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To: SamAdams76

RIP, Chuck.
He was still going strong in 1972

My Ding-a-ling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaEC-lWSlmI


22 posted on 03/18/2017 8:41:34 PM PDT by V K Lee (If all the nations in the world are in debt, where did all the money go?)
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To: V K Lee

I get the impression this show was done somewhere in Scandinavia, but I could be wrong. I actually heard this song the (I’m pretty sure) FIRST .maybe second, time it was performed in front of a live audience. Through most of 1971 I was in the original production of the musical GREASE in Chicago. A few months after the show closed, my roommate and I got a call from two students at Washington U. in St. Louis. asking us if we would like to get together an opening act for Chuck Berry, who was featured at the Homecoming Concert—this had to be October 1971. We had literally 48 hours to get a complete group together, rehearse 4 or 5 tunes, get down to St. Louis from Chicago. Wasn’t easy. My roommate/highschool friend played lead guitar in the Grease band, another guy from the show came in with his bass guitar, our drummer came, one girl from the cast, me, and another vocalist,a friend of ours who was a 30 year old practicing attorney in Chicago, originally from Flatbush, who had sung with some minor doo-wop groups as a kid. He was a bit of a prima donna, but he knew his stuff. He told our “producers” he would do it if they paid his air fare. They did, and we rehearse in St. Louis that afternoon, on very little sleep. We did “Daddy’s Home”,” What’s Your Name?”, Little Darlin’, and a few others. I don’t know how we did it, I vaguely remember sleeping on someone’s water bed the night previous, some friend of the student producer’s who offered to put us up, and tossing around as this bed sloshed back and forth beneath me. Maybe got an hour’s sleep. ANYWAY, there was also a boy-girl dance duo who came onstage after us, named Tulana and Annie, and did some very energetic period show-”jitterbugging”. All the while we were performing, the audience grew more restless and we ducked a number of empty beer cans. “We want Chuck!” could be heard every 30 seconds or so.So Berry came out and right off the bat, or soon enough, did MY DING A LING, which he led us to believe was the first time he was performing it. I do believe it was the same shirt he was wearing that night that you see in the video, and his suggestive patter was almost word for word at Washington U. as it was in the video. Good times!!!


28 posted on 03/18/2017 9:15:55 PM PDT by supremedoctrine ("If you want to be able to predict the future, first you have to create it"---Lincoln)
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