who equal the classical masters. Duke Ellington, for sure, and Thelonious Monk. But even they didn't have the overall cultural clout of Chuck Berry.

His influence is just everywhere.

He's not a composer, and never pretended to be. But he's a cultural giant up there for eternity with the biggest and best ever.

Riding Along In The Automobile (Leonard Chess Lights Up)

"[W]e were riding along in the car and all of a sudden we heard Chuck Berry’s first record – 'Maybellene' on WIND – the pure white station and my Dad just lit up. My Dad always used to say that if Chuck Berry was white he’d have been bigger than Elvis."  Marshall Chess, speaking to Simon Cooper and clashmusic.com.  You can find the full interview by clicking the link here.  (Photo taken from the same website.)

I found the clashmusic interview because I was looking for a photo to go with this very recent Reuters interview.

Ann Arbor Michigan-- Almost Live!

Here's a great shot of Chuck Berry and "Boogie" Bob Baldori in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1981 or 1982.  The shot comes from Baldori's website, http://www.boog.com/.  Baldori and his band The Woolies backed Chuck Berry throughout the 1970s and beyond, and also on the album San Francisco Dues.  (Baldori also played harmonica on the Back Home sessions.) 

Recently a sound recording of the Ann Arbor show turned up on youtube, and it's a beauty.  You can hear it below.



Here's another picture from Baldori's site.  Looks to me like the color photos on the youtube are from the same show.  Pretty cool. 

Like Nobody's Business

One of my favorite singers:




Otis Spann was on a couple Chuck Berry records, and a LOT of MuddyWaters records, and his own, too!



Gladys, Chaka, Etta, and B.B.




She's 13 or 14.

Blessed

This amazing picture of Chuck Berry serenading a woman before leaving the April 2010 Blueberry Hill show was taken by fan Rob Couder.  Dang! 

(If you're a fan of the man, you need to get to St. Louis.)

Mindin' Stefano's Business

In a comment on my posting about family and privacy, Stefano, from London, mentioned the Chuck Berry song "It's My Own Business." 

Here's a link Dave Edmunds doing it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox1aHQsf7CA

Here's a group called the Boogie Ramblers doing an energetic version.  (Stefano, if this is their facebook link, sono tutti italiani!)



And here are the lyrics:

I am tired of you telling me what I ought to do
Stickin' your nose in my business and it don't concern you
It's my own business.  It's my own business.
Seems like the ones that want to tell you
They don't ever know as much as you

If I go buy a Cadillac convertible coupe
And all I got at home to eat is just onion soup
It's my own business.  It's my own business.
If I would rather ride around
In my own Cadillac convertible coupe


If I's a dignitary on Capitol Hill
And up and married me a waitress in a hot dog grill
It's my own business, it's my own business
Because I am not a juvenile
And I can go out at my own free will

After workin' on my job and then drawin' my pay
If I want to go out and have a ball and throw it all away
It's my own business, it's my own business
'Cause I don't wait until tomorrow
To do something I could do today

He might have added that if he was a rock star and wanted to give a girl a job at his club, etc.  But the song comes from a long line of American Blues and Country songs.  Here's the wikipedia on "Ain't Nobody's Business if I Do," a song from the 1920s.  And here's the great Freddie King playing it:



(Yes, Freddie, I can feel it!)

Hank Williams wrote a good version, too.  This is a terrible video, but a great song, so who cares.

Check Out Reason Number 9

Not the Beatles' song.  Rolling Stone, April 29, 2010, p. 62.  (Gonna be harder to get tickets.)

Maybe I'll Go!

Here's the LINK.

"Just him and his guitar"

There's a scene in "Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll when Keith Richards and Chuck Berry are rehearsing "Carol!" Keith wants to play lead. Chuck wants to play lead. And Keith says something like: "You don't want to play lead and sing at the same time, do you?"

"Well I did it," says Chuck.

And how. This clip shows him in England at his peak of virtuosity in the early 1970s-- with rhythm, lead and singing all intertwined. The best moments come when the band gets quiet and it's "just him and his guitar." ("Got it and Gone").

When people talk or write about Chuck Berry doing short uninspired shows with bad pickup bands I know I've been lucky. At South Lake Tahoe and in Monterey, California I saw him like this, playing inspired music with great pickup bands. (I saw some less inspired shows, too; but he always pulled it out in the end.)

Another thing about this song: it's proof that you never see Chuck Berry play a Chuck Berry song the same way twice. He's like Bob Dylan in that respect. The songs are alive. They only exist while he's playing them. There aren't "tunes" per se-- there are chord changes. The lyrics morph. (I like how the car becomes a Mercedes here in Europe). The guitar just happens. The band may or may not have played with him before. It's never the same.

Nowadays he doesn't play with the virtuosity you see here.   (The difference may simply be not doing a show ever day of the year.)  Some days his playing is strictly garage style punk-- loud, honking, approximate. But it still works. What he lacks in fine motor skills he makes up with experience, chunking out weird rhythm chords that are as much a part of his playing as the famous intros.  And every now and then you see him light up and hit the old notes the same old way.\

This one, though, is pretty special.

Self Deprecation

Chuck Berry was quoted in a great article in the British newspaper The Independent.  (There was a link, but it faded with time.  Alas.)

"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. I wrote about cars because half the people had cars, or wanted them. I wrote about love, because everyone wants that. I wrote songs white people could buy, because that's nine pennies out of every dime. That was my goal: to look at my bank book and see a million dollars there. That satisfy you?"

Well, except that, Mr. Berry, you are a big... 

Well, a really, really, really important man.  Up there with Muddy, and George Washington, whether you like it or not.

Picture courtesy Sky.

A Nice Version of Maybellene From Las Vegas

This next one wasn't doing to well on my computer, but it's nice, too-- a relaxed version of "Roll Over Beethoven" in front of thousands of knowledgable fans.  The man's having yet another "comeback."  But he never left-- he's kept playing, week in, week out, for 60 plus years.

It Came a Long Way from St. Louis: A Great Photograph of Chuck Berry and his Guitar

I just received an 8 by 10 original of this photo by U.S. Mail.  Thank you Busseybootleger!  It's a great picture that becomes even better when you look at the real thing.  You're first drawn to the face, of course, and the sweep of the hands.  But it doesn't take long to find the guitar, all battered and bruised.  This guy really was and is the Father of Rock and Roll.  Think how much a second generation rocker might pay for an old beauty like this, with it's battle scars and scratches.  And has there ever been a less elegant, more beautiful use of duct tape?  I saw the big yellow strip when I went to Blueberry Hill, but I hadn't seen the nuance-- the bits of blue and black above the lower f hole.  The gold plating on the pickups is practically gone.  I don't know if that's a scratch going from the center of one knob to through a knobless knob and on down to the bottom, or is just some hanging debris?  (I'll have to check other photos.)  The photograph also brings out the color.  You'll see it described as wine red below.  I always thought of it as brown but it's not at all brown. 

There were a lot of guitars in between ("Tools, you know?  Deductible!")  but two are supreme in Chuck Berry's performance career.  The first is the big blond Gibson enshrined at Blueberry Hill.  You can tell that was a well loved, well cared for guitar.  It's in nearly perfect shape.  And then there's this one, which I have seen several times over the decades, also well loved and well cared for, but probably played a lot more times than the blond, which seemed to be retired from condert use within 7 or 8 years.  Chuck Berry's son describes this one as purchased in the late 1970s.  He would know-- but I know I saw him play one a lot like it in Monterey in 1974.  (Can't make that one any bigger.  I hope to get to the source of it one day.  I was standing next to that right foot!)

Ah!  News flash.  I just poked around the chuckberry.com/forum and found the following comment from CBII:

"I can remember 2 of the "Wine Red" 355's. The one you guys have seen him playing is a 1978 and the other a 1972. This footage has to be with the 72. That guitar is still in the inventory but has been retired due to the neck having a crack in it. I guess it could be fixed and put back in service but the 78 is the better sounding guitar." 

Read it HERE.

So I probably saw the '72 in '74 and the '78 in '89, '98, and '09!) Anyone interested should check out the Chuck Berry website and read what CBII has written about Chuck Berry's guitars over the years.  He gives this one special praise for it's sound.

 At any rate, thank you Doug.  If I make it to Blueberry HIll again, I will line up with this one and hope!

And wouldn't you like to see "the inventory"!?!?

Sheer, Delirious Speculation

My wife and I went out tonight, and spent the last hour or so at a neighborhood restaurant that features live music on the weekends. And at some point the band leader took out a tiny recorder and said “We’re going to record it. It’s the only way we’ll get better. Not that I’m going to listen to this. But someday when the biographies are written…”

It was a pretty funny.

Then Rebecca said “Imagine if Chuck Berry had recorded his first shows!”

And it hit me.

Who’s the man who recorded “Memphis” at his office?

What did he take to Chicago?

Who wore the same $8 trousers at least 25 years?

Who’s the guy with the list of all the shows he’s ever played?

THE GUY WHO RECORDED SHOWS AT THE COSMOPOLITAN!

And he’s still got the tapes!  (That's the speculation.  Sheer and unadulterated.)

I’m betting he’s still got Ida Red—the one he played for Leonard Chess in 1955!

I'm betting there are shows recorded before "Maybellene," with blues and country and Louis Jordanesque material.)

Lordy!

Like an early draft of the Mona Lisa.

Oh, please let it be true!

And if it is-- oh please, let us hear it.

It Goes To Show You NEVER Can Tell! (A recycled post about Family)

When three generations of Berrys and probably several branches of the family tree showed up on stage at the Pageant Theater the other day, it made me think of that consistent theme:  Family.  (Think "Memphis."  Think "Back To Memphis."  Think "Rain Eyes."  Think of Johnny's mother and the pawn shop loans.  Think of the family "standin' and waivin' at the kitchen door."  Think of the "hurry home drops" and the "tears from her happiness."  Think of the great scene with Chuck's own father in "Hail! Hail!)  So here's a repeat of an earlier post.

Chuck Berry’s often described by tired writers as a quiet, closed up, surly sort of fellow, a loner who’s stingy with interviews and stingier with details of his personal life. (This despite a 300 page Autobiography).

There’s a famous scene where he shuts down an interview with his wife during “Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll!” (Good for him. The interview was turning into a sensationalized surprise attack worthy of Fox Cable “News.”)

My theory is that everything he really wants to give us is in the music—either on record, or live.

But shutting down the impudent questioning of his wife shows another side of the man. And it’s there in the music, too.

One of his early songs is bouncy, sweet instrumental called “Ingo.”

My guess—and that’s all it is—is that the song is named after his daughter, Ingrid, who was featured in the movie “Hail! Hail!,” on the album “Chuck Berry,” at the inauguration of Bill Clinton, and who frequently performs with Berry in St. Louis and elsewhere, singing backup and blowing harmonica-- right next to her brother, Charles, Jr., who plays backup guitar, emcee, and personal bodyguard to Berry at every show now. Charles, Jr. is always there to help his dad with a forgotten lyric, and sidles close when, at the end of the show, the women and girls get on stage and dance for Chuck Berry’s attention.

Charles, Jr. is the very accessible moderator on www.chuckberry.com/forum, where he often shares the enthusiasm of fanatical fans, and sometimes offers amazing tidbits of history. My favorites have been his descriptions of a an old redish brown Gibson that Chuck Berry has played for the last 35 years or so (as old as those red pants he’s worn half the times I’ve seen him!) The guitar is bandaged, taped, scratched, busted, with missing knobs and other parts tossed as useless for the purpose.

Charles, Jr. says it’s the best guitar ever made—an accident of the assembly line, probably, with the tone of a railroad airhorn. (There’s a video on youtube of Charles, Jr. and the band doing a sound check in France. With the Gibson in hand, the genetic link becomes clear. Charles bends those double string notes in a way that would make me jerk with recognition from down the street.)



When Chuck Berry celebrated his birthday at the Pageant Theater in St. Louis last fall, Charles, Jr. brought his own son to play. The trio were featured in a wonderful photograph in Rolling Stone. And the kid can play. Search chuckberry.com/forum, and you’ll find a home movie of (Charles III?) playing blues like an elder. Watch out for that one.




Other grand kids have shown up on news shows. One granddaughter is evidently a singer. Another described what it’s like to have such a famous grandfather.

There are less public kids, too. Just a couple weeks ago I read somewhere about a daughter named Isalee. That’s also the name of Chuck Berry’s music publishing company.

It’s nothing new. Chuck’s sister sang backup on some of his records. And check out the family scenes in Hail! Hail!, with Chuck and his sister surrounding their dad and telling stories. (I’m doing this from memory, but the man was either deaf or blind as a child, until they pierced his ear, and cured him!)

There’s a British news segment about Chuck Berry with a short interview of Charles and Ingrid. It’s pretty wonderful. Again, I’m doing this from memory, but they talk about their dad still mowing his own lawn at age 82. And then, I think I heard something like:

"Yeah, he makes crop circles!"
"Pretty weird, right?"
"I think they’re beautiful."

Me, too. And I haven't even seen them.

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

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

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

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



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

An Interesting Blog Post About "Brown Eyed Handsome Man"

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

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

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



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

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

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



As they say on real television-- stay tuned!

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

Bad Television, Great Singing: Chuck Berry Fields Forever

(Wish I could Understand!)

Got a Chance-- I Ought to Take It!

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Revisionist Song Singing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Warrenton is just a few miles from the park.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The rock singer's place?"

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

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

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

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

The “Promised Land!”


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

Berry Park

Founded August 15, 1957

By the Family

For the People.

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

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

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

"This is not a commercial establishment."

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

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

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

"What do you want?" she asked.

I was lame.

"Is he here?" I asked.

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

"You need to leave."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

###

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

Ah well. I tried!

###

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

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

###

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

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

###

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

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

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

###

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

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

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

But I think he knows.

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

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

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

Picture by "Sky."