Where do I start with Chuck Berry? Any specific albums/songs?
Where do I start with Chuck Berry? Any specific albums/songs?
Jayden Murphy
Matthew Davis
Just watch 70's live shows. Also, when will his new album drop?
Grayson Smith
check out these songs:
Johnny B Goode
Brown Eyed Handsome Man
Maybellene
Roll Over Beethoven
Memphis, Tennessee
Back in the USA
You Never Can Tell
Liam Peterson
His creative heyday mostly happened before AOR was a thing and popular music relied on the singles format. Chuck's later material from 1966 onward of course was AOR-based. Rockit was the last new studio work he put out, at the end of the 70s.
Nicholas Baker
not including youtube.com
Brandon Fisher
BBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPTTT
Justin Hall
In lecture but that link is piquing my interest hard. Should I click?
Also any decent-sized compilation that has all his singles should do the trick. pic related
Lucas Long
Hunter Gray
>albums
Calling you rockist would be ironic but it's true
Hudson Cox
Start here, three years before Chucky learned everything from Goree.
youtu.be
Christopher Bell
My dingaling obv
Lincoln Jenkins
Like most artists in the 50s-early 60s, his "albums" were just a hit single or two backed with a bunch of bad covers, cheesy instrumentals, and filler material.
Eli Martin
As a studio artist, Chuck Berry's peak was in 1955-58; as a live act, late 60s-early 70s.
Jeremiah Evans
youtube.com
Oh...god...
Charles Perry
hell be fine
Carter Barnes
this
he's pre-AOR, so just get a good compilation or anthology
Jordan Myers
He was AOR on the later material, though his creative heyday was before that time. There are however assorted hidden gems scattered throughout his 22 year recording career, aside from the big hits.
Ayden Foster
Most direct and helpful answer ever, for real. Thanks from other curious potential fan
Samuel Cruz
Frank Zappa thought Chuck's B-sides were better than the hits, although he just liked being contrarian.
Grayson Miller
that is pretty fine for somebody who was pushing 90 at the time
Easton Morgan
No it's not. Les Paul was much better than this in his last years, shit even BB King wasn't this horrible to watch.
Brayden Garcia
John King
faggot
Austin Lewis
CHUCK! CHUCK! I FOUND THAT NEW SOUND YOU BEEN LOOKING FOR
LISTEN TO THIS
Jose Perez
stinky dinky
Christopher Powell
The Chess Box is the best option but there are tons of great comps like the His Best Vol. 1 and 2 comps.
Berry is an essential artist, you're gonna need a two disc collection of his Chess singles at least.
Samuel Nguyen
He recorded more than 50 cuts for Chess between 1955 and 1961, most of them instrumentals, lounge blues, or paint by numbers clones of his hits.
Judge Have Mercy! (1969) is interesting as it's the only true blues number he did. It was backed with the equally odd Tulane, a tune about two Easy Rider-style hippie drug dealers, Chuck's "take" on the counterculture movement which was something he never truly understood.
Andrew Diaz
...
Zachary Powell
"I like to do that"
Hunter Johnson
Roll Over Beethoven is probably my least favorite of his hits; somehow the melody annoys me.
Ryan Ramirez
But "Roll over Beethoven, tell Tchaikovsky the news" is like the best line in the history of rock n' roll
Leo Garcia
Sweet Little Sixteen...classic. It has fantastic swing to it and Johnnie Johnson's piano is especially inspired. Johnny B. Goode isn't bad but Chuck's singing seems a little strained.
Isaac Martinez
>Rock and roll was born with Chuck Berry. Prior to Berry the evolution of the new popular music, the convergence of country and blues, was moving at a slow pace, and although acceptance of the black musician by the white audience had been positively established, a figure able to function as a catalyst, namely a person capable of putting together the demands of the moment, both artistic and social, was still missing. From the moment that Chuck Berry shouldered his cherry red Gibson, the guitar would never again be the same instrument. His explosive riffs would blow away established orders - first musical and then social - that had survived two world wars. Few revolutions have been faster, more thorough or more widespread. Those riffs electrified millions of white kids. Berry sang suggestively about adolescent love, and from that moment on song lyrics would never be the same. He set a rhythm for the music of the American youth, a rhythm that would continue to accelerate. Whether or not Chuck Berry invented rock and roll, he was its first composer and its first poet.
Jace Morgan
Johnnie Johnson in general is a fucking stellar player. This became clear when Chess cleaned the old singles up for CD release and you could hear the piano lines better.
Keith Richards argued after getting to know Johnston and Berry that Berry only wrote the lyrics and jacked the songwriting credits from Johnson who was actually responsible for the music. This is why Berry's songs are in piano or horn keys (Johnson was previously a jazz arranger) instead of simple boogie woogie guitar keys.
Berry has the songwriting credit on THIS which is literally him just saying corny blues shit over a song that Johnson had been playing and perfecting for close to a decade:
Mason Powell
Or My Ding-A-Ling which is a pretty embarrassing way to have your only #1 hit. Not strictly because Chuck was pushing 50 and getting a little too old to be singing about Little Chuck, but in general it's just a bad, awkward song.
Jordan Murphy
Then again, even if you look at 60s footage of him, he was always pretty sloppy live and never could play and sing at the same time (most guitarists can't).
Josiah Smith
bump