Chuck Berry is an American songwriter, guitarist and singer born on October 18, 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri.
Chuck Berry was a third child in a family of six. His father, Henry was a deacon of the Antioch Baptist Church, his Mother, Martha, was a schoolteacher. He grew up in ‘The Ville’ an area which is in the north of St. Louis and where the Blacks could own property. He studied in ‘Summer High School’, the first Black high school west of the Mississippi. He learnt guitar and rudiments of the instruments on a four-string tenor guitar from his class teacher Ira Harris, a local jazz guitarist. He changed to six-string guitar by 1950s.
Before he could graduate in 1944, on a joy ride to Kansas City with his friends Berry was arrested for armed robbery and was sentenced to 10 years in the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men at Algoa, near Jefferson, Missouri. He was released on his 21st birthday in 1947.
Chuck Berry married Themetta Suggs a year later and began a series of jobs between 1948 and 1955. He began his career as a musician after a series of jobs like a janitor at the Fisher Body auto assembly plant; he was trained to be a hairdresser at the Poro School, assisted his father as a carpenter and freelanced as a photographer.
Chuck Berry played for the album ‘Hail! Hail! Rock ‘N’ Roll’ for the film of the same name directed by ‘Taylor Hackford’ in 1987.
Chuck Berry is one of the leaders and powerful figure of rock n roll music. He is the first musician to be inducted into the ‘Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’ museum on its opening in 1986. According to ‘Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s website, ‘While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Chuck Berry is the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together. Out of 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll in the ‘Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’ museum includes Chuck Berry’s three songs ‘Johnny B. Goode’, ‘Rock and Roll Music’ and Maybellene’.
In 1984, Berry received ‘Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award’.
Chuck Berry received ‘Kennedy Center Honors’ in a group of artists with Angela Lansbury, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Clint Eastwood and Placido Domingo in 2000.
Rolling Stone a magazine devoted to music, popular culture and politics ranked Chuck Berry ‘Number 5’ in the list of immortals: The Fisrt Fifty in 2004, he was ranked ‘Number 6’ under ‘Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time’ in 2003.
Chuck Berry’s ‘The Great Twenty-Eight’ album released in 1982 was a greatest hit and was ranked 21 on ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine’s list of ‘The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time’ in 2003.
Chuck Berry’s six songs ‘Johnny B. Goode’ ranked 7, ‘Maybellene’ ranked 18, ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ ranked 97, ‘Rock and Roll Music’ ranked 128, ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ ranked 272 and ‘Brown Eyed Handsome Man’ ranked 374 in Rolling Stone’s ‘The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time’ list in 2004.
Chuck Berry currently performs one hour every Wednesday of each month at a restaurant and bar ‘Blueberry Hill’ located in the Delmar Loop, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. It was recently announced that Berry would play in the Virgin Mobile Music Festival 2008 in Baltimore, MD.
CHUCK BERRY DISCOGRAPHY:
"Maybellene" in 1955
“Wee Wee Hours”
“Thirty Days’ in 1955
“No Money Down” in 1955
“Roll Over Beethoven” in 1956
“Too Much Monkey Business” in 1956
“Brown Eyed Handsome Man”
“You Can’t Catch Me” in 1956
“School Days” in 1957
“Oh Baby Doll” in 1957
“Rock and Roll Music” in 1957
“Sweet Little Sixteen” in 1958
“Johnny B. Goode” in 1958
“Beautiful Delilah” in 1958
“Carol” in 1958
“Sweet Little Rock and Roller” in 1958
“Jo Jo Gunne” in 1958
"Merry Christmas Baby” in 1958
“Run Rudolph Run” in 1958
“Anthony Boy” in 1959
“Almost Grown” in 1959
“Little Queenie” in 1959
“Back in the U.S.A” in 1959
“Memphis, Tennessee” in 1959
“Broken Arrow” in 1959
“Too Pooped To Pop (Casey)” in 1960
“Let it Rock” in 1960
“Bye Bye Johnny” in 1960
“I Got To Find My Baby” in 1960
"Jaguar and Thunderbird” in 1960
“I’m Talking About You” in 1961
“Come On” in 1961
“Go Go Go” in 1961
"iploma For Two” in 1963
“Nadine (Is It You?)” in 1964
“No Particular Place To Go” in 1964
“You Never Can Tell” in 1964
“Little Marie” in 1964
“Promised Land” in 1964
“Dear Dad” in 1965
“It Wasn’t Me” in 1965
“Ramona Say Yes” in 1966
“Laugh and Cry” in 1967
“Back to Memphis” in 1967
“Feelin’ It” in 1967
“Louie to Frisco” in 1968
“Good Looking Woman” in 1969
“Tulane” in 1970
“My Ding-A-Ling” in 1972
“Reelin’ and Rockin” in 1972
“Bio” in 1973
“Shake, Rattle and Roll” in 1975
“California” in 1979