{"id":94567,"date":"2017-03-18T23:47:04","date_gmt":"2017-03-19T03:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=94567"},"modified":"2017-03-18T23:47:04","modified_gmt":"2017-03-19T03:47:04","slug":"rock-n-roll-legend-chuck-berry-dies-at-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/03\/18\/rock-n-roll-legend-chuck-berry-dies-at-90\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock ‘n’ roll legend Chuck Berry dies at 90"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Charles<\/a>
Charles Edward Anderson Berry was born in St. Louis on Oct. 18, 1926. As a child he practiced a bent-leg stride that enabled him to slip under tables, a prelude to the duck walk of his adult years. (Photo by NBC Television – eBay itemphoto frontphoto back, Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK\u2014Chuck Berry, rock ‘n’ roll’s founding guitar hero and storyteller who defined the music’s joy and rebellion in such classics as \u201cJohnny B. Goode,\u201d \u201cSweet Little Sixteen\u201d and \u201cRoll Over Beethoven,\u201d died Saturday at his home west of St. Louis. He was 90.<\/p>\n

Emergency responders summoned to Berry’s residence by his caretaker about 12:40 p.m. found him unresponsive, police in Missouri’s St. Charles County said in a statement. Attempts to revive Berry failed, and he was pronounced dead shortly before 1:30 p.m., police said.<\/p>\n

Berry’s core repertoire was some three dozen songs, his influence incalculable, from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to virtually any group from garage band to arena act that called itself rock ‘n roll.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust let me hear some of that rock ‘n’ roll music any old way you use it I am playing I’m talking about you. God bless Chuck Berry Chuck,\u201d Beatles drummer Ringo Starr tweeted, quoting some lyrics from a Berry hit.<\/p>\n

While Elvis Presley gave rock its libidinous, hip-shaking image, Berry was the auteur, setting the template for a new sound and way of life.<\/p>\n

\u201cChuck Berry was a rock and roll original. A gifted guitar player, an amazing live performer, and a skilled songwriter whose music and lyrics captured the essence of 1950s teenage life,\u201d The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Well before the rise of Bob Dylan, Berry wedded social commentary to the beat and rush of popular music.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was singing good lyrics, and intelligent lyrics, in the ’50s when people were singing, \u201cOh, baby, I love you so,’\u201c John Lennon once observed.<\/p>\n

Berry, in his late 20s before his first major hit, crafted lyrics that spoke to the teenagers of the day and remained fresh decades later. \u201cSweet Little Sixteen\u201d captured rock ‘n’ roll fandom, an early and innocent ode to the young girls later known as \u201cgroupies.\u201d \u201cSchool Day\u201d told of the sing-song trials of the classroom (\u201cAmerican history and practical math; you’re studying hard, hoping to pass…\u201d) and the liberation of rock ‘n’ roll once the day’s final bell rang.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoll Over Beethoven\u201d was an anthem to rock’s history-making power, while \u201cRock and Roll Music\u201d was a guidebook for all bands that followed (\u201cIt’s got a back beat, you can’t lose it\u201d). \u201cBack in the U.S.A.\u201d was a black man’s straight-faced tribute to his country at a time there was no guarantee Berry would be served at the drive-ins and corner cafes he was celebrating.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything I wrote about wasn’t about me, but about the people listening,\u201d he once said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohnny B. Goode,\u201d the tale of a guitar-playing country boy whose mother tells him he’ll be a star, was Berry’s signature song, the archetypal narrative for would-be rockers and among the most ecstatic recordings in the music’s history. Berry can hardly contain himself as the words hurry out (\u201cDeep down Louisiana close to New Orleans\/Way back up in the woods among the evergreens\u201d) and the downpour of guitar, drums and keyboards amplifies every call of \u201cGo, Johnny Go!\u201d<\/p>\n

The song was inspired in part by Johnnie Johnson, the boogie-woogie piano master who collaborated on many Berry hits, but the story could have easily been Berry’s, Presley’s or countless others’. Commercial calculation made the song universal: Berry had meant to call Johnny a \u201ccolored boy,\u201d but changed \u201ccolored\u201d to \u201ccountry,\u201d enabling not only radio play, but musicians of any colour to imagine themselves as stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cChances are you have talent,\u201d Berry later wrote of the song. \u201cBut will the name and the light come to you? No! You have to go!\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnny B. Goode could have only been a guitarist. The guitar was rock ‘n’ roll’s signature instrument and Berry’s clarion sound, a melting pot of country flash and rhythm ‘n blues drive, turned on at least a generation of musicians, among them the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, who once acknowledged he had \u201clifted every lick\u201d from his hero; the Beatles’ George Harrison; Bruce Springsteen; and the Who’s Pete Townshend.<\/p>\n

When NASA launched the unmanned Voyager I in 1977, an album was stored on the craft that would explain music on Earth to extraterrestrials. The one rock song included was \u201cJohnny B. Goode.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charles Edward Anderson Berry was born in St. Louis on Oct. 18, 1926. As a child he practiced a bent-leg stride that enabled him to slip under tables, a prelude to the duck walk of his adult years. His mother, like Johnny B. Goode’s, told him he would make it, and make it big.<\/p>\n

A fan of blues, swing and boogie woogie, Berry studied the very mechanics of music and how it was transmitted. As a teenager, he loved to take radios apart and put them back together. Using a Nick Manoloff guitar chord book, he learned how to play the hits of the time. He was fascinated by chord progressions and rhythms, discovering that many songs borrowed heavily from the Gershwins’ \u201cI Got Rhythm.\u201d<\/p>\n

He began his musical career at age 15 when he went on stage at a high school review to do his own version of Jay McShann’s \u201cConfessin’ the Blues.\u201d Berry would never forget the ovation he received.<\/p>\n

\u201cLong did the encouragement of that performance assist me in programming my songs and even their delivery while performing,\u201d he wrote in his autobiography. \u201cI added and deleted according to the audiences’ response to different gestures, and chose songs to build an act that would constantly stimulate my audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, his troubles with the law began, in 1944, when a joy riding trip to Kansas City turned into a crime spree involving armed robberies and car theft. Berry served three years of a 10-year sentence at a reformatory.<\/p>\n

A year after his October 1947 release, Berry met and married Themetta Suggs, who stayed by his side despite some of his well-publicized indiscretions. Berry then started sitting in with local bands. By 1950, he had graduated to a six-string electric guitar and was making his own crude recordings on a reel to reel machine.<\/p>\n

On New Year’s Eve 1952 at The Cosmopolitan club in East St. Louis, Illinois, Johnson called Berry to fill in for an ailing saxophonist in his Sir John Trio.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gave me a break\u201d and his first commercial gig, for $4, Berry later recalled. \u201cI was excited. My best turned into a mess. I stole the group from Johnnie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Influenced by bandleader Louis Jourdan, blues guitarist T-Bone Walker and jazz man Charlie Christian, but also hip to country music, novelty songs and the emerging teen audiences of the post-World War II era, Berry signed with Chicago’s Chess Records in 1955. \u201cMaybellene\u201d reworked the country song \u201cIda Red\u201d and rose into the top 10 of the national pop charts, a rare achievement for a black artist at that time. According to Berry, label owner Leonard Chess was taken by the novelty of a \u201chillbilly song sung by a black man,\u201d an inversion of Presley’s covers of blues songs.<\/p>\n

Several hits followed, including \u201cRoll Over Beethoven,\u201d \u201cSchool Day\u201d and \u201cSweet Little Sixteen.\u201d Among his other songs: \u201cToo Much Monkey Business,\u201d \u201cNadine,\u201d \u201cNo Particular Place To Go,\u201d \u201cAlmost Grown\u201d and the racy novelty number \u201cMy Ding-A-Ling,\u201d which topped the charts in 1972.<\/p>\n

Berry also appeared in a dozen movies, doing his distinctive bent-legged \u201cduck-walk\u201d in several teen exploitation flicks of the ’50s. Richards organized the well-received 1987 documentary \u201cHail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll,\u201d a concert at St. Louis’ Fox Theatre to celebrate Berry’s 60th birthday. It featured Eric Clapton, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, who recalled being told by his own mother that Berry, not he, was the true king of rock ‘n’ roll.<\/p>\n

Country, pop and rock artists have recorded Berry songs, including the Beatles (\u201cRoll Over Beethoven\u201d), Emmylou Harris (\u201cYou Never Can Tell\u201d), Buck Owens (\u201cJohnny B. Goode\u201d) and AC\/DC (\u201cSchool Days\u201d). The Rolling Stones’ first single was a cover of Berry’s \u201cCome On\u201d and they went on to perform and record \u201cAround and Around,\u201d \u201cLet it Rock\u201d and others. Berry riffs pop up in countless songs, from the Stones’ ravenous \u201cBrown Sugar\u201d to the Eagles’ mellow country-rock ballad \u201cPeaceful Easy Feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some stars covered him too well. The Beach Boys borrowed the melody of \u201cSweet Little Sixteen\u201d for their surf anthem \u201cSurfin’ U.S.A.\u201d without initially crediting Berry. The Beatles’ \u201cCome Together,\u201d written by John Lennon, was close enough to Berry’s \u201cYou Can’t Catch Me\u201d to inspire a lawsuit by music publisher Morris Levy. In an out of court settlement, Lennon agreed to record \u201cYou Can’t Catch Me\u201d for his 1975 \u201cRock n’ Roll\u201d album.<\/p>\n

On his 90th birthday last year, Berry disclosed that he would release his first new album in 38 years in 2017, titled simply: \u201cChuck.\u201d The announcement said it would be comprised primarily of new, original songs written, recorded and produced by him.<\/p>\n

In 2000, Johnson sued Berry over royalties and credit he believed he was due for the songs they composed together over more than 20 years of collaboration. The lawsuit was dismissed two years later, but Richards was among those who believed Johnson had been cheated, writing in his memoir \u201cLife\u201d that Johnson set up the arrangements for Berry and was so essential to the music that many of Berry’s songs were recorded in keys more suited for the piano.<\/p>\n

Openly money-minded, Berry was an entrepreneur with a St. Louis nightclub and, in a small town west of there, property he dubbed Berry Park, which included a home, guitar-shaped swimming pool, restaurant, cottages and concert venue. He declined to have a regular band and instead used local musicians, willing to work cheap. Springsteen was among those who had an early gig backing Berry.<\/p>\n

Burned by an industry that demanded a share of his songwriting credits, Berry was deeply suspicious of even his admirers, as anybody could tell from watching him give Richards the business in \u201cHail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll.\u201d For the movie’s concerts, he confounded Richards by playing songs in different keys and tempos than they had been in rehearsal. Richards would recall turning to his fellow musicians and shrugging, \u201cWing it, boys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berry’s career nearly ended decades earlier, when he was indicted for violating the Mann Act, which barred transportation of a minor across state lines for \u201cimmoral purposes.\u201d An all-white jury found him guilty in 1960, but the charges were vacated after the judge made racist comments. A trial in 1961 led to his serving 1 1\/2 years of a three-year term. Berry continued to record after getting out, and his legacy was duly honoured by the Beatles and the Stones, but his hit-making days were essentially over.<\/p>\n

\u201cDown from stardom\/then I fell\/to this lowly prison cell,\u201d Berry wrote as his jail time began.<\/p>\n

Tax charges came in 1979, and another three-year prison sentence, all but 120 days of which was suspended. Some former female employees later sued him for allegedly videotaping them in the bathroom of his restaurant. The cases were settled in 1994, after Berry paid $1.3 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery 15 years, in fact, it seems I make a big mistake,\u201d Berry acknowledged in his memoir.<\/p>\n

Still, echoing the lyrics of \u201cBack in the U.S.A.,\u201d he said: \u201cThere’s no other place I would rather live, including Africa, than America. I believe in the system.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK\u2014Chuck Berry, rock ‘n’ roll’s founding guitar hero and storyteller who defined the music’s joy and rebellion in such …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":94568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,2,1145,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-entertainment","category-headline","category-hollywood","mauthors-hillel-italie","mauthors-jim-suhr","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}