Posted on 07/27/2021 4:45:48 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Chuck Berry's rocket ride to fame hit more than a few bumps along the way: Unscrupulous industry professionals tried to scam him, and racists pushed back against his boundary-defying music.
Berry persisted, however, building a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame career outlined in tonight's PBS broadcast of In Their Own Words: Chuck Berry. You can watch an exclusive clip from the program below, as the son of Chess Records cofounder Leonard Chess, Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish, Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash and others discuss Berry's early career struggles.
Berry actually went to court to win back credit for his groundbreaking crossover song "Maybelline," which reached the Top 5 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and rhythm-and-blues charts in 1955. The powerful DJ Alan Freed played a big role in breaking the single but only after extracting a payoff from Chess and then adding his own name as songwriter without Berry's knowledge.
In the clip below, Marshall Chess remembers his father saying, "All that money we pay off to get the record played, that's part of the artist expense." But Berry lost untold thousands on royalty payments.
He decided to focus on performing, since income earned out on the road could be counted on more reliably. But that didn't mean there weren't other challenges: Berry was playing in front of boisterous teenage crowds, and the intermingling of races at local music venues created an issue in the Jim Crow era.
"They just didn't want Black and white folks to get together," Rucker says in the clip. "They knew, at a Chuck Berry show, you can't stop kids from partying. You can't stop kids from dancing. When you've got that music, and they want to hear it, they don't care who they are standing next to dancing. The authorities and the powers that be didn't like that – and that made Chuck even more powerful, I think."
Other featured interview subjects from In Their Own Words: Chuck Berry include Keith Richards and Robert Cray. The program premieres at 8PM ET tonight on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS Video app. Check listings for local times.
Chuck Berry loved real country music.
He always demanded cash for every performance.
US currency.
And carried a .38 to enforce the demand, which he did often...according to Keith Richards.
Between Keith and Bob Dylan, you have the entire history of American Rock and Blues history.
No other two individuals know as much.
So it will be written.
Funny anecdote was when the Rolling Stones, who obviously admired Berry and reaped money and success from his songs and influences on their own writing, were on the same stage for a show with him, they didn’t get the shipment of their own amps, speakers and vocal sound system in time. Chuck Berry consented to let them borrow his. After the show they learned he had sent them a bill for the loan.
There is a movie called “Hail Hail Rock n Roll” with Chuck Berry, and the funniest bit is when he his jamming with Keith Richards (of the Rolling Stones) and keeps stopping the song and correcting Keith on how to play.
I think I remember him getting busted for a toilet cam several years ago.
I was really impressed by Richards’ book Life. Especially the ideas about the meaning of music and creativity.
Did you like it?
About Bob Dylan, I’m a fanatic and (self-proclaimed) alleged expert. What I don’t remember I can look up in the probably 175 volumes on him and his associates I have.
Why do I always find you saying such dumb things lately. Did they put you on some meds?
Richards is amazing in his own way and an iconic player, but all he ever did was ape the American blues players he heard. He never, not even once, actually played any *real blues. He didn't contribute a fkn thing toward the progression of rock guitar... he kinda sucked actually.
My brother-in-law once took a TV camera to a Chuck Berry concert by order of his local NBC affiliate. Based on the artist’s response, to this day he refers to Berry with a word that rhymes with “Chuck.”
“he kinda sucked actually.”
He wrote better guitar hooks than anybody.
“Back To The Future” was, is and always will be one of my favorite movies, but that scene was just disrespectful to Chuck Berry. And Michael J. Fox looked so ridiculous lip-syncing and grimacing that the idea of anyone being inspired by him was just cringe-inducing.
Did he kick Mick Taylor out of the band, because he made Richards look bad?
Lighten up, dude...it was entertainment, not a documentary.
I thought it was funny, because it was so ridiculous?
Zackly. He created their sound. He was an AMAZAZING song writer, just not that good on guitar.
ZERO guitar players list him as an influence.
but that scene was just disrespectful to Chuck Berry. ‘
Yep. I damn well cringed watching it in the movie theater all those years ago and the two or three times I’ve seen it since.
In 1955, when I was 13, I wrote a fan letter to John Johnson (the pianist) but unsurprisingly never got an answer.
I got at be honest, I flat out don’t hear the left hand live that I hear on the albums. Doesn’t seem like the same guy.
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