RIP Chuck Berry, 1926-2017

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by fourfeathers, Mar 18, 2017.

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  1. Norbert Becker

    Norbert Becker Senior Member

    Location:
    Philadelphia PA
    Ridin' along in my calaboose
    Still trying to get her belt a-loose
    All the way home I held a grudge
    For the safety belt that wouldn't budge
    Cruisin' and playin' the radio
    With no particular place to go
     
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  2. For the record, Dylan said that, the way you formatted the quote appears to be from me, NOT. Per post #580
     
  3. beccabear67

    beccabear67 Musical omnivore.

    Location:
    Victoria, Canada
    I was responding to the religious notion. As with Smokey Robinson there should be a statue erected but I wouldn't want people making offerings to it. :cool:
     
  4. Aris

    Aris Labor Omnia Vincit

    Location:
    Portugal
    Rock 'N' Roll is orphan.

    RIP
     
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  5. PDK

    PDK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Central Florida
    ...nothing but love.

    Bon Voyage.
     
  6. majorlance

    majorlance Forum Resident

    Location:
    PATCO Speedline
    Yep. IIRC, the movie Hail Hail, Rock & Roll briefly shows a version of this ad where Springsteen's name is spelled Springstein! Brooce's recollections of this gig — doing double duty as opening act and as Berry's backup band — provide some of the greatest moments in a film that's chock full of 'em.
     
  7. markbrow

    markbrow Forum President

    Location:
    Denver
    Here is an amazing Chuck radio broadcast from '81 that I taped back in the day and put up on YouTube yesterday. I've never been able to find it anywhere else except for a four-song radio sampler. It's Chuck and Johnny Rivers and a smoking band - you can read all about it in the YouTube description.

     
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  8. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    That is such a cool pic! And it really underscores what I was getting at in my previous, long post: Berry was a break through artist. And to think that pic was likely taken in 1957.
     
  9. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Chuck already has a statue in St Louis:

    [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
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  10. markbrow

    markbrow Forum President

    Location:
    Denver
    I see in this thread that everyone (myself included) calls the song "School Days."
    It's actually "School Day." I saw it spelled properly in the NY Times and thought I'd caught them in an error. Nope. We're all wrong.
     
  11. beccabear67

    beccabear67 Musical omnivore.

    Location:
    Victoria, Canada
    I certainly can't imagine there being a Rolling Stones without him, maybe not a Beach Boys either.
     
  12. RIP to a genius, a Father of Rock 'n Roll.
     
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  13. Turmatic

    Turmatic Forum Resident

    Location:
    Charleston
    Yeah. I was a bit (4-5 years) younger than these kids in '57.

    Chuck was the voice of my early Rock and Roll experience. I listened to him on a old brown Philco radio in our kitchen. His impact cannot be overstated.
     
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  14. Ed Bishop

    Ed Bishop Incredibly, I'm still here

    Elvis: The King of Rock 'N' Roll
    Chuck: The Father of Rock 'N' R0ll

    Buddy Holly learned much from both men, but Chuck was the guitar player and writer who influenced him most. And can't you *almost* hear Chuck, somewhere, singing some of Buddy's songs as if they were written for him?

    :ed:
     
  15. BlueTrane

    BlueTrane Forum Resident

    From Bill Graham's memoir:

    ************************************
    Michael Bloomfield and Jorma Kaukonen from Jefferson Airplane kept talking to me about Chuck Berry. They said, "He has to play the Fillmore." Because he was where all their licks came from. But he just wouldn't come out to play. It was always, "The Fillmore, man? I don't know." So I went to Wentzville, Missouri, to talk to him. Chuck wouldn't even come to the airport to meet me. I had to rent a car and drive out to his farm.

    He said, "I don't bring no band. You supply the band. You supply the dual Showman Amp. You supply me a Cadillac at the airport."

    I came back and we made the deal over the phone. Eight hundred dollars for two sets a night, three nights in March. The opening act was a band called the Loading Zone and they stayed on to play behind him. First night, we had a full house. Chuck Berry. His was the name that most white people did know but they'd never seen him before in this scene. That night, eight o'clock, he wasn't there. Nine o'clock, he wasn't there. Five minutes to ten, I was out of my mind. The Loading Zone had finished their set a long time ago. We reset the stage for Chuck and put his dual amp out there.

    Ten P.M., I just happened to be in the office. In fact, I was on the phone calling the airport to see if his plane had landed. There was a knock on the door. I opened it and there was Chuck Berry. I shook his hand. I said, "How you doin', Chuck? You're a little late."

    He didn't move or speak. He set his guitar case down on the floor and stood there staring at me. "Right," I said. "You want to get paid before you go on."

    I went and got the checkbook. Some bands would take a check and deposit it. Others wanted the check cashed right then and there. I made the mistake of looking over at Chuck Berry and saying, "You want cash or a check?" The look he gave me was, "Are you out of your mind? Why do you ask such a stupid question? I won't even honor it with an answer."

    "Okay," I said. I took the check, wrote it out, and moved it over to his side of the desk.

    He signed the check on the back. Then he moved it halfway over toward me. Like into the medium, neutral zone of the desk. He still hadn't said a word. I pushed eight hundred dollars in cash over to his side of the desk. He counted it out in front of me. He took the money in one hand, slid the check all the way over to me, and put out his other hand for me to shake.

    "Mellow," he said.

    I took the signed check and stuck it in my pocket. He put down his coat and unpacked his guitar. I said, "Chuck, are you ready?" I thought he would say, "I gotta go to the bathroom. I gotta change my shoes or my shirt." He said, "Let's go." It was like, "You want me to fight ten rounds? I'll fight ten."

    He walked onto the stage. I said, "Chuck, you want me to introduce you to the band?" He looked at them. He said, "Hello, hello, hello," to each one in turn. There was no set list, no nothing. They had no idea what he was going to play.

    I went to the microphone and said, "It's a great honor, would you welcome please, the Man, Chuck Berry." One, two, one, two, three. They went right into it.

    Chuck did his thing. He did his chicken dance back and forth across the stage. After forty-five minutes, he came over to my side of the stage. The kids were going crazy, screaming, "More! More! More!" Chuck put his guitar in the case. I said, "Chuck, what're you doing?"

    "What is it?" he said. "What is it?"

    I said, "Chuck, listen to that applause."

    "No," he said, "I don't hear it. I don't hear it. They don't want me."

    He was doing this jive Scatman Crothers routine on me. "YEA!" they were all screaming. "MORE!" He couldn't HELP but hear it. "They don't want me, boss," he said. "They don't want me, boss man."

    I knew it was a number. But I figured I had to get into it, or else.

    "Chuck," I said. "They want you. They want you."

    "They don't love me," he said. "They don't love me."

    By now, he was strapping on his case to leave.

    "They want you, Chuck," I told him. "You can't leave. They love you."

    He leaned over to me. "They love me?" he said. "They want me? I'm goin' out there." He opened up the case. "I'm comin'," he said. "I'm here. And I love you."

    He went back out, got to the microphone, and said, "Yeah, you love me, you want me, yeah, and one, two, one, two, three."

    What he was really saying to me was, "They want me, they love me, but you're not paying me enough money. Why aren't you paying me more money? Next time, you're gonna pay me more, right?"

    And I was saying, "Right."

    I realized he had been doing this number for like nine hundred and three years. That short thirty seconds was pure genius theater of the very first order. Somebody had to answer Gabriel. I'm blowing my horn but nobody hears me. They hear you, Gabe.
    ************************************
     
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  16. Brian Wilson on Chuck Berry: 'He Taught Me How to Write Rock'
    [​IMG]
    Rolling Stone
    March 19, 2017
    [​IMG]
    Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson tells us how his idol Chuck Berry "taught me how to write rock & roll melodies."
    Brian Wilson was backstage Saturday night, waiting to perform at Indio, California's Fantasy Springs Resort Casino for his Pet Sounds 50th anniversary tour, when he heard that one of his idols, Chuck Berry, had died. "I was shocked by it and it kind of scared me," he tells Rolling Stone. "I don't know why it scared me, but it was just a shock." On Sunday, he says he's still taking the news "pretty rough."

    For Wilson, Berry was an important inspiration for some of the first music he wrote over half a century ago for the Beach Boys. "He taught me how to write rock & roll melodies, the way the vocals should go," he says. "His lyrics were very, very good. They were unusually good lyrics. I liked 'Johnny B. Goode,' all about a young, little kid who played his guitar.

    "He inspired me as a lyricist," he says. "He made me want to write about cars and surfing. I liked the lyrics to 'Roll Over Beethoven.' It felt like what he was doing was new."

    Berry's influence loomed especially large over "Surfin' U.S.A.," the Beach Boys' 1963 single, which went to Number Three on the Billboard chart. As Wilson remembers it, he'd become so enamored with Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" that "the melody and the chord pattern inspired me to write 'Surfin' U.S.A.'" When the single came out, it was credited only to Wilson. But within a few years, he shared the credit with Berry at Berry's music publisher's request. Wilson has said in recent years that he didn't mind sharing credit, and late Beach Boys guitarist Carl Wilson once reported that Berry had told him that he "loves" "Surfin' U.S.A."

    Moreover, the authorship issue never stopped the Beach Boys from performing Berry's songs both live and in the studio in homage to their idol. "With the Beach Boys, we were inspired to do 'Rock and Roll Music' and 'School Days' because of his great melodies," Wilson says. "His songs were very easy to do. We haven't been singing any of his songs lately [with my solo band], but I want to do it soon. I'd like to do 'Rock and Roll Music' and 'Johnny B. Goode.'"

    Although the Beach Boys played a special with Chuck Berry in late 1964, captured on the concert film The T.A.M.I. Show, Wilson can recall talking to his inspiration only once on an airplane. While he couldn't recall what they talked about, he remembered the way Berry was in front of an audience. "I just liked the way he moved around onstage," he says.
     
  17. Sax-son

    Sax-son Forum Resident

    Location:
    Three Rivers, CA
    I was fortunate enough to see Chuck Berry in concert at least twice during his prime. Once at the Hollywood Palladium with members of the Rolling Stones as his backup band and another at the Long Beach Auditorium where he had a pick up band supporting him. Both shows were fantastic. Chuck was quite an entertainer when he wanted to be.

    At the Palladium show, he actually kicked Keith Richards off the stage because he(Keith) was stealing Chuck's riffs during the show. Chuck got really irritated by that and just kept the rhythm section on stage.

    Chuck is actually responsible for creating a style for playing guitar. Nobody was doing was Chuck was doing before he came on the scene. Besides his songwriting abilities, he was an actual innovator.
     
  18. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band played Johnny B. Goode last night as a tribute. Rev said it was the first song he ever learn to play all the way through.

     
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  19. docwebb

    docwebb Forum Resident

    I was 12 when I saw this on the Dick Clark show. Been playing his music every since and while I mourn his death I will continue listening until my time comes. Thanks and RIP.
     
  20. scotpagel

    scotpagel Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mesa, Az
    It's just Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino and Little Richard left now:sigh: . It's still a good feeling he lived a long life, hope I live that long
     

    • [​IMG]

     
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  21. duggan

    duggan Senior Member

    Location:
    sydney
    I really don't think that statue does Chuck justice.

    It misses the physical enormity (actual and attitude enhanced) and presence of the man in real life. He was, certainly into his 50s, a very physically imposing/ potentially intimidating figure.
     
  22. John Fell

    John Fell Forum Survivor

    Location:
    Undisclosed
  23. markbrow

    markbrow Forum President

    Location:
    Denver
    Last time I saw Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, I thought death was just around the corner for them. That was in the '90s. Some hardy constitutions there!
     
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