Chuck Berry - It Wasn’t Me (1966)
From Chuck Berry’s 9th LP for Chess, accompanied by Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield.
Yes, a shrewd young whipper snapper love to run and play
But the draft board got him, they inducted him today
Chuck Berry performs 'Memphis Tennessee' in February 1965 for a small audience. Filmed for Belgian TV, remastered visuals and audio for your delight. "Long-distance information, give me Memphis Tennessee..."
The full half-hour show is here:
• Chuck Berry live in concert 1965
Chuck Berry performs 'Memphis Tennessee' at the BBC Television Theatre, London on Wednesday 29th March 1972. Backed by Dave Harrison - drums, Billy Kinsley - bass, Jimmy Campbell - guitar, Michael Snow - piano.
While we visited with the Frogman there’s this and dedicate to his memory and keep on rockin’
CHUCK BERRY w BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & The E STREET BAND
- Johnny B. Goode
Go on click on it . . . . . . it works and you know you want to!
The source of Rock ’n’ Roll! THE MAESTRO!!
From Colouring The Past comes this wonderful clip
CHUCK BERRY - SWEET LITTLE SIXTEEN (in colour)𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗘: 𝗜'𝘃𝗲 𝘂𝗽𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗽 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗺.On this date in 1958, Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen became a US R&B No. 1 (March 10th 1958).Berry wrote this song when he was on a package tour, and came across a teenaged autograph-seeker who was insistent upon getting the autograph of each headliner on the tour. Said Berry: "She couldn't have seen one act on the show - unless it was mine!"The Beach Boys used the melody for this song on their 1963 hit "Surfin' U.S.A.."Berry got composing credit on the Beach Boys song in the mid-'70s as a result of a threatened lawsuit.
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"The 1955 Gibson “Maybellene” ES-350T was the very first six-string in Chuck Berry’s catalogue to become heavily attached to his image, not only it was used at the height of his career during his early years in the 1950s, but it was the guitar used to record his breakthrough singles and records. It is unclear how Chuck first got his hands on this 350T, some speculate he acquired it from the record company after working three jobs in St. Louis and earning some cash after his first few gigs Johnnie Johnson’s Trio. Other sources however suggest that he paid for it after a long term with Johnson’s Trio, who had access to high-end gear at the time, hence, being allowed to play in open bars during the early 50s.
Most of Chuck Berry’s songs would have snarky guitar intros with riffs that are now used by modern-day guitarists as rock templates. All of his songs produced by Chess Records were played using his Gibson 1955 ES-350T. Many musical historians regard the ES-350T as the guitar that “established the bends and stops of rock n’ roll music”, and Chuck had a flair for double stops in his guitar solos that became iconic with this early version of the Gibson Byrdland as we know it.
The ES-350T was first produced by Gibson to feature their all-new patent-applied-for (PAF) humbucking pickups. The Custom dog-ear P90 neck and bridge pickups gave the Maybellene the unique effect of a winding antique clock – unapologetically and neatly springy. The dual humbuckers were had two coils producing currents in opposite directions, a mechanism that canceled out the annoying hum often heard in single-coil pickups in older models. The pickups had two 500K CTS volume and tone knobs and 3-way switchcraft selectors.
The Maybellene was used in the studio production and countless performances of Johnny B. Goode, Chuck Berry’s 1957 song with one of the most influential riffs in guitar history.
The 23-inch-scale piece featured a signature ‘55 Medium C-Shape. The tailpiece was an engraved wire loop trapeze and the truss rod was 2-way adjustable. It had 22 narrow/tall frets with double parallelogram inlays, Kluson single line single ring tuners, and a Switchcraft output Jack. It was the guitar that shaped Chuck’s career and formed the basal sound profile of Rock & Roll."
Christopher D. Schiebel - Guitar Lobby
On this day in music history: March 31, 1958 - “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry is released. Written by Chuck Berry, it is the eleventh single release from the rock & roll icon from St. Louis, MO. Penned by Berry in 1955, the semi autobiographical song is partially inspired by his long time piano player Johnnie Johnson, though pianist Lafayette Leake plays on the single and not Johnson. “Goode’s” opening riff is lifted from R&B pioneer Louis Jordan’s 1946 hit “Ain’t That Just Like A Woman”. The track is recorded at Chess Studios in Chicago on January 6, 1958, and features Berry backed by musicians Willie Dixon (bass), Lafayette Leake (piano), and Fred Below (drums). Chuck Berry’s version peaks at #2 on the Billboard R&B Best Sellers chart and #8 on the Pop Best Sellers chart in June of 1958. Regarded as one of the quintessential rock & roll songs, it is covered numerous times over the years by dozens of artists. Berry’s original version is included on the Voyager Golden Record (a gold plated titanium disc with messages and music recorded on it) attached to the Voyager spacecraft in 1977 representing rock & roll music. “Johnny B. Goode is also featured in the film "Back To The Future” in 1985, where in a humorous plot twist, Berry’s fictional cousin Marvin Berry overhears the song being performed by actor Michael J. Fox (actually sung by Mark Campbell of Jack Mack & The Heart Attack), then calling his “cousin” to tell him he’s just heard the “new sound” he’s been looking for. The original single of “Johnny B. Goode” is backed with the Berry penned “Around And Around”, which also becomes a rock & roll standard that is also widely covered, most notably by The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, The Animals, and David Bowie. Chuck Berry’s original recording of “Johnny B. Goode” is inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 1999.thanks to the most excellent Jeff Harris' blog 'Behind The Grooves
“Up in the morning and off to school!”
Chuck Berry died today. I first heard him just before I entered puberty. I liked the music but something about it scared me, pushed me into a dark unknown. I tried to stop listening to it but I couldn’t. Within a year or so, I was fully in the thrall of puberty and Chuck’s music made perfect sense, heightened every experience I had or wished I was having. Those guitar lines, those knowing grown-up vocals, were burned upon my soul, where they still remain for instant access.I highly recommend Chuck Berry’s autobiography, told in the unique voice of a man who, without necessarily intending to, helped to integrate the country while living through the horrors of segregation. This is part of the legacy left by one of the greatest, most influential artists who will ever live.I wrote this in December 2016:I was on a Navy ship in South-east Asia during the Vietnam War. After a tour of duty of several months was over, we headed for home. I went through this three different times. As we would set sail towards California, much of the crew would stay up all night on the helicopter deck, frantically tuning their radios, trying to be the first person to get an American radio station playing some tunes. We were beyond tired, but we were alive and we were going home. Nothing else mattered.The last time I experienced this ritual, I “won.” I got clear channel KOMA/Oklahoma City to come in, blasting through my radio 11,000 miles away from the station. The first song played was, I kid you not, Chuck Berry’s “Back in the USA.”Chuck Berry turned NINETY in October. He’s got a new album coming out, as he sits on the throne of popular music knowing he’s given millions of us memories we will never forget.+ + + + ++ + + + +Chuck Berry, who with his indelible guitar licks, brash self-confidence and memorable songs about cars, girls and wild dance parties did as much as anyone to define rock ’n’ roll’s potential and attitude in its early years, died on March 18, 2017. He was 90. The St Charles County Police Department in Missouri confirmed his death on its Facebook page. The department said it responded to a medical emergency at a home and Berry was declared dead after lifesaving measures were unsuccessful.While Elvis Presley was rock’s first pop star and teenage heartthrob, Berry was its master theorist and conceptual genius, the songwriter who understood what the kids wanted before they knew themselves. With songs like “Johnny B Goode” and “Roll Over Beethoven,” he gave his listeners more than they knew they were getting from jukebox entertainment. His guitar lines wired the lean twang of country and the bite of the blues into phrases with both a streamlined trajectory and a long memory. And tucked into the lighthearted, telegraphic narratives that he sang with such clear enunciation was a sly defiance, upending convention to claim the pleasures of the moment.In “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “You Can’t Catch Me” and other songs, Berry invented rock as a music of teenage wishes fulfilled and good times (even with cops in pursuit). In “Promised Land,” “Too Much Monkey Business” and “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” he celebrated and satirized America’s opportunities and class tensions. His rock ’n’ roll was a music of joyful lusts, laughed-off tensions and gleefully shattered icons. - Jon Pareles, The New York TimesClick here for the full write-up.
