I’ve heard good rock sounding music from the ‘40s and good guitar but without Berry, there would have been no Rolling Stones and maybe no Beatles though the Beatles had a lot of musical resources at that, Everlies, Elvis, Buddy Holly and so on.
The Beatles secret was that they lived in Liverpool. Liverpool is a big port city, with a lot of merchant sailors being based there. Well, a lot of these sailors took shipping runs to America and were exposed to American music. A lot of times they brought back records from America, records that couldn’t be found for love nor money in the UK. Because of that the Beatles exposure to American music styles was much more diverse than the Stones.
CC