The first LP I ever bought was Chuck Berry On Stage. I still have it. It still sounds great.
I love Chuck Berry. I love his words, his jangling intros.
While callow pop stars sang of love, Chuck sang about school, cars and Nadine:
As I was motorvatin' over the hill, I saw Maybelline in a Coupe de Ville . . .
Ten mile stretch on an Indiana road, t'was a sky blue Jaguar and a Thunderbird Ford, Jaguar setting on 99, trying to beat the Bird to the county line . . .
I saw her from the corner when she turned and doubled back, started walkin' towards a coffee-coloured Cadillac, I was pushing through the crowd to get to where she's at, campaign shouting like a southern diplomat . . .
They had a hifi phono, boy did they let it blast, 700 little records, all rock and rhythm and jazz, but when the sun went down the rapid tempo of the music fell, c'est la vie said the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell . . .
Milo de Venus was a beautiful lass, had the world in the palm of her hand, lost both her arms in a wrestling match, to win a brown-eyed handsome man . . .
Everything is wrong since me and my baby parted, all day long I'm walking 'cause I couldn't get my car started, laid off from my job and I can't afford to check it, wish someone'd come along and run into it and wreck it . . .
Looked at my watch and it was 10:05, I didn't know if I was dead or alive . . .
I earned my living doing words. I never did anything as clever, as memorable as that.
Chuck suffered as all black artists did in the South in the early 1960s. Jailed several times, cheated by concert promoters. He got even by insisting on payment, in dollars, in cash, before he went on stage and by using the cheapest local players to back him.
So many of the big British bands of the Sixties started off playing Chuck Berry songs.
We all have a lot to thank him for.