Sister Rosetta Tharpe - This Train

Alongside Willie Mae Ford Smith, Sister Rosetta Tharpe is widely acclaimed among the greatest Sanctified gospel singers of her generation; a flamboyant performer whose music often flirted with the blues and swing, she was also one of the most controversial talents of her day, shocking purists with her leap into the secular market -- by playing nightclubs and theaters, she not only pushed spiritual music into the mainstream, but in the process also helped pioneer the rise of pop-gospel. Tharpe was born March 20, 1915 in Cotton Plant, AR; the daughter of Katie Bell Nubin, a traveling missionary and shouter in the classic gospel tradition known throughout the circuit as "Mother Bell," she was a prodigy, mastering the guitar by the age of six. At the same time, she attended Holiness conventions alongside her mother, performing renditions of songs including "The Day Is Past and Gone" and "I Looked Down the Line."

In time, the family relocated to Chicago, where Tharpe began honing her unique style; blessed with a resonant vibrato, both her vocal phrasing and guitar style drew heavy inspiration from the blues, and she further aligned herself with the secular world with a sense of showmanship and glamour unique among the gospel performers of her era. Signing to Decca in 1938, Tharpe became a virtual overnight sensation; her first records, among them Thomas A. Dorsey's "Rock Me" and "This Train," were smash hits, and quickly she was performing in the company of mainstream superstars including Cab Calloway and Benny Goodman. She led an almost schizophrenic existence, remaining in the good graces of her core audience by recording material like "Precious Lord," "Beams of Heaven," and "End of My Journey" while also appealing to her growing white audience by performing rearranged, uptempo spirituals including "Didn't It Rain" and "Down by the Riverside."

During World War II, Tharpe was so popular that she was one of only two black gospel acts -- the Golden Gate Quartet being the other -- to record V-Discs for American soldiers overseas; she also toured the nation in the company of the Dixie Hummingbirds, among others. In 1944, she began recording with boogie-woogie pianist Sammy Price; their first collaboration, "Strange Things Happening Every Day," even cracked Billboard's race records Top Ten, a rare feat for a gospel act, and one which she repeated several more times during the course of her career. In 1946, she teamed with the Newark-based Sanctified shouter Madame Marie Knight, whose simple, unaffected vocals made her the perfect counterpoint for Tharpe's theatrics; the duo's first single, "Up Above My Head," was a huge hit, and over the next few years they played to tremendous crowds across the church circuit.

However, in the early '50s Tharpe and Knight cut a handful of straight blues sides; their fans were outraged, and although Knight soon made a permanent leap into secular music -- to little success -- Tharpe remained first and foremost a gospel artist, although her credibility and popularity were seriously damaged. Not only did her record sales drop off and her live engagements become fewer and farther between, but many purists took Tharpe's foray into the mainstream as a personal affront; the situation did not improve, and she spent over a year touring clubs in Europe, waiting for the controversy to die down. Tharpe's comeback was slow but steady, and by 1960 she had returned far enough into the audience's good graces to appear at the Apollo Theatre alongside the Caravans and James Cleveland. While not a household name like before, she continued touring even after suffering a major stroke in 1970, dying in Philadelphia on October 9, 1973.

Chuck Berry - LIVE 1972 - Roll Over, Beethoven

Chuck Berry (10/18/1926 - 03/18/2017)

Chuck Berry is the poet laureate of rock and roll. In the mid-Fifties, he took a fledgling idiom, born out of rhythm & blues and country & western, and gave it form and identity. A true original, Berry crafted many of rock and roll’s greatest riffs and married them to lyrics that shaped the rock and roll vernacular for generations. He has written numerous rock and roll classics that have been covered by multitudes of artists and stood the test of time. In all essential ways, he understood the power of rock and roll – how it worked, what it was about and who it was for.

While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Berry arguably did more than anyone else to put the pieces together. As rock journalist Dave Marsh wrote, “Chuck Berry is to rock and roll what Louis Armstrong is to jazz.” On “Maybellene” – Berry’s first single, released in 1955 – he played country & western guitar licks over a base of rhythm & blues. The distorted sound of Berry’s guitar captured the rough, untamed spirit of rock and roll. The song included a brief but scorching solo built around his trademark double-string guitar licks. It kicked off Berry’s career in style and paved the way for a steady stream of classics over the next decade.

Berry’s quick-witted, rapid-fire lyrics focused on cars, romance and rock and roll. He wrote for a teenage audience, reflecting their interests and attitudes in songs like “School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell)” and “Sweet Little Sixteen.” His propulsive, riff-driven music caught the spirit of a nation on the move in the postwar era, chasing the promise of the open road in fast cars. Of hearing “Maybellene” on the radio, Berry wrote, “There is no way to explain how you feel when you first hear your first recording for the first time in your first new car.”

During this high-spirited decade, Berry hailed America as a land of fun and opportunity. The mid-Fifties was a period of rising prosperity for the growing middle class, and the social landscape was slowly improving for African-Americans as the civil rights era dawned. In the lyrics for “Back in the U.S.A.,” written after returning from an Australian tour, Berry saluted such everyday pleasures as the drive-ins and corner cafes “where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day/Yeah, and a jukebox jumping with records like in the U.S.A.”

Berry was born in St. Louis in 1926. He got his first taste of the stage at 15, performing Jay McShann’s “Confessin’ the Blues” at a high school assembly. Berry played guitar, learning the basics from a neighborhood jazz guitarist named Ira Harris. He would also develop competence on piano, saxophone, bass and drums. He sat in with bands at clubs and parties, learning a variety of styles – jump blues, jazzy ballads, boogie-woogie and hillbilly music – that would form the backbone of his approach to rock and roll. Toward the end of 1952, he joined the Sir John Trio, which played at the Cosmopolitan Club in East St. Louis. Pianist Johnnie Johnson was the ostensible leader, but it was Berry who began stealing the show. During their sets of jazz and blues, he’d throw in an occasional “hillbilly” song. The sight of a black man singing white music appealed to a crowd that became progressively more integrated. This is where the essence of Berry’s act came together.

On a weekend in May 1955, Berry visited Chicago to check out the blues scene on the city’s South Side. He approached Muddy Waters after a show, asking for advice about how to get recorded. The blues legend suggested he contact Leonard Chess, founder of Chess Records. After meeting with Chess, Berry returned to St. Louis and cut a four-song demo. Ironically, it was not Berry's blues numbers that convinced Chess to sign Berry on a return visit but his high-spirited rewrite of a country number called "Ida Red."

The song had long been a standard in the country repertoire. Roy Acuff cut “Ida Red” in 1927, and Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys had a Top 10 country hit with "Ida Red Likes the Boogie" in 1950. Berry wrote a new set of lyrics – with verses about a high-speed drag race between a Ford and Cadillac, and a chorus chiding an unfaithful woman – and titled the song "Maybellene." Hall of Fame inductee Willie Dixon (whom Berry inducted) played standup bass, Jerome Green (of Bo Diddley’s band) shook maracas, and either Jasper Thomas or Ebby Hardy – sources differ on this point – played drums.

Berry recorded “Maybellene” on May 21, 1955 – a red-letter date in music history, as this song helped ignite the rock and roll revolution. Released in August, "Maybellene" went to Number Five in Billboard, making Berry a relative rarity for that time: a black artist with a major hit on the largely white pop charts. Asked why he crossed over with “Maybellene” and other hits while many other deserving artists were locked out, Berry replied: "I think it had a lot to do with my diction. The pop fan could understand what I was saying better than many other singers."

His success also had much to do with his knack for turning a phrase. With his witty and casually eloquent use of language, Berry described what it meant to be a teenager in the changing world of the Fifties. Whether describing the boredom of classroom-bound students in "School Day" ("Soon as three o'clock rolls around/You finally lay your burden down") or the liberating appeal of "Rock and Roll Music" ("It's got a backbeat/ You can't lose it"), Berry keenly observed and recorded that world with skillful ease. In his words, "Everything I wrote about wasn't about me, but about the people listening."

Accompanied by long-time piano player (and Hall of Fame inductee) Johnson and members of the Chess Records house band, including bassist Dixon, Berry wrote and performed rock and roll for the ages. To this day, the cream of Berry’s repertoire – which includes “Johnny B. Goode,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Rock and Roll Music” and “Roll Over Beethoven” – is required listening for any serious music fan and required learning for any serious rock musician. Berry gave rock and roll an archetypal character in "Johnny B. Goode.” “The character is more or less myself, although I wrote it intending it to be a song for Johnnie Johnson,” wrote Berry.

Berry was also responsible for one of rock’s most recognizable stage moves, the duckwalk. He introduced the duckwalk – kicking his right foot across the stage and dragging the left behind it, playing guitar all the while – during a 1956 concert in New York.

Seven more Top 40 hits followed “Maybellene” over the ensuing half-decade: “Roll Over Beethoven” (Number 29), “School Day” (Number Three), “Rock and Roll Music” (Number Eight), “Sweet Little Sixteen” (Number Two), “Johnny B. Goode (Number Eight), “Carol” (Number 18), and “Back in the U.S.A.” (Number 37). Berry also appeared in several rock and roll movies from the Fifties, including Rock, Rock, Rock!, Mister Rock and Roll and Go, Johnny, Go!

Berry’s first album, After School Session, was released in 1957. It was the second LP ever released by Chess Records – a testament to his success as a rock and roller on what had largely been a blues label. After School Session contained such classics as "School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell)," "Too Much Monkey Business," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" and "Havana Moon." Neither it nor its successors – One Dozen Berrys (1958), Chuck Berry Is On Top (1959), Rockin' At the Hops (1960), New Juke Box Hits (1961), Chuck Berry Twist (1962), re-released as More Chuck Berry) or Two Great Guitars (an album of instrumentals with Bo Diddley) – made Billboard's album charts, as rock and roll largely remained a singles medium during Berry’s heyday.

Indeed, singles were the best way for Berry’s teen fans to digest his output during what would subsequently be referred to as his “golden decade,” spanning 1955-1965. Berry’s albums mixed his rock and roll hits with the more sophisticated blues, ballads and instrumentals he enjoyed playing away from the spotlight. It’s worth noting that Berry was considerably older than the teenagers for whom he was writing rock and roll music. When “Sweet Little Sixteen” became a hit in 1958, he was nearly twice the age of the music-smitten adolescent he wrote the song about.

His repertoire – not only the hits, but lesser-known songs like "Little Queenie," “Around and Around,” “Come On” and "Let It Rock" – were devoured and mastered by an army eager apprentices in Britain, such as Keith Richards and John Lennon. Indeed, Berry’s repertoire of licks and lyrics from the Fifties and early Sixties paved the way for the British Invasion. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Animals and many other U.K. acts covered Berry’s songs while developing their own styles. The Stones continued to include Berry’s songs in their repertoire throughout their career. Even the Beach Boys, youthful architects of West Coast surf and pop songs, turned to Berry for inspiration. Their 1963 hit "Surfin' U.S.A." appropriated the melody and rhythm of "Sweet Little Sixteen." Berry successfully sued for copyright infringement and won a songwriting credit.

In 1966, Berry left Chess and signed with Mercury Records. His Mercury recordings included Live at the Fillmore Auditorium, with backing by the Steve Miller Band. Berry’s popularity was in decline at this time, as new forms of rock took hold, and there would be a seven-year break between hits. His Mercury output was plainly inferior to his work at Chess, and he returned to that label in 1970, hoping to reprise his earlier success there. The focus had shifted from singles to albums, and the long players Berry made during his second tenure at Chess – including Back Home, San Francisco Dues and Bio – rank among his best. The song “Tulane,” released as a single, successfully updated the fast-tongued storytelling style of his Fifties hits to a contemporary setting involving a hippie couple on the run from the law.

Berry became a fixture at rock festivals and rock and roll revival shows in the late Sixties and early Seventies, appealing to latter-day hippies and Fifties nostalgists. The most surprising moment in his career came in 1972, when he scored his only Number One pop hit, "My Ding-A-Ling." It was a risqué novelty song, initially recorded by Dave Bartholomew back in 1952 and first cut by Berry as “My Tambourine” on his 1968 album From St. Louis to Frisco. "My Ding-A-Ling" appeared on The London Chuck Berry Sessions. One side was quickly made in a London studio with Ian McLagan and Kenny Jones of the Faces and British guitarist Derek Griffiths, while the other contained songs from a February 1972 concert in Coventry, including "My Ding-A-Ling" and “Reelin’ & Rockin’” (which itself became a minor hit). The London Chuck Berry Sessions was his highest-charting album, reaching Number Eight, and his only gold album as well.

Berry’s songs had become so entrenched in the fabric of American popular culture that he didn't even tour with a band. Pianist Johnnie Johnson’s 30-year association with Berry ended in 1973. Berry traveled alone with a suitcase and guitar, requiring promoters to provide a backing band for each gig. His contract also spelled out the amps he wanted onstage and mandated full prepayment of his performance fee. His experiences in the music business had left him wary, and his business acumen made him shrewd. By traveling only with his guitar, he cut down on expenses and payroll. Moreover, it gave a lot of young musicians a chance to apprentice with a living legend. If you knew anything about rock and roll, you had to know how to play the songs of Chuck Berry. Musicians including Bruce Springsteen and Brownsville Station were among those who backed up the master.

In 1979, Berry performed at the White House and released the album Rock It on Atco Records. There have been several compilations and anthologies of Berry’s work during the CD era, but no newly recorded music has come from the rock and roll pioneer since Rock It.

Berry’s life has been fraught with occasional controversy and incarceration. As a young man, he served three years in prison for armed robbery. (He wrote the song “Thirty Days” about the experience.) In 1961, he was convicted on a morals charge and served two years in a federal penitentiary. After his release, Berry proved he had more classic songs left in him, including "Nadine (Is It You?), "No Particular Place to Go," "You Never Can Tell" and "Promised Land.” He also served a prison stint in 1979 for tax evasion.

The late Eighties witnessed a career renaissance for Berry. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1985 Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame that year as well. He was part of the first class inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. His presenter was Keith Richards, who cracked, "It's hard for me to induct Chuck Berry, because I lifted every lick he ever played!" The film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, a documentary about Berry’s life and times, appeared in 1987. Spearheaded by Richards and director Taylor Hackford, it culminated with a concert in St. Louis that reunited him with Johnnie Johnson.

Berry’s candid autobiography was published in 1987. He spent eight years writing the book. It contains these illuminating lines, which get to the heart of his uniqueness as a rock and roll stylist and indebtedness to those who influenced him: “The kind of music I liked then, thereafter, right now and forever, is the kind I heard when I was a teenager. So the guitar styles of Carl Hogen, T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian, and Elmore James, not to leave out many of my peers who I’ve heard on the road, must be the total of what is called Chuck Berry’s style.... As you know, and I believe it must be true, ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’ So don’t blame me for being first, just let it last.”

Berry has continued receiving numerous awards and honors into the 21st Century. In 2000, he received a Kennedy Center honor. In 2003, Rolling Stone named him number six on its list of the Greatest Guitarists of All Time. In 2011, a statue of Berry was erected on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. And in 2012, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honored Berry with its American Music Masters Award.

Chuck Berry - Oh Baby Doll - 1957

Chuck Berry (10/18/1926 - 03/18/2017)

Rock 'n' roll pioneer Chuck Berry dead at 90

Chuck Berry is the poet laureate of rock and roll. In the mid-Fifties, he took a fledgling idiom, born out of rhythm & blues and country & western, and gave it form and identity. A true original, Berry crafted many of rock and roll’s greatest riffs and married them to lyrics that shaped the rock and roll vernacular for generations. He has written numerous rock and roll classics that have been covered by multitudes of artists and stood the test of time. In all essential ways, he understood the power of rock and roll – how it worked, what it was about and who it was for.

While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Berry arguably did more than anyone else to put the pieces together. As rock journalist Dave Marsh wrote, “Chuck Berry is to rock and roll what Louis Armstrong is to jazz.” On “Maybellene” – Berry’s first single, released in 1955 – he played country & western guitar licks over a base of rhythm & blues. The distorted sound of Berry’s guitar captured the rough, untamed spirit of rock and roll. The song included a brief but scorching solo built around his trademark double-string guitar licks. It kicked off Berry’s career in style and paved the way for a steady stream of classics over the next decade.

Berry’s quick-witted, rapid-fire lyrics focused on cars, romance and rock and roll. He wrote for a teenage audience, reflecting their interests and attitudes in songs like “School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell)” and “Sweet Little Sixteen.” His propulsive, riff-driven music caught the spirit of a nation on the move in the postwar era, chasing the promise of the open road in fast cars. Of hearing “Maybellene” on the radio, Berry wrote, “There is no way to explain how you feel when you first hear your first recording for the first time in your first new car.”

During this high-spirited decade, Berry hailed America as a land of fun and opportunity. The mid-Fifties was a period of rising prosperity for the growing middle class, and the social landscape was slowly improving for African-Americans as the civil rights era dawned. In the lyrics for “Back in the U.S.A.,” written after returning from an Australian tour, Berry saluted such everyday pleasures as the drive-ins and corner cafes “where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day/Yeah, and a jukebox jumping with records like in the U.S.A.”

Berry was born in St. Louis in 1926. He got his first taste of the stage at 15, performing Jay McShann’s “Confessin’ the Blues” at a high school assembly. Berry played guitar, learning the basics from a neighborhood jazz guitarist named Ira Harris. He would also develop competence on piano, saxophone, bass and drums. He sat in with bands at clubs and parties, learning a variety of styles – jump blues, jazzy ballads, boogie-woogie and hillbilly music – that would form the backbone of his approach to rock and roll. Toward the end of 1952, he joined the Sir John Trio, which played at the Cosmopolitan Club in East St. Louis. Pianist Johnnie Johnson was the ostensible leader, but it was Berry who began stealing the show. During their sets of jazz and blues, he’d throw in an occasional “hillbilly” song. The sight of a black man singing white music appealed to a crowd that became progressively more integrated. This is where the essence of Berry’s act came together.

On a weekend in May 1955, Berry visited Chicago to check out the blues scene on the city’s South Side. He approached Muddy Waters after a show, asking for advice about how to get recorded. The blues legend suggested he contact Leonard Chess, founder of Chess Records. After meeting with Chess, Berry returned to St. Louis and cut a four-song demo. Ironically, it was not Berry's blues numbers that convinced Chess to sign Berry on a return visit but his high-spirited rewrite of a country number called "Ida Red."

The song had long been a standard in the country repertoire. Roy Acuff cut “Ida Red” in 1927, and Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys had a Top 10 country hit with "Ida Red Likes the Boogie" in 1950. Berry wrote a new set of lyrics – with verses about a high-speed drag race between a Ford and Cadillac, and a chorus chiding an unfaithful woman – and titled the song "Maybellene." Hall of Fame inductee Willie Dixon (whom Berry inducted) played standup bass, Jerome Green (of Bo Diddley’s band) shook maracas, and either Jasper Thomas or Ebby Hardy – sources differ on this point – played drums.

Berry recorded “Maybellene” on May 21, 1955 – a red-letter date in music history, as this song helped ignite the rock and roll revolution. Released in August, "Maybellene" went to Number Five in Billboard, making Berry a relative rarity for that time: a black artist with a major hit on the largely white pop charts. Asked why he crossed over with “Maybellene” and other hits while many other deserving artists were locked out, Berry replied: "I think it had a lot to do with my diction. The pop fan could understand what I was saying better than many other singers."

His success also had much to do with his knack for turning a phrase. With his witty and casually eloquent use of language, Berry described what it meant to be a teenager in the changing world of the Fifties. Whether describing the boredom of classroom-bound students in "School Day" ("Soon as three o'clock rolls around/You finally lay your burden down") or the liberating appeal of "Rock and Roll Music" ("It's got a backbeat/ You can't lose it"), Berry keenly observed and recorded that world with skillful ease. In his words, "Everything I wrote about wasn't about me, but about the people listening."

Accompanied by long-time piano player (and Hall of Fame inductee) Johnson and members of the Chess Records house band, including bassist Dixon, Berry wrote and performed rock and roll for the ages. To this day, the cream of Berry’s repertoire – which includes “Johnny B. Goode,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Rock and Roll Music” and “Roll Over Beethoven” – is required listening for any serious music fan and required learning for any serious rock musician. Berry gave rock and roll an archetypal character in "Johnny B. Goode.” “The character is more or less myself, although I wrote it intending it to be a song for Johnnie Johnson,” wrote Berry.

Berry was also responsible for one of rock’s most recognizable stage moves, the duckwalk. He introduced the duckwalk – kicking his right foot across the stage and dragging the left behind it, playing guitar all the while – during a 1956 concert in New York.

Seven more Top 40 hits followed “Maybellene” over the ensuing half-decade: “Roll Over Beethoven” (Number 29), “School Day” (Number Three), “Rock and Roll Music” (Number Eight), “Sweet Little Sixteen” (Number Two), “Johnny B. Goode (Number Eight), “Carol” (Number 18), and “Back in the U.S.A.” (Number 37). Berry also appeared in several rock and roll movies from the Fifties, including Rock, Rock, Rock!, Mister Rock and Roll and Go, Johnny, Go!

Berry’s first album, After School Session, was released in 1957. It was the second LP ever released by Chess Records – a testament to his success as a rock and roller on what had largely been a blues label. After School Session contained such classics as "School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell)," "Too Much Monkey Business," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" and "Havana Moon." Neither it nor its successors – One Dozen Berrys (1958), Chuck Berry Is On Top (1959), Rockin' At the Hops (1960), New Juke Box Hits (1961), Chuck Berry Twist (1962), re-released as More Chuck Berry) or Two Great Guitars (an album of instrumentals with Bo Diddley) – made Billboard's album charts, as rock and roll largely remained a singles medium during Berry’s heyday.

Indeed, singles were the best way for Berry’s teen fans to digest his output during what would subsequently be referred to as his “golden decade,” spanning 1955-1965. Berry’s albums mixed his rock and roll hits with the more sophisticated blues, ballads and instrumentals he enjoyed playing away from the spotlight. It’s worth noting that Berry was considerably older than the teenagers for whom he was writing rock and roll music. When “Sweet Little Sixteen” became a hit in 1958, he was nearly twice the age of the music-smitten adolescent he wrote the song about.

His repertoire – not only the hits, but lesser-known songs like "Little Queenie," “Around and Around,” “Come On” and "Let It Rock" – were devoured and mastered by an army eager apprentices in Britain, such as Keith Richards and John Lennon. Indeed, Berry’s repertoire of licks and lyrics from the Fifties and early Sixties paved the way for the British Invasion. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Animals and many other U.K. acts covered Berry’s songs while developing their own styles. The Stones continued to include Berry’s songs in their repertoire throughout their career. Even the Beach Boys, youthful architects of West Coast surf and pop songs, turned to Berry for inspiration. Their 1963 hit "Surfin' U.S.A." appropriated the melody and rhythm of "Sweet Little Sixteen." Berry successfully sued for copyright infringement and won a songwriting credit.

In 1966, Berry left Chess and signed with Mercury Records. His Mercury recordings included Live at the Fillmore Auditorium, with backing by the Steve Miller Band. Berry’s popularity was in decline at this time, as new forms of rock took hold, and there would be a seven-year break between hits. His Mercury output was plainly inferior to his work at Chess, and he returned to that label in 1970, hoping to reprise his earlier success there. The focus had shifted from singles to albums, and the long players Berry made during his second tenure at Chess – including Back Home, San Francisco Dues and Bio – rank among his best. The song “Tulane,” released as a single, successfully updated the fast-tongued storytelling style of his Fifties hits to a contemporary setting involving a hippie couple on the run from the law.

Berry became a fixture at rock festivals and rock and roll revival shows in the late Sixties and early Seventies, appealing to latter-day hippies and Fifties nostalgists. The most surprising moment in his career came in 1972, when he scored his only Number One pop hit, "My Ding-A-Ling." It was a risqué novelty song, initially recorded by Dave Bartholomew back in 1952 and first cut by Berry as “My Tambourine” on his 1968 album From St. Louis to Frisco. "My Ding-A-Ling" appeared on The London Chuck Berry Sessions. One side was quickly made in a London studio with Ian McLagan and Kenny Jones of the Faces and British guitarist Derek Griffiths, while the other contained songs from a February 1972 concert in Coventry, including "My Ding-A-Ling" and “Reelin’ & Rockin’” (which itself became a minor hit). The London Chuck Berry Sessions was his highest-charting album, reaching Number Eight, and his only gold album as well.

Berry’s songs had become so entrenched in the fabric of American popular culture that he didn't even tour with a band. Pianist Johnnie Johnson’s 30-year association with Berry ended in 1973. Berry traveled alone with a suitcase and guitar, requiring promoters to provide a backing band for each gig. His contract also spelled out the amps he wanted onstage and mandated full prepayment of his performance fee. His experiences in the music business had left him wary, and his business acumen made him shrewd. By traveling only with his guitar, he cut down on expenses and payroll. Moreover, it gave a lot of young musicians a chance to apprentice with a living legend. If you knew anything about rock and roll, you had to know how to play the songs of Chuck Berry. Musicians including Bruce Springsteen and Brownsville Station were among those who backed up the master.

In 1979, Berry performed at the White House and released the album Rock It on Atco Records. There have been several compilations and anthologies of Berry’s work during the CD era, but no newly recorded music has come from the rock and roll pioneer since Rock It.

Berry’s life has been fraught with occasional controversy and incarceration. As a young man, he served three years in prison for armed robbery. (He wrote the song “Thirty Days” about the experience.) In 1961, he was convicted on a morals charge and served two years in a federal penitentiary. After his release, Berry proved he had more classic songs left in him, including "Nadine (Is It You?), "No Particular Place to Go," "You Never Can Tell" and "Promised Land.” He also served a prison stint in 1979 for tax evasion.

The late Eighties witnessed a career renaissance for Berry. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1985 Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame that year as well. He was part of the first class inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. His presenter was Keith Richards, who cracked, "It's hard for me to induct Chuck Berry, because I lifted every lick he ever played!" The film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, a documentary about Berry’s life and times, appeared in 1987. Spearheaded by Richards and director Taylor Hackford, it culminated with a concert in St. Louis that reunited him with Johnnie Johnson.

Berry’s candid autobiography was published in 1987. He spent eight years writing the book. It contains these illuminating lines, which get to the heart of his uniqueness as a rock and roll stylist and indebtedness to those who influenced him: “The kind of music I liked then, thereafter, right now and forever, is the kind I heard when I was a teenager. So the guitar styles of Carl Hogen, T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian, and Elmore James, not to leave out many of my peers who I’ve heard on the road, must be the total of what is called Chuck Berry’s style.... As you know, and I believe it must be true, ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’ So don’t blame me for being first, just let it last.”

Berry has continued receiving numerous awards and honors into the 21st Century. In 2000, he received a Kennedy Center honor. In 2003, Rolling Stone named him number six on its list of the Greatest Guitarists of All Time. In 2011, a statue of Berry was erected on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. And in 2012, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honored Berry with its American Music Masters Award. And Berry Continues to do his monthly performances at Blueberry Hill in St. Louis.

Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page - Layla

Yardbirds members Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton And Jimmy Page performing Eric Clapton's (Derek And The Dominos) hit "Layla" at the ARMS Concert 1983.

Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Ron Wood, Joe Perry, Flea and Metallica - The Train Kept A-Rollin´

During 2009 Rock n Roll Hall of Fame 25th Annivrsary Concert. Amazing!

Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page - Beck's Bolero and Immigrant Song

Jeff Beck is one of a relative handful of musicians who have been twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – with the Yardbirds and as a solo artist and bandleader.

Below is the performance made by Jeff and Jimmy Page during 2009 induction.

ELVIS PRESLEY - Mystery Train

"Mystery Train" is a song recorded by American blues musician Junior Parker in 1953. Considered a blues standard, Parker, billed as "Little Junior's Blue Flames", recorded the song for producer/Sun Records owner Sam Phillips and it was released on the Sun label. The song was written by Junior Parker (aka Herman Parker), with a credit later given to Phillips.

Elvis Presley's version of "Mystery Train" was first released on August 20, 1955 as the B-side of "I Forgot to Remember to Forget" (Sun 223). Presley's version would be ranked #77 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list in 2003. It was again produced by Sam Phillips at Sun Studios, and featured Presley on vocals and rhythm guitar, Scotty Moore on lead guitar, and Bill Black on bass.

Elvis Presley - Suspicious Mind

"Suspicious Minds" is a song written by American songwriter Mark James. After James' recording failed commercially, the song was handed to Elvis Presley by producer Chips Moman, becoming a number one song in 1969, and one of the most notable hits of Presley's career. "Suspicious Minds" was widely regarded as the single that returned Presley's career success, following his '68 Comeback Special. It was his seventeenth and last number-one single in the United States. Rolling Stone later ranked it No. 91 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Session guitarist Reggie Young played on both the James and Presley versions.

Elvis Presley - In the Ghetto

"In the Ghetto" (originally titled "The Vicious Circle") is a song written by Mac Davis and made famous by Elvis Presley, who had a major comeback hit with it in 1969. It was released in 1969 as a 45 rpm single with "Any Day Now" as the flip side. It was recorded during Presley's session in the American Sound Studio in Memphis, Tennessee. It was Presley's first creative recording session since the '68 Comeback. Other hits recorded at this session were "Suspicious Minds", "Kentucky Rain", and "Don't Cry Daddy".

The song was Presley's first Top 10 hit in the US in four years, peaking at number 3, and his first UK Top 10 hit in three years, peaking at #2. It hit #1 on Cashbox. It was a number 1 hit in Germany, Ireland, Norway, Australia and New Zealand.

Mick Jagger and Tina Turner - It's Only Rock'n'Roll

Mick Jagger and  Tina Turner prforming It's Only Rock'n'Roll.
 

Chuck Berry - Sweet Little Sixteen

Chuck Berry (vocals, guitar; born 10/18/26)

Chuck Berry is the poet laureate of rock and roll. In the mid-Fifties, he took a fledgling idiom, born out of rhythm & blues and country & western, and gave it form and identity. A true original, Berry crafted many of rock and roll’s greatest riffs and married them to lyrics that shaped the rock and roll vernacular for generations. He has written numerous rock and roll classics that have been covered by multitudes of artists and stood the test of time. In all essential ways, he understood the power of rock and roll – how it worked, what it was about and who it was for.

While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Berry arguably did more than anyone else to put the pieces together. As rock journalist Dave Marsh wrote, “Chuck Berry is to rock and roll what Louis Armstrong is to jazz.” On “Maybellene” – Berry’s first single, released in 1955 – he played country & western guitar licks over a base of rhythm & blues. The distorted sound of Berry’s guitar captured the rough, untamed spirit of rock and roll. The song included a brief but scorching solo built around his trademark double-string guitar licks. It kicked off Berry’s career in style and paved the way for a steady stream of classics over the next decade.

Berry’s quick-witted, rapid-fire lyrics focused on cars, romance and rock and roll. He wrote for a teenage audience, reflecting their interests and attitudes in songs like “School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell)” and “Sweet Little Sixteen.” His propulsive, riff-driven music caught the spirit of a nation on the move in the postwar era, chasing the promise of the open road in fast cars. Of hearing “Maybellene” on the radio, Berry wrote, “There is no way to explain how you feel when you first hear your first recording for the first time in your first new car.”

During this high-spirited decade, Berry hailed America as a land of fun and opportunity. The mid-Fifties was a period of rising prosperity for the growing middle class, and the social landscape was slowly improving for African-Americans as the civil rights era dawned. In the lyrics for “Back in the U.S.A.,” written after returning from an Australian tour, Berry saluted such everyday pleasures as the drive-ins and corner cafes “where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day/Yeah, and a jukebox jumping with records like in the U.S.A.”

Berry was born in St. Louis in 1926. He got his first taste of the stage at 15, performing Jay McShann’s “Confessin’ the Blues” at a high school assembly. Berry played guitar, learning the basics from a neighborhood jazz guitarist named Ira Harris. He would also develop competence on piano, saxophone, bass and drums. He sat in with bands at clubs and parties, learning a variety of styles – jump blues, jazzy ballads, boogie-woogie and hillbilly music – that would form the backbone of his approach to rock and roll. Toward the end of 1952, he joined the Sir John Trio, which played at the Cosmopolitan Club in East St. Louis. Pianist Johnnie Johnson was the ostensible leader, but it was Berry who began stealing the show. During their sets of jazz and blues, he’d throw in an occasional “hillbilly” song. The sight of a black man singing white music appealed to a crowd that became progressively more integrated. This is where the essence of Berry’s act came together.

On a weekend in May 1955, Berry visited Chicago to check out the blues scene on the city’s South Side. He approached Muddy Waters after a show, asking for advice about how to get recorded. The blues legend suggested he contact Leonard Chess, founder of Chess Records. After meeting with Chess, Berry returned to St. Louis and cut a four-song demo. Ironically, it was not Berry's blues numbers that convinced Chess to sign Berry on a return visit but his high-spirited rewrite of a country number called "Ida Red."

The song had long been a standard in the country repertoire. Roy Acuff cut “Ida Red” in 1927, and Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys had a Top 10 country hit with "Ida Red Likes the Boogie" in 1950. Berry wrote a new set of lyrics – with verses about a high-speed drag race between a Ford and Cadillac, and a chorus chiding an unfaithful woman – and titled the song "Maybellene." Hall of Fame inductee Willie Dixon (whom Berry inducted) played standup bass, Jerome Green (of Bo Diddley’s band) shook maracas, and either Jasper Thomas or Ebby Hardy – sources differ on this point – played drums.

Berry recorded “Maybellene” on May 21, 1955 – a red-letter date in music history, as this song helped ignite the rock and roll revolution. Released in August, "Maybellene" went to Number Five in Billboard, making Berry a relative rarity for that time: a black artist with a major hit on the largely white pop charts. Asked why he crossed over with “Maybellene” and other hits while many other deserving artists were locked out, Berry replied: "I think it had a lot to do with my diction. The pop fan could understand what I was saying better than many other singers."

His success also had much to do with his knack for turning a phrase. With his witty and casually eloquent use of language, Berry described what it meant to be a teenager in the changing world of the Fifties. Whether describing the boredom of classroom-bound students in "School Day" ("Soon as three o'clock rolls around/You finally lay your burden down") or the liberating appeal of "Rock and Roll Music" ("It's got a backbeat/ You can't lose it"), Berry keenly observed and recorded that world with skillful ease. In his words, "Everything I wrote about wasn't about me, but about the people listening."

Accompanied by long-time piano player (and Hall of Fame inductee) Johnson and members of the Chess Records house band, including bassist Dixon, Berry wrote and performed rock and roll for the ages. To this day, the cream of Berry’s repertoire – which includes “Johnny B. Goode,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Rock and Roll Music” and “Roll Over Beethoven” – is required listening for any serious music fan and required learning for any serious rock musician. Berry gave rock and roll an archetypal character in "Johnny B. Goode.” “The character is more or less myself, although I wrote it intending it to be a song for Johnnie Johnson,” wrote Berry.

Berry was also responsible for one of rock’s most recognizable stage moves, the duckwalk. He introduced the duckwalk – kicking his right foot across the stage and dragging the left behind it, playing guitar all the while – during a 1956 concert in New York.

Seven more Top 40 hits followed “Maybellene” over the ensuing half-decade: “Roll Over Beethoven” (Number 29), “School Day” (Number Three), “Rock and Roll Music” (Number Eight), “Sweet Little Sixteen” (Number Two), “Johnny B. Goode (Number Eight), “Carol” (Number 18), and “Back in the U.S.A.” (Number 37). Berry also appeared in several rock and roll movies from the Fifties, including Rock, Rock, Rock!, Mister Rock and Roll and Go, Johnny, Go!

Berry’s first album, After School Session, was released in 1957. It was the second LP ever released by Chess Records – a testament to his success as a rock and roller on what had largely been a blues label. After School Session contained such classics as "School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell)," "Too Much Monkey Business," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" and "Havana Moon." Neither it nor its successors – One Dozen Berrys (1958), Chuck Berry Is On Top (1959), Rockin' At the Hops (1960), New Juke Box Hits (1961), Chuck Berry Twist (1962), re-released as More Chuck Berry) or Two Great Guitars (an album of instrumentals with Bo Diddley) – made Billboard's album charts, as rock and roll largely remained a singles medium during Berry’s heyday.

Indeed, singles were the best way for Berry’s teen fans to digest his output during what would subsequently be referred to as his “golden decade,” spanning 1955-1965. Berry’s albums mixed his rock and roll hits with the more sophisticated blues, ballads and instrumentals he enjoyed playing away from the spotlight. It’s worth noting that Berry was considerably older than the teenagers for whom he was writing rock and roll music. When “Sweet Little Sixteen” became a hit in 1958, he was nearly twice the age of the music-smitten adolescent he wrote the song about.

His repertoire – not only the hits, but lesser-known songs like "Little Queenie," “Around and Around,” “Come On” and "Let It Rock" – were devoured and mastered by an army eager apprentices in Britain, such as Keith Richards and John Lennon. Indeed, Berry’s repertoire of licks and lyrics from the Fifties and early Sixties paved the way for the British Invasion. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Animals and many other U.K. acts covered Berry’s songs while developing their own styles. The Stones continued to include Berry’s songs in their repertoire throughout their career. Even the Beach Boys, youthful architects of West Coast surf and pop songs, turned to Berry for inspiration. Their 1963 hit "Surfin' U.S.A." appropriated the melody and rhythm of "Sweet Little Sixteen." Berry successfully sued for copyright infringement and won a songwriting credit.

In 1966, Berry left Chess and signed with Mercury Records. His Mercury recordings included Live at the Fillmore Auditorium, with backing by the Steve Miller Band. Berry’s popularity was in decline at this time, as new forms of rock took hold, and there would be a seven-year break between hits. His Mercury output was plainly inferior to his work at Chess, and he returned to that label in 1970, hoping to reprise his earlier success there. The focus had shifted from singles to albums, and the long players Berry made during his second tenure at Chess – including Back Home, San Francisco Dues and Bio – rank among his best. The song “Tulane,” released as a single, successfully updated the fast-tongued storytelling style of his Fifties hits to a contemporary setting involving a hippie couple on the run from the law.

Berry became a fixture at rock festivals and rock and roll revival shows in the late Sixties and early Seventies, appealing to latter-day hippies and Fifties nostalgists. The most surprising moment in his career came in 1972, when he scored his only Number One pop hit, "My Ding-A-Ling." It was a risqué novelty song, initially recorded by Dave Bartholomew back in 1952 and first cut by Berry as “My Tambourine” on his 1968 album From St. Louis to Frisco. "My Ding-A-Ling" appeared on The London Chuck Berry Sessions. One side was quickly made in a London studio with Ian McLagan and Kenny Jones of the Faces and British guitarist Derek Griffiths, while the other contained songs from a February 1972 concert in Coventry, including "My Ding-A-Ling" and “Reelin’ & Rockin’” (which itself became a minor hit). The London Chuck Berry Sessions was his highest-charting album, reaching Number Eight, and his only gold album as well.

Berry’s songs had become so entrenched in the fabric of American popular culture that he didn't even tour with a band. Pianist Johnnie Johnson’s 30-year association with Berry ended in 1973. Berry traveled alone with a suitcase and guitar, requiring promoters to provide a backing band for each gig. His contract also spelled out the amps he wanted onstage and mandated full prepayment of his performance fee. His experiences in the music business had left him wary, and his business acumen made him shrewd. By traveling only with his guitar, he cut down on expenses and payroll. Moreover, it gave a lot of young musicians a chance to apprentice with a living legend. If you knew anything about rock and roll, you had to know how to play the songs of Chuck Berry. Musicians including Bruce Springsteen and Brownsville Station were among those who backed up the master.

In 1979, Berry performed at the White House and released the album Rock It on Atco Records. There have been several compilations and anthologies of Berry’s work during the CD era, but no newly recorded music has come from the rock and roll pioneer since Rock It.

Berry’s life has been fraught with occasional controversy and incarceration. As a young man, he served three years in prison for armed robbery. (He wrote the song “Thirty Days” about the experience.) In 1961, he was convicted on a morals charge and served two years in a federal penitentiary. After his release, Berry proved he had more classic songs left in him, including "Nadine (Is It You?), "No Particular Place to Go," "You Never Can Tell" and "Promised Land.” He also served a prison stint in 1979 for tax evasion.

The late Eighties witnessed a career renaissance for Berry. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1985 Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame that year as well. He was part of the first class inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. His presenter was Keith Richards, who cracked, "It's hard for me to induct Chuck Berry, because I lifted every lick he ever played!" The film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, a documentary about Berry’s life and times, appeared in 1987. Spearheaded by Richards and director Taylor Hackford, it culminated with a concert in St. Louis that reunited him with Johnnie Johnson.

Berry’s candid autobiography was published in 1987. He spent eight years writing the book. It contains these illuminating lines, which get to the heart of his uniqueness as a rock and roll stylist and indebtedness to those who influenced him: “The kind of music I liked then, thereafter, right now and forever, is the kind I heard when I was a teenager. So the guitar styles of Carl Hogen, T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian, and Elmore James, not to leave out many of my peers who I’ve heard on the road, must be the total of what is called Chuck Berry’s style.... As you know, and I believe it must be true, ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’ So don’t blame me for being first, just let it last.”

Berry has continued receiving numerous awards and honors into the 21st Century. In 2000, he received a Kennedy Center honor. In 2003, Rolling Stone named him number six on its list of the Greatest Guitarists of All Time. In 2011, a statue of Berry was erected on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. And in 2012, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honored Berry with its American Music Masters Award. And Berry Continues to do his monthly performances at Blueberry Hill in St. Louis.

Chuck Berry - My Ding-A-Ling

Chuck Berry (vocals, guitar; born 10/18/26)

Chuck Berry is the poet laureate of rock and roll. In the mid-Fifties, he took a fledgling idiom, born out of rhythm & blues and country & western, and gave it form and identity. A true original, Berry crafted many of rock and roll’s greatest riffs and married them to lyrics that shaped the rock and roll vernacular for generations. He has written numerous rock and roll classics that have been covered by multitudes of artists and stood the test of time. In all essential ways, he understood the power of rock and roll – how it worked, what it was about and who it was for.

While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Berry arguably did more than anyone else to put the pieces together. As rock journalist Dave Marsh wrote, “Chuck Berry is to rock and roll what Louis Armstrong is to jazz.” On “Maybellene” – Berry’s first single, released in 1955 – he played country & western guitar licks over a base of rhythm & blues. The distorted sound of Berry’s guitar captured the rough, untamed spirit of rock and roll. The song included a brief but scorching solo built around his trademark double-string guitar licks. It kicked off Berry’s career in style and paved the way for a steady stream of classics over the next decade.

Berry’s quick-witted, rapid-fire lyrics focused on cars, romance and rock and roll. He wrote for a teenage audience, reflecting their interests and attitudes in songs like “School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell)” and “Sweet Little Sixteen.” His propulsive, riff-driven music caught the spirit of a nation on the move in the postwar era, chasing the promise of the open road in fast cars. Of hearing “Maybellene” on the radio, Berry wrote, “There is no way to explain how you feel when you first hear your first recording for the first time in your first new car.”

During this high-spirited decade, Berry hailed America as a land of fun and opportunity. The mid-Fifties was a period of rising prosperity for the growing middle class, and the social landscape was slowly improving for African-Americans as the civil rights era dawned. In the lyrics for “Back in the U.S.A.,” written after returning from an Australian tour, Berry saluted such everyday pleasures as the drive-ins and corner cafes “where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day/Yeah, and a jukebox jumping with records like in the U.S.A.”

Berry was born in St. Louis in 1926. He got his first taste of the stage at 15, performing Jay McShann’s “Confessin’ the Blues” at a high school assembly. Berry played guitar, learning the basics from a neighborhood jazz guitarist named Ira Harris. He would also develop competence on piano, saxophone, bass and drums. He sat in with bands at clubs and parties, learning a variety of styles – jump blues, jazzy ballads, boogie-woogie and hillbilly music – that would form the backbone of his approach to rock and roll. Toward the end of 1952, he joined the Sir John Trio, which played at the Cosmopolitan Club in East St. Louis. Pianist Johnnie Johnson was the ostensible leader, but it was Berry who began stealing the show. During their sets of jazz and blues, he’d throw in an occasional “hillbilly” song. The sight of a black man singing white music appealed to a crowd that became progressively more integrated. This is where the essence of Berry’s act came together.

On a weekend in May 1955, Berry visited Chicago to check out the blues scene on the city’s South Side. He approached Muddy Waters after a show, asking for advice about how to get recorded. The blues legend suggested he contact Leonard Chess, founder of Chess Records. After meeting with Chess, Berry returned to St. Louis and cut a four-song demo. Ironically, it was not Berry's blues numbers that convinced Chess to sign Berry on a return visit but his high-spirited rewrite of a country number called "Ida Red."

The song had long been a standard in the country repertoire. Roy Acuff cut “Ida Red” in 1927, and Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys had a Top 10 country hit with "Ida Red Likes the Boogie" in 1950. Berry wrote a new set of lyrics – with verses about a high-speed drag race between a Ford and Cadillac, and a chorus chiding an unfaithful woman – and titled the song "Maybellene." Hall of Fame inductee Willie Dixon (whom Berry inducted) played standup bass, Jerome Green (of Bo Diddley’s band) shook maracas, and either Jasper Thomas or Ebby Hardy – sources differ on this point – played drums.

Berry recorded “Maybellene” on May 21, 1955 – a red-letter date in music history, as this song helped ignite the rock and roll revolution. Released in August, "Maybellene" went to Number Five in Billboard, making Berry a relative rarity for that time: a black artist with a major hit on the largely white pop charts. Asked why he crossed over with “Maybellene” and other hits while many other deserving artists were locked out, Berry replied: "I think it had a lot to do with my diction. The pop fan could understand what I was saying better than many other singers."

His success also had much to do with his knack for turning a phrase. With his witty and casually eloquent use of language, Berry described what it meant to be a teenager in the changing world of the Fifties. Whether describing the boredom of classroom-bound students in "School Day" ("Soon as three o'clock rolls around/You finally lay your burden down") or the liberating appeal of "Rock and Roll Music" ("It's got a backbeat/ You can't lose it"), Berry keenly observed and recorded that world with skillful ease. In his words, "Everything I wrote about wasn't about me, but about the people listening."

Accompanied by long-time piano player (and Hall of Fame inductee) Johnson and members of the Chess Records house band, including bassist Dixon, Berry wrote and performed rock and roll for the ages. To this day, the cream of Berry’s repertoire – which includes “Johnny B. Goode,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Rock and Roll Music” and “Roll Over Beethoven” – is required listening for any serious music fan and required learning for any serious rock musician. Berry gave rock and roll an archetypal character in "Johnny B. Goode.” “The character is more or less myself, although I wrote it intending it to be a song for Johnnie Johnson,” wrote Berry.

Berry was also responsible for one of rock’s most recognizable stage moves, the duckwalk. He introduced the duckwalk – kicking his right foot across the stage and dragging the left behind it, playing guitar all the while – during a 1956 concert in New York.

Seven more Top 40 hits followed “Maybellene” over the ensuing half-decade: “Roll Over Beethoven” (Number 29), “School Day” (Number Three), “Rock and Roll Music” (Number Eight), “Sweet Little Sixteen” (Number Two), “Johnny B. Goode (Number Eight), “Carol” (Number 18), and “Back in the U.S.A.” (Number 37). Berry also appeared in several rock and roll movies from the Fifties, including Rock, Rock, Rock!, Mister Rock and Roll and Go, Johnny, Go!

Berry’s first album, After School Session, was released in 1957. It was the second LP ever released by Chess Records – a testament to his success as a rock and roller on what had largely been a blues label. After School Session contained such classics as "School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell)," "Too Much Monkey Business," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" and "Havana Moon." Neither it nor its successors – One Dozen Berrys (1958), Chuck Berry Is On Top (1959), Rockin' At the Hops (1960), New Juke Box Hits (1961), Chuck Berry Twist (1962), re-released as More Chuck Berry) or Two Great Guitars (an album of instrumentals with Bo Diddley) – made Billboard's album charts, as rock and roll largely remained a singles medium during Berry’s heyday.

Indeed, singles were the best way for Berry’s teen fans to digest his output during what would subsequently be referred to as his “golden decade,” spanning 1955-1965. Berry’s albums mixed his rock and roll hits with the more sophisticated blues, ballads and instrumentals he enjoyed playing away from the spotlight. It’s worth noting that Berry was considerably older than the teenagers for whom he was writing rock and roll music. When “Sweet Little Sixteen” became a hit in 1958, he was nearly twice the age of the music-smitten adolescent he wrote the song about.

His repertoire – not only the hits, but lesser-known songs like "Little Queenie," “Around and Around,” “Come On” and "Let It Rock" – were devoured and mastered by an army eager apprentices in Britain, such as Keith Richards and John Lennon. Indeed, Berry’s repertoire of licks and lyrics from the Fifties and early Sixties paved the way for the British Invasion. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Animals and many other U.K. acts covered Berry’s songs while developing their own styles. The Stones continued to include Berry’s songs in their repertoire throughout their career. Even the Beach Boys, youthful architects of West Coast surf and pop songs, turned to Berry for inspiration. Their 1963 hit "Surfin' U.S.A." appropriated the melody and rhythm of "Sweet Little Sixteen." Berry successfully sued for copyright infringement and won a songwriting credit.

In 1966, Berry left Chess and signed with Mercury Records. His Mercury recordings included Live at the Fillmore Auditorium, with backing by the Steve Miller Band. Berry’s popularity was in decline at this time, as new forms of rock took hold, and there would be a seven-year break between hits. His Mercury output was plainly inferior to his work at Chess, and he returned to that label in 1970, hoping to reprise his earlier success there. The focus had shifted from singles to albums, and the long players Berry made during his second tenure at Chess – including Back Home, San Francisco Dues and Bio – rank among his best. The song “Tulane,” released as a single, successfully updated the fast-tongued storytelling style of his Fifties hits to a contemporary setting involving a hippie couple on the run from the law.

Berry became a fixture at rock festivals and rock and roll revival shows in the late Sixties and early Seventies, appealing to latter-day hippies and Fifties nostalgists. The most surprising moment in his career came in 1972, when he scored his only Number One pop hit, "My Ding-A-Ling." It was a risqué novelty song, initially recorded by Dave Bartholomew back in 1952 and first cut by Berry as “My Tambourine” on his 1968 album From St. Louis to Frisco. "My Ding-A-Ling" appeared on The London Chuck Berry Sessions. One side was quickly made in a London studio with Ian McLagan and Kenny Jones of the Faces and British guitarist Derek Griffiths, while the other contained songs from a February 1972 concert in Coventry, including "My Ding-A-Ling" and “Reelin’ & Rockin’” (which itself became a minor hit). The London Chuck Berry Sessions was his highest-charting album, reaching Number Eight, and his only gold album as well.

Berry’s songs had become so entrenched in the fabric of American popular culture that he didn't even tour with a band. Pianist Johnnie Johnson’s 30-year association with Berry ended in 1973. Berry traveled alone with a suitcase and guitar, requiring promoters to provide a backing band for each gig. His contract also spelled out the amps he wanted onstage and mandated full prepayment of his performance fee. His experiences in the music business had left him wary, and his business acumen made him shrewd. By traveling only with his guitar, he cut down on expenses and payroll. Moreover, it gave a lot of young musicians a chance to apprentice with a living legend. If you knew anything about rock and roll, you had to know how to play the songs of Chuck Berry. Musicians including Bruce Springsteen and Brownsville Station were among those who backed up the master.

In 1979, Berry performed at the White House and released the album Rock It on Atco Records. There have been several compilations and anthologies of Berry’s work during the CD era, but no newly recorded music has come from the rock and roll pioneer since Rock It.

Berry’s life has been fraught with occasional controversy and incarceration. As a young man, he served three years in prison for armed robbery. (He wrote the song “Thirty Days” about the experience.) In 1961, he was convicted on a morals charge and served two years in a federal penitentiary. After his release, Berry proved he had more classic songs left in him, including "Nadine (Is It You?), "No Particular Place to Go," "You Never Can Tell" and "Promised Land.” He also served a prison stint in 1979 for tax evasion.

The late Eighties witnessed a career renaissance for Berry. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1985 Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame that year as well. He was part of the first class inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. His presenter was Keith Richards, who cracked, "It's hard for me to induct Chuck Berry, because I lifted every lick he ever played!" The film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, a documentary about Berry’s life and times, appeared in 1987. Spearheaded by Richards and director Taylor Hackford, it culminated with a concert in St. Louis that reunited him with Johnnie Johnson.

Berry’s candid autobiography was published in 1987. He spent eight years writing the book. It contains these illuminating lines, which get to the heart of his uniqueness as a rock and roll stylist and indebtedness to those who influenced him: “The kind of music I liked then, thereafter, right now and forever, is the kind I heard when I was a teenager. So the guitar styles of Carl Hogen, T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian, and Elmore James, not to leave out many of my peers who I’ve heard on the road, must be the total of what is called Chuck Berry’s style.... As you know, and I believe it must be true, ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’ So don’t blame me for being first, just let it last.”

Berry has continued receiving numerous awards and honors into the 21st Century. In 2000, he received a Kennedy Center honor. In 2003, Rolling Stone named him number six on its list of the Greatest Guitarists of All Time. In 2011, a statue of Berry was erected on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. And in 2012, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum honored Berry with its American Music Masters Award. And Berry Continues to do his monthly performances at Blueberry Hill in St. Louis.

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup - Katie Mae

Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, one of the most prominent blues recording artists of the 1940s, was born on his grandparents' land in Forest on August 24, 1905. After Elvis Presley recorded three Crudup songs in the 1950s, Crudup became known as “The Father of Rock 'n' Roll.” Despite the commercial success of his songs, Crudup was never fairly paid for the music he composed and recorded, and had to work as a laborer or bus driver to support his family. He died on March 28, 1974.

Crudup was one of America's top-selling blues artists long before Elvis Presley, Elton John, Rod Stewart, and other pop stars began recording his songs. But like many other performers who had little education and little familiarity with the music business or copyright law, Crudup fell victim to exploitation. Only after his death did his heirs finally succeed in securing his copyrights and long-overdue royalties.

Crudup, who grew up singing spirituals, did not start playing guitar until he was in his thirties. In 1941, while playing on the streets in Chicago, he was offered a chance to record for RCA Victor's Bluebird label. His unique sound and memorable lyrics caught on with record buyers, and he continued to record for RCA until 1954. His best known records included “Rock Me Mama,” “Mean Old 'Frisco Blues,” and three that were covered by Presley: “That's All Right,” “My Baby Left Me,” and “So Glad You're Mine.” Crudup rarely played concerts or theaters until the blues revival of the 1960s, but he was a juke joint favorite in Mississippi, where he performed with Elmore James, Sonny Boy Williamson, and locals such as George Lee, Odell Lay, and Clyde Lay. In Forest he played dance halls and cafes where both blacks and whites attended despite segregation policies of the time. He stacked lumber, picked cotton, and sold bootleg liquor, and finally started his own business transporting migrant workers between Florida and Virginia after he left Forest in the mid-1950s. He recorded in later years for the Fire and Delmark labels, but remained a working man who never depended on music to survive. His sons James, Jonas, and George formed their own band in Florida and later recorded a CD as the Crudup Brothers. A nephew, Robert Earl “Little Jr.” Crudup, also launched a performing career in Oakland, California, in the 1980s.

James “T-Model” Ford, another self-taught Forest musician, also took up guitar late in life (in his fifties). Ford, born June 20, 1924, was a laborer, logger, and truck driver before he became a bluesman in the Delta. In the 1990s his CDs on the Oxford-based Fat Possum label enabled him to start touring the country while maintaining a performing base at nightspots near his home in Greenville.

Another former Forest resident, Ruben Hughes, was honored with a resolution from the Mississippi Legislature in 2002 for his work in radio. Hughes, born Sept. 9, 1938, got his first job as a blues deejay on WMAG in Forest at the age of sixteen. He broadcast on several stations before he founded WGNL in Greenwood in 1987. Hughes recalled working with Arthur Crudup on a Forest poultry farm in the early 1950s.

content © Mississippi Blues Commission

Blue Suede Shoes - World Rock Day

Let´s celebrate the World Rock Day!

"Blue Suede Shoes" is a rock and roll standard written and first recorded by Carl Perkins in 1955 and is considered one of the first rockabilly (rock and roll) records and incorporated elements of blues, country and pop music of the time. Perkins' original version of the song was on the Cashbox Best Selling Singles list for 16 weeks, and spent 2 weeks in the No. 2 position. Elvis Presley performed his version of the song three different times on national television. It was also recorded by Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran among many others.

Today we present Blue Suede Shoes amazing version performed in an awesome jam session with nothing more than Stray Cats, Eddie Van Halen, Steve Miller, B B King, Les Paul, David Gilmour, Stanley Jordan, Jon Hammer and Waylon Jennings.

Tina Turner & Chuck Berry - Rock n Roll Music

Let's celebrate! Today we're publishing our 1000th post. Long live Blues, Rock'n'Roll, Classic Rock, Progressive and all good music around the world!

"Rock and Roll Music" is a 1957 hit single written and recorded by rock and roll icon Chuck Berry. The song has been widely covered, and is recognized as one of Berry's most popular and enduring compositions. In the fall of 1957, the song reached #6 on Billboard magazine's R&B Singles chart and #8 on the Hot 100 chart.

Elvis Presley - Wooden Heart

"Wooden Heart" ("Muss i denn" lit. Must I then) is a song best known for its use in the 1960 Elvis Presley film G.I. Blues. The song was a hit single for Presley in the UK Singles Chart, making No. 1 for six weeks there in March and April 1961,but was not released on a single in the United States until November 1964, where it was the B-side to "Blue Christmas". Presley performed the song live during his Dinner Show concert at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas in 1975. The recording is available on the Elvis Presley live album, Dinner At Eight.

"Wooden Heart", created by Fred Wise, Ben Weisman, Kay Twomey and German bandleader Bert Kaempfert, was based on a German folk song by Friedrich Silcher, "Muss i' denn zum Städtele hinaus", originating from the Rems Valley in Württemberg, Southwest Germany. "Wooden Heart" features several lines from the original folk song, written in the German Swabian dialect, spoken in Württemberg. Marlene Dietrich recorded a version of the song sometime before 1958, pre-dating Presley, in the original German language, which appears as a B-side on a 1959 version of her single "Lili Marlene"', released by Philips in association with Columbia Records.The Elvis Presley version was published by Gladys Music, Elvis Presley's publishing company. Bobby Vinton recorded his version in 1975 with those lines translated into Polish.

The Elvis Presley version featured two parts in German, the first one is the first four lines of "Muss i' denn zum Städtele hinaus", whereas the second part appears towards the end and is based on a translation of the English version (therefore not appearing in the original German folk lyrics). This part being "Sei mir gut, sei mir gut, sei mir wie du wirklich sollst, wie du wirklich sollst..." This literally means "Be good to me, Be good to me, Be to me how you really should, How you really should..."

Legends of Rock’n’Roll

Gran Finale from Legends of Rock’n’Roll concert at Rome in 1989. Performing together for the eternity we have: Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Fats Domino, B.B. King, Ray Charles and James Brown.

George Harrison - While My Guitar Gently Weeps

In his most obvious contribution to music as lead guitarist for the Beatles, George Harrison provided the band with a lyrical style of playing in which every note mattered. Later on, as a songwriter with the Beatles and subsequently as a solo artist, Harrison used his celebrity and his musical sensibilities to try raising the awareness of millions of listeners about issues much bigger than music, especially the life of the spirit, and the living (and dying) situations of people in parts of the world that not a lot of Westerners usually thought about. And yet, for all of that, and a journey through life that took him to musical horizons he scarcely could have imagined at his start in Liverpool, Harrison was also one of the humblest of superstars -- in his last decade, he still preferred to describe himself as "just an old skiffle man."

George Harrison was one of millions of young Britons inspired to take up the guitar by British skiffle king Lonnie Donegan's recording of "Rock Island Line." But he had more dedication than most, and with the encouragement of a slightly older school friend, Paul McCartney, he advanced quickly in his command of the instrument. Harrison developed his technique painstakingly over several years, learning everything he could from the records of Carl Perkins, Duane Eddy, Chet Atkins, Buddy Holly, and Eddie Cochran. At 15, he was allowed to sit in with the Quarrymen, the Liverpool group founded by John Lennon of which McCartney was a member; by 16, he was a full-fledged member, and was playing lead guitar when they became the Beatles.

The Beatlemania years, from 1963 through 1966, were a mixed blessing for Harrison. The group's studio sound was characterized by very prominent rhythm guitar, and on many of the Beatles' early songs, his lead guitar was buried beneath the chiming chords of Lennon's instrument. Additionally, his aspirations as a songwriter were thwarted by the presence of Lennon and McCartney, both natural and prodigious composers whose output left little room for songs by anyone else.

Harrison was known as "the quiet Beatle" but "the reluctant Beatle" might have been more accurate, in some respects. He was the member least comfortable with the sheer masses of people that their music inspired to frenzied outbursts. He was also the one who was most concerned with pure musicianship -- one of his idols was the classical guitarist Andrés Segovia -- and knew that the quality of his playing was lost on those screaming concert audiences. It was a situation that he came to loathe.

Revolver Despite these problems, Harrison grew markedly as a musician during those years, even writing a handful of songs, including one near-classic, "If I Needed Someone." He also played a key role in popularizing the Rickenbacker 12-string electric guitar, which became a staple of American folk-rock, especially in the sound of the Byrds. And he made his first acquaintance with the sitar, an Indian instrument whose sound fascinated him. Harrison subsequently developed a friendship with sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar that lasted for the rest of his life; and his fame as a Beatle, in turn, helped to transform Shankar into the most well-known Indian musician in the world. By 1966, Harrison was writing music for the sitar, starting with the exquisite "Love You To" from Revolver. This was also the period in which the band, to Harrison's relief, agreed to give up doing concerts, which had become futile attempts at performance.
In the wake of that decision, Harrison's playing and songwriting grew exponentially. His interest in the sitar yielded a pair of beautiful songs, "Within You, Without You" and "The Inner Light," that were effectively solo recordings. He also wrote some clever, very personal psychedelic-style songs. And he developed a personal friendship with blues virtuoso Eric Clapton, which would have a profound effect on both their careers -- additionally, Clapton fell in love with and later married Harrison's then-wife, Patricia Boyd Harrison, who was also the inspiration for several of the best-known songs of the period by either guitarist. And, growing out of his devotion to the sitar, Harrison also developed a smooth, elegant slide guitar technique that showed up on the group's last three albums. Finally, he contributed three classic songs to those albums: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Here Comes the Sun," and "Something." The latter was also the first Harrison song to appear on the A-side of a Beatles single, and not only topped the charts, but was good enough to get widely covered, including a version by no less a figure than Frank Sinatra, who called it "the greatest love song of the last 50 years."

All Things Must Pass Although never a strong singer, Harrison's vocals were always distinctive, especially when placed in the right setting. For his first solo record following the group's 1970 breakup, All Things Must Pass, he collaborated with producer Phil Spector, whose so-called "Wall of Sound" technique adapted well to Harrison's voice. All Things Must Pass and the accompanying single "My Sweet Lord" had the distinction of being the first solo recordings by any of the former Beatles to top the charts. Unfortunately, Harrison was later sued by the publisher of the 1962 Chiffons hit "He's So Fine," which bore a striking resemblance to "My Sweet Lord" -- he lost the case, in what was deemed an instance of unintended plagiarism. The album, however, was extraordinary in any context, built around some highly personal, topical songs, and some phenomenal rockers, but much of it also steeped in spirituality. It posed as many questions for the serious listener to ponder as it offered exquisite melodies and stunning production for the casual listener to revel in. And it sold about as well as any Beatles album, an even more impressive feat as a two-record set (with a bonus record, the "Apple Jam" -- which, itself, was historically important as the sessions that spawned Eric Clapton's band Derek & the Dominos).
In 1971, he organized rock's first major charity event, The Concert for Bangladesh, staged at New York's Madison Square Garden to aid that famine-ravaged nation, which yielded both a movie and a triple album. Rather ironically, for the man once known as "the quiet Beatle," Harrison found himself at the center of the international news media. What's more, he was having a decidedly easier time than his former bandmates selling his music. John Lennon's personal and political evolution yielded records that were sometimes difficult for fans to embrace; Paul McCartney was selling lots of records but was also being attacked by critics and fans for the superficiality of his work. In the most towering irony imaginable, the reluctant Beatle became the beneficiary of most of the lingering good will attached to the group.

Somewhere in England In 1974, he organized Dark Horse Records, which -- following the end of his contract with EMI in 1976 -- became the imprint on which all of his subsequent solo work was issued. His albums from the '70s into the '80s always had an audience, but -- except for Somewhere in England (1981), released in the wake of the murder of John Lennon -- none attracted too many listeners beyond the core of serious fans. And some of his best musicianship was not in evidence on his own albums, so much as on recordings by such Dark Horse artists as Splinter. During this same period, Harrison co-founded Handmade Films, which produced such hit movies as Monty Python's Life of Brian, Time Bandits, Withnail and I, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Cloud Nine In 1987, he released Cloud Nine, which featured his most inspired work in years, most notably a cover of an old Rudy Clark gospel number called "Got My Mind Set on You," which reached number one on the U.S. charts. A year later, with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison, he formed the Traveling Wilburys, who released two very successful pop/rock albums. All of this activity heralded his short-lived re-emergence from private life, resulting in a 1991 tour of Japan that yielded the album Live in Japan with his longtime friend Eric Clapton.
He withdrew from the public after that, devoting himself to his life with his second wife and their son. In 2000, he began work on remastering and expanding his classic All Things Must Pass album, in what was to be the first in a series of archival explorations of his post-Beatles career. Harrison had been treated for throat cancer in the late '90s, but in 2001 it was revealed that he was suffering from an inoperable form of brain cancer. At the time of his death on November 29, 2001, The Concert for Bangladesh album had been announced for upgraded reissue in January of 2002, and a DVD of the film was in release internationally. In the years since, his Dark Horse solo catalog has been re-released, as has the Traveling Wilburys library. Martin Scorsese produced an epic documentary on Harrison's life, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, which premiered in the fall of 2011.

Geroge Harrison Official Web Site

From "The Concert For Bangladesh", New York, 1971

Tina Turner - Simply The Best

The most dynamic female soul singer in the history of the music, Tina Turner oozed sexuality from every pore in a performing career that began the moment she stepped on-stage as lead singer of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue in the late '50s. Her gritty and growling performances beat down doors everywhere, looking back to the double-barreled attack of gospel fervor and sexual abandon that had originally formed soul in the early '50s. Divorced from Ike in the mid-'70s, she recorded only occasionally later in the decade but resurfaced in the mid-'80s with a series of hit singles and movie appearances; her high-profile status was assured well into the '90s.

Born Annie Mae Bullock near Brownsville, Tennessee, she began singing as a teen, and joined Ike Turner's touring show as an 18-year-old backup vocalist. Just two years later, Tina was the star of the show, the attention-grabbing focal point for an incredibly smooth-running soul revue headed by Ike and his Kings of Rhythm. The couple began hitting the charts in 1960 with "A Fool in Love," and notched charting singles throughout the '60s, though the disappointing position of "River Deep, Mountain High" -- cited by Phil Spector as one of his best productions -- was very hard to take. All expectations were fulfilled in 1971 with "Proud Mary," a number four hit that became the capstone of Ike & Tina's Revue. Frustrated by Ike's increasingly irrational behavior, though, Tina walked out just three years later.

Tommy She celebrated her newfound freedom in 1975 with a role in the film version of The Who's Tommy. Playing the Acid Queen, she delivered an outrageous, all-too-brief performance in an otherwise forgettable mistake of a movie. Several albums were recorded for United Artists during the late '70s, but she appeared to be washed up by the turn of the decade. Surprisingly, Tina returned in 1983, first teaming with a Heaven 17 project named B.E.F. on a remake of the Temptations' "Ball of Confusion." Tina's vocal offering was understandably apocalyptic, and she gained a solo deal with Capitol that same year. Her first single, a cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together," hit the Top 30 early in 1984. Second single "What's Love Got to Do with It" became one of the year's biggest hits, spending three weeks at number one. Her album Private Dancer included two more Top Ten singles, the title track and "Better Be Good to Me."
Foreign Affair With another movie role in 1985 (Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome), she found a number two hit with its theme, "We Don't Need Another Hero." Her next big hit followed in 1986 ("Typical Male"), after which Tina began to decline, still charting occasionally and selling respectably with albums including 1989's Foreign Affair, 1996's Wildest Dreams, and 2000's Twenty Four Seven. In 2009, Turner oversaw and added spoken word segments to Beyond: Buddhist and Christian Prayers, which featured singing from Regula Curti and Dechen Shak-Dagsay. The CD was officially released a year later in 2010. Four years later, a collection of her romantic solo material called Love Songs appeared in time for Valentine's Day.

ELVIS PRESLEY - Don't Be Cruel

Don't Be Cruel is a song recorded by Elvis Presley and written by Otis Blackwell in 1956. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2004, it was listed #197 in Rolling Stone's list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song is currently ranked as the 92nd greatest song of all time, as well as the fifth best song of 1956, by Acclaimed Music.
The single was released on July 13, 1956 backed with "Hound Dog". Within a few weeks "Hound Dog" had risen to #2 on the Pop charts with sales of over one million. Soon after it was overtaken by "Don't Be Cruel" which took #1 on all three main charts; Pop, Country, and R 'n' B. Between them, both songs remained at #1 on the Pop chart for a run of 11 weeks.