Chuck Berry

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Chuck Berry : biography

An American singer and guitar player –

The success mainly was based on the fact, that the company “Chess Records” made a co-author of the record an influential disc jokey Alan Freed and didn’t tell Chuck Berry about it. Freed got a big part of honorarium, but Chuck wasn’t resented – he got so many invitations and offers, that he could give up his hairdresser’s courses.

For several years Chuck Berry’s songs were addressed mainly to teenagers and constantly appeared on hot hundreds of hit parades. Hits about love and life followed one another: “School Days”, “Roll Over Beethoven”, “Rock and Roll Music”, “Johnny B. Good”, “Back in the USA”, “Sweet Little Sixteen”, “Carol”. Chuck became widely popular as a touring musician, quickly fired his manager and led all organizational business by himself. He started to work only solo without the accompanying group. In the next city he hired casual musicians, and after concerts escaped without paying them a part of honorarium. Berry also played in two youth films – “Go, Johnny, Go” and “Rock, Rock, Rock”. He toured with Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly. At the end of 50-s he was successful – he started to buy real estate in Saint Louis, built “Berry-Park” for his family’s rest and even opened a night club “Blueberry Hill”.

Chuck berry’s songs became classic of rock – and not only because of music. He is called “a poet of rock-n-roll”, his every text was a small finished story, full of sudden collisions and irony. In 1985 the first Berry’s long-playing record appeared, and in his next albums rock-n-roll was mixed with blues compositions, which were often instrumental. Chuck’s commercial success can be easily explained: like Elvis Presley, he managed to overcome the border between two musical cultures of white and black American people and took attractive features from them.

Unfortunately, not everybody at that time considered it good. On the contrary, a big part of Americans, especially population of south states, considered a black singer, who sang about youth love, to be a symbol of amorality. And in 1960 Chuck’s popularity turned out to be unpleasant – he was arrested for “transportation of an underage girl from the state”. Most likely, nothing immoral really happened, but Chuck Berry was fined at five thousand dollars and sentenced to five years of prison. But he spent only three years there – he was freed before the appointed time. During his imprisonment the label “Chess Records” continued to release his records, and when Chuck was freed in 1963, he resumed his career without big losses.

In 1966 he signed a new contract with the studio “Mercury Records” and started to get incredibly big honorariums, but mainly because his old hits. New idols appeared on the stage, and the miracle was over. At the end of 70-s Chuck got in prison again – that time because of taxes’ nonpayment.

Nevertheless, Chuck Berry’s art passed the examination of time – it is difficult to overestimate his influence on the new wave of rock-musicians from “Rolling Stones” and “Beatles” to Bruse Springsteen. In 1986 Berry’s name appeared in the Hall of Fame of rock-n-roll, and his single “Johnny B. Good” departed from the borders of the Solar system on board of “Voyager” as an example of our civilization’s culture. A year later Chuck published his autobiography. In the film “Hail, Hail, Rock and Roll” many rock music stars paid tribute to Berry’s art.

In 2008 a musical film “Cadillac Records” appeared – it presented stormy days of youth of American rock legends – Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Chuck Berry, Mick Jagger, Willie Dixon. Chuck’s role was played by an American actor and singer Mos Def.

Chuck Berry even today went on a tours time after time and every Wednesday he performed in his Saint-Louis club.