JOHHNY B. POLLED: chuck berry's great twenty-eight

greatest american songwriter of the 1950s? yeah, i think so.

almost every choice is an honorable one, but i say "brown eyed handsome man."

I love this record so much. I went with "Johnny B. Goode" but I could have gone for any of them, even "Havana Moon".

(point of trivia: ilm appears to have more threads dedicated to chuck eddy than chuck berry.)

Thirty Days because it rocks

oh man. Brown Eyed Handsome Man vs. Roll over Beethoven vs. Back in the U.S.A.?

"Too Much Monkey Business." Not only is it a fine song, but I can't think of a line of it without thinking about his performance of said lyric. Also, smokin' solo.

CAMPAIGN SHOUTIN' LIKE A SOUTHERN DIPLOMAT

The venus DeMio was a beautiful lass, she had the world in the palm of her hand
She lost both her arms in wrestling match over a brown eyed handsome man....

Has to be BEHM, although chuck's finest pair are back to back on St. Louis to Liverpool 'Promised Land and You Never Can Tell'

"Milo deVenus!" Gotta love it.

This is such an incredible greatest hits album that I really don't know where to begin except by flashing on stuff that's not even on it, like "The Broken Arrow" and "You Never Can Tell." The only thing that's really out of place on this for me is "I Wanna Be Your Driver," which felt like filler to me even as a kid. "Havana Moon" is also a minor track but I like it being in there.

* Best overall sound: "Maybellene"
* Best song specifically about rock and roll: "Reelin' and Rockin'"

POV, single lines as sung by Chuck Berry? The man could paint a picture with incredible verbal economy. I nominate:

1. "Want me to marry, get a home, settle down, write a BOOK!"
2. "Jet-propelled back home from overseas to the USA"
3. "Flyin' cross the desert in a TWA, I saw a woman walkin' cross the sands..."
4. "Meanwhile, I was still thinkin'..."
5. "Audience of seventeen and noticed not a one..."

Not including anything from "Nadine" because it would run the category - I mean, check this:

"Downtown, searchin' for her, lookin' all around
saw her gettin' in a yellow cab headin' uptown
I caught a loaded taxi, paid up everybody's tab
Flipped a twenty-dollar bill and told 'em CATCH THAT YELLOW CAB!"

"Nadine" gets my vote in the poll - but close runners-up in "Maybellene," "Roll Over Beethoven," the underrated "Beautiful Delilah" and "Memphis." I could seriously gush about Chuck Berry all day on here.

Maybelline, narrowly over Memphis

xpost:

yeah god he's a GREAT singer. massive influence on dylan among others, obviously.

massive influence on dylan among others, obviously.

huh?

i've been on a "little queenie" and "let it rock" kick lately.

huh?

-- Mr. Que

its pretty easy to picture a young dylan nailing 'deep down in lousiana close to new orleans'

Maybellene

listen to "too much monkey business" back to back with "subterranean homesick blues," for starters.

Torn between monkey business and brown eyed handsome man... and most of the rest. I'm abstaining.

yeah the dylan connection seems fairly clear

I just learned that his only #1 hit was "My Ding a Ling" which is a perfectly good song, but jeez!

Anyway, Memphis, because corn is delicious.

listen to "too much monkey business" back to back with "subterranean homesick blues," for starters.

that's like one song!

yeah the dylan connection seems fairly clear

i am curious to hear anyone's thoughts on this, i just don't hear it! i think dylan totally has a rock and roll influence but chuck berry specifically, i don't hear

when i was at the peak of my chuck berry fandom that fact used to actually depress me (not a good song, btw) xp

you do realize people are talking mostly about vocal intonation/rhythms/flow etc right que, i think its safe to say dylan is somewhat indebted to berry there

yeah for another example that "still thinkin'" line quoted above. i mean berry was drawing on blues and jazz singing himself, but he hipped it up in a way that i think has a real direct line to dylan.

apparently little richard was a bigger influence

http://www.biography.com/broadband/main.do?video=bio-top250-bobdylan-earlyinfluences&category=Musicians

little richard i can see

and i'm not trying to be argumentative or whatever, i've just never even thought that these two dudes were similar in singing style

i can believe dylan wanted to be little richard. but vocally, richard's a shouter which dylan isn't (most of the time). where chuck berry perfected a kind of cool, amused patter that i hear a lot of in dylan.

(not that chuck berry's greatness rests on his influence on dylan or anyone else.)

why does little richard make sense? i don't see that as clearly. i guess i too was focused on those two songs as well, but i wasn't thinking about singing style, really.

more about writing/attitude

It is "Johnny B Goode". Actually one out of very few so-called "classics" from the 50s rock'n'roll era that deserves the tag. In a way, it is just another boring 12 bar song, but the song is composed so effectively that it gives you a feeling of a verse/chorus build, and you forget the harmonic limitations of the song.

Out of the 50s rockers, only Buddy Holly did this better.

wow apparently Santana covered "Havana Moon", and even named the album after the song. You can see a live clip from 1983 here (it starts at about the 3:25 mark or so). 3 drummers! Carlos Santana characteristically looks like he's giving birth during the solo.

why does little richard make sense? i don't see that as clearly. i guess i too was focused on those two songs as well, but i wasn't thinking about singing style, really.

dylan started out as a piano player, right? i dunno, something about dylan reminds me of little richard's singing (but like tipsy says, without the shouting.)

btw I am lolling that anyone covered "Havana Moon", which is the only thing like a dud on the album, I reckon

wtf Dylan doesn't sound like Little Richard

Paul McCartney sounded a lot like Little Richard when he was at his most boring musically though.

pretty sure there are plenty of articles and books about how dylan wanted to be little richard growing up back in hibbing

Santana characteristically looks like he's giving birth during the solo.

lol

"Johnny B. Goode" is actually among my least favorites here - I don't know if I've just heard it way way way too many times or if it was just never all that exciting. The "Go, go, go Johnny go" chorus just doesn't have much going on, and in general there's not too much of Chuck's bite and wit in the track. Even the curious sequel song musters more distinctive detail: "She drew out all her money out the Southern Trust / and put her little boy aboard a Greyhound bus" vs "There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood / where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode."

There are a lot of these that are really elevated by the little touches in the lyrics/vocals - like how "Thirty Days" is basically "Maybellene" over again except who cares because you get

"'f I don't get no satisfaction from the JUDGE
'm gonna take it to the EFF BEE EYE and voice m' GRUDGE
'f they don't gimme no consolation
I'm'a take it to the United Nations,
I'm'a see that you be back home in thirty days"

So many more! Pretty much every song in this tracklist makes me flash on some great line or other and some of them are just wall-to-wall inventiveness. "You Can't Catch Me" is maybe not his most exciting composition but again, check out the lingo - "Here come ol' flat top" - "Flyin' on the beam set on flight control" - "Custom made, was a Flight de Ville" - "Rollin' slowly cause of drizzlin' showers" - "Bye bye New Jersey I've be-come airborne"...

"Marty, that was very interesting music" oh man but the riff on "Johnny B. Goode"! even without the lyric it's epic.

that riff is so great even Phish can't ruin it with a singer losing his voice

nb I was in the 4th row in front of Trey ;)

CLASSICAL MUSIC FOR $400:

Chuck Berry told this classical composer to 'roll over'

"Who is Beethoven?"

Correct!

CLASSICAL MUSIC FOR $600:

Chuck Berry told Beethoven to tell this classical composer 'the news'

...

Re: Dylan/ Berry
Sing Nadine in a Dylan voice.

'I shouted to the driver, hey conducter/ you m-u-st, slow down....
Nadi-i-i-ine, a honey is that yew?

and xpost
of course it was the Milo de Venus -much funnier

motorvatin

Of the top of the head, it's either Reelin' & Rockin', Memphis or Nadine, but I'm gonna listen to the whole thing while I make dinner and then get back to it.

Also: "I'm gon' send out a world wide hoodoo/ that'll be the very thing that'll suit ya" omg and "MOTORVATIN'" OTM!!!

the version of Maybellene on 'Golden Hits' (late 60's 'compilation' which is really Chuck redoing his hits in what some deem a wan fashion) is super, doesn't seem tweaked too much at first but he flattens some of the verbal inflections in the chorus to nice effect and then the groove on the verses gets locked in hypnotically tight while he's rattling off his shit, all of a sudden it's a new song damn near. the only version for me now.

Memphis.

The twist at the end just kills me every time.

Also this:

"Last time I saw Marie she's waving me good-bye
With hurry home drops on her cheek that trickled from her eye"

Other favorites:
"Phone sounds like thunder/ some stupid jerk tryin' to reach another number"
"She's the daughter of a well-respected man/ Who taught her how to judge and understand/ Since she became a rock-roll music fan"/// also love this song for the "She never gets any older" trope which is an important part of the Chuck Berry mythology, wrt The Supernature of Rock & Roll, plus it puts some surreal images in my head

The Dylan/Berry comparison makes a lot of sense to me, too, as a trajectory. They both take a perverse thrill in the tremendous possibilities of a simple couplet, and they were the architects of amalgamating rock'n'roll-fakin' it and rock'n'roll-sincerity, which really caught on much later than either's hey-day. Also, Berry wasn't that great of a singer, at least in proportion to his other talents, and there was little precedent for that when Dylan began his rock+roll career, so I'm certain he was well studied.

These songs have aged a lot better than a lot of the other early ROCKERS because Berry's particular talent, which is, you know, fucking poetry, like that of Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams and a handful of the other architects popular music. Well, poetry is something that can only die with the language, unlike the energy of Little Richard or the sonic mastery of Buddy Holly, which could be/were outdone in some ways (though they're records still thrill me for those reasons, I could see how they wouldn't really get a jaded punker or prog rocker or hip hop head their rocks).

Johnny B. Goode maybe hasn't aged as well in this sense, because its poetry takes place on a different level. It's amazing to me how he took this archetype of the poor uneducated country boy who's amazing talent transcends the pettiness of class and turned it on its head for the Rock'n'Roll era just as the middle classes were puking in their laps over this amazing new energetic type of music that had its roots in greasy juke joints down south. It's an idea that's been fully integrated (no pun intended) now, but it was a remarkable addition to the rock mythology, and it hits me a little deeper than a wow neat-o couplet, even though he was the GOAT of neat-o couplets.

I guess my vote will go for "Nadine" because it was the first CB song I heard as profound with mature ears, having already heard them all as profound with immature ears. Also, I feel like I've lived that song a million times, and I've still never caught Nadine, and that's why the fadeout kills me every time.
Question: which of these two less Berry "Greats" moreso invented the Beatles: "I Wanna Be Your Driver" or "I'm Talking About You"

Jake otm - "hurry-home drops" is one of the most beautiful figures of speech I've ever heard.

It also brings up the important and perhaps hithertoo never asked question:

Is Chuck Berry twee?

Voted "Talking About You." I'm noting this mostly so I'll remember what I was into at this particular moment.

i am curious to hear anyone's thoughts on this, i just don't hear it! i think dylan totally has a rock and roll influence but chuck berry specifically, i don't hear

Since I realised how much Dylan 'borrowed' from Chuck Berry I can't listen to Chuck Berry now without hearing Dylan

30 days for sure.
and lyrically he's great; roll over beethoven's so succinct.

people explosion: Great post to which I can't add much - but as to the Beatles question, of the two, "I Wanna Be Your Driver" reminds me a lot more of the first couple of Beatles records - good call! Of these, how many did the Beatles actually do? "Too Much Monkey Business," with a charmingly different arrangement...a rather forced "Rock n Roll Music"...and "Roll Over Beethoven" which IIRC actually rocks pretty well on the Hollywood Bowl record. Plus the nod from "Back in the USSR"!

I buy the argument that "Johnny B. Goode" is poetic in terms of its general gesture and recentering of an old story around rock n roll (and in doing so, formulating a good fifth of what would later constitute "rock mythology") ...which makes it much more interesting to me as a piece of art but unfortunately not much more exciting as a song. Again, just too many "go!"s.

Re: Dylan - another bit, on "Beautiful Delilah" when Chuck's all like:

"Deep romantic eyyyes
Speak so low and miiiiild" - I could totally hear Dylan doing this.

"Some stupid jerk tryin' to reach another number": Chuck Berry OTM - like "Nadine" this bit still hits hard in my twenties...

tremendoid - Oh, wow! I have the faintest memory of hearing that version of "Maybellene" and being totally confused. I wonder what it is I have that on...

There's a big bit in the Dylan book Song and Dance Man about how much Dylan owes to CB. It's while since I read it, but the gist was that Dylan's use of slang and close detail to colour a line was straight from Berry. I remember them quoting You Never Can Tell as an example:

They bought a souped-up jitney, 'twas a cherry red '53,
They drove it down to Orleans to celebrate the anniversary
It was there that Pierre was married to the lovely madamoiselle
"C'est la vie", say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell

And saying how the use of "souped up jitney" to emphasise an old-beaten up car, a usage that wasn't in popular use at the time, makes it a close relative to Dylan. ANd the twist at the end when they get married is the kind of thing that Dylan would pull as well, come to think of it.

The original rapper!
Pay phone
Something wrong
Dime gone, will mail
I ought to sue the operator for telling me a tale

The impossibility of actually saying, from this bunch, "here's the best song" is one of the reasons I hate polls

there is no best song here: there's a massive cumulative accomplishment whose parts talk to one another throughout

In "Hail, Hail Rock 'n' Roll," Springsteen pretty succinctly sums up Berry's genius when he discusses the imagery in "Nadine," which I voted for:

I saw her from the corner when she turned and doubled back
And started walkin toward a coffee colored cadillac

"I've never seen a coffee colored cadillac," said the Boss. "But I know exactly what one looks like."

there's a massive cumulative accomplishment whose parts talk to one another throughout

For example: "souped-up jitney" shows up in "You Never Can Tell" and in "You Can't Catch Me"!

Always loved that Springsteen quote - maybe the best part of the movie.

ANd the twist at the end when they get married is the kind of thing that Dylan would pull as well, come to think of it.

Wait, is that supposed to be a twist ending? I always thought it was kind of a recap/filler line - they're going to New Orleans to celebrate their anniversary, because New Orleans is where they got married back at the beginning of the song.

Plenty of non-filler lines to love in that song though -

"They furnished off an apartment with a two-room Roebuck's sale
The coolerater was crammed with TV dinners and ginger ale"

...and of course the way the old folks wushed 'em well.

Question: What is that happens when the sun goes down? I always thought it was "..the record tip off the music fell" but Google is telling me it's "the rapid tempo of the music fell" which doesn't scan as well but is sort of cutely randy...

(re: the jitney - I like to imagine "You Never Can Tell" retroactively inserting itself into the continuity of "You Can't Catch Me" - like, it's actually Pierre and Madame that are getting buzzed by high-speed Chuck!)

buy the argument that "Johnny B. Goode" is poetic in terms of its general gesture and recentering of an old story around rock n roll (and in doing so, formulating a good fifth of what would later constitute "rock mythology")

a fifth might be understating it. it almost singlehandedly created the archetype of the guitar-slinger as the male american outlaw figure of the second half of the 20th century. there's a continuum that starts there and maybe eventually implodes with kurt cobain.

(How about "Bo Diddley Is A Gunslinger"?)

I like the comeback single "No Particular Place to Go" best. The (indeed, rather twee) entendre of the safety belt, and those fills...THOSE FILLS.

well "johnny b. goode" predated bo diddley is a gunslinger by a few years. but right, one thing "johnny" did was take the blues model of the six-string hotshot and repackage it for a mass audience.

The original lyric was not "little country boy" but "little COLORED boy". FWTW.

I'm always impressed by the care and effort Chuck put into his lyrics, when his teenage audience of the time probably couldn't care less about the words, as long as they were backed by that crazy rock 'n roll beat. It's as if he knew there'd be rock criticism ten years hence.

"Memphis" is a fantastic song, even though his recording of it isn't terribly spectacular. So, not that one...

The impossibility of actually saying, from this bunch, "here's the best song" is one of the reasons I hate polls

who said we were voting on the best song?

that's what a poll is gabb

no, it is common for people to ask what is being polled and reasonable to regard this as a poll of personal favorites

unless you are the most obtuse dude on the planet, it is self-evident what this poll is asking: which is the best song on chuck berry's great twenty-eight, which is a record of chuck berry's "greatest hits"

which is a record of chuck berry's "greatest hits"

Or CD, or mp3, whichever you like

The whole "best vs favorite" thing is kinda interesting sometimes, but sort of overpowered, for me, by the much more interesting task of identifying really awesome moments in Chuck Berry songs.

favorite moments:

*first five seconds of Beautiful Delilah--the guitar calling and then the drums responding

*the beat of Maybellene

*everything about Almost Grown, esp. the background vocals

* what everyone has said about Memphis--such a great song

* i love everything about Havana Moon

More clever mixing of early rock and the American cultural weave: "Sweet Little Rock n Roller"'s appropriation of "Casey at the Bat" to turn some sweaty teen sensation into that most American star of all, the baseball star:

"Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt."

versus

"Ten thousand eyes were watchin' him leave the floor
Five thousand tongues were screamin', 'More, more!'
And about fifteen hundred waitin' outside the door."

"everything about Almost Grown, esp. the background vocals"

Yes! I was going to bring this up earlier - "RA TACK A TACK A TACK AH!"

(fwiw for me polls are mostly a chance to talk about something, with a little competition thrown in. and they tend to generate more new discussion than just reviving an old thread.)

they left off "You Never Can Tell"?!

the version of Maybellene on 'Golden Hits' (late 60's 'compilation' which is really Chuck redoing his hits in what some deem a wan fashion) is super, doesn't seem tweaked too much at first but he flattens some of the verbal inflections in the chorus to nice effect and then the groove on the verses gets locked in hypnotically tight while he's rattling off his shit, all of a sudden it's a new song damn near. the only version for me now.

-- tremendoid, Monday, August 4, 2008 6:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

i picked this up years ago for a dollar and probabaly listened to it once. But my interest is officially piqued re: Maybellene. I'm going to oull it out tonight.

no, Que, it is self-evident that this poll is asking your favorite of chuck berry's great twenty-eight, the ridiculousness of there being a single greatest hit being obvious to some of us

yeah that's what i said dude

why don't you tell us some of your favorite moments instead of being a dick

already did, bro, and i'm not the one who's being a dick, dick

hey man, i was just asking for a list of your favorite chuck berry moments. all i see on this thread is you talking about phish (lol) and the difficulties of picking brown eyed handsome man v. roll over beethoven. but to each his own

boys take it outside

thanks to this thread I have been compulsively singing "Havana Moon" for 24 hours. This is a great song.

yeah i didn't understand Havana Moon hate above thread

yeah I was hating on "Havana Moon" upthread because when I put on this record like during a workout (TMI I know) this song is a serious energy level dropper. But otherwise it's just good goofy fun.

hey man, why don't you cut out your tiresome and disingenuous irl/personal shit on like half the threads i post substantively on and go get me some legislative history because that's what you're "for," lol (see what being a dick looks like?)

havana moon is a good song but not much of a 'chuck berry song'

go get me some legislative history

need a client matter # as well as a public law number first, thx.

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20070819/voyagerrecord540_270x270.jpg

"Send more Chuck Berry"

Hahaha, thought that was a gold record at first! Had to right-click to properly identify it.

Another good thing about "Havana Moon": it inspired Richard Berry to write "Louie Louie".

aliens otm

unless you are the most obtuse dude on the planet

QED

no offense gabs I just couldn't resist

It also brings up the important and perhaps hithertoo never asked question:

Is Chuck Berry twee?

Memphis, possibly?

That is the one I voted for btw.

my density has brought me to you, j0hn

I always thought he said "Marlowe's Venus," as in Philip or Christopher.

Of which song there's a great version of on the Million Dollar Quartet record, where they sing a verse, stop for a second, remember another one and start right back up again.

"She fought and won herself"

Que OTM on "Beautiful Delilah." One of my fave intros in the history of music.

And even more xpost, "I Wanna Be Your Driver" was cut in 1965 Liverpool.

Or London, right?

I voted for Sweet Little Sixteen, sums up that whole rock-and-roll-it's-the-brand-new-craze thing. And that piano trill on "oh mommy mommmy, I beg of you" slays me.

It occurred to me listening to it last night that the thing that makes "Memphis" so great is that he doesn't try to make the twist really play like a twist. Compare to the similar ending of "Save All Your Kisses For Me" by Brotherhood of Man, where it's all winking and grinning... Chuck understands that the story is more sad, not less for the fact that Marie is only six years old - she probably really misses this guy and doesn't understand why he can't come home. Actually, we can be pretty sure that's the case - we know she's trying to get in touch with Chuck, 'cause his uncle (what a great detail) took her message.

Also love how he begins as professionally as he can on the phone with the operator ("Help me find the party that tried to get in touch with me") but gradually reveals the still-raw emotions of the situation ("We were pulled apart because her mom did not agree / tore apart our happy home in Memphis, Tennessee.").

finally bought The Definitive Collection yesterday (these + a few more) and listened to it twice - much as I love all the rest, it's still CAMPAIGN SHOUTIN' LIKE A SOUTHERN DIPLOMAT

Are there any good covers of "Nadine"?

I always assumed the line about the 'Southern Diplomat' was a way of avoiding saying 'Southern Democrat' = just like 'country boy' as opposed to 'colored boy'- amirite? or is there a better explanation? because why would the south need diplomats? and why would diplomats shout?

I always loved the Southern Diplomat, but in the last couple years I've totally come around to the same reading as you, sonofstan - it's VERY easy to make it be Southern Demmycrat, and it works a lot better. Not sure why he would have bothered with the substitution - even in the 50s, surely it would have been pretty innocuous to associate southern politicians with "campaign shoutin'"?

it just reads like a more evocative version of politician to me (that fits in with the meter/rhyme/whatever it's called, I don't know poetry or lyrics from my ass)

Or he deliberately messes up the expression to sound more like the usual CB protagonist - regular, hard working, put upon guy - would sound in the heat of the chase? stumbling over big words, mangling cliches?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Memphis" is a fantastic song, even though his recording of it isn't terribly spectacular. So, not that one...

-- Myonga Vön Bontee, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 14:37 (2 days ago) Link

Explain, please. I love the recording -- slow, soft, steady blues, no Johnny B. guitar solos necessary. Also, Doctor Casino OTM.

"Memphis" inspired a lot of really great covers, and a lot of them are completely different, but they're all inspired by that odd feeling that only THAT SONG gives you. It's the mode of the tune, I think, what is it? Chuck's version has an odd sort of rhythm, and a straighter beat fits best, I think.

Buck Owens' version is the classic pop version, IMO. Like Chuck's, but more rhythmic drive, and the harmonies really make it. The Faces' sloppy, fun rock'n'roll version is nice. Hasil Adkins wtf, can't beat that for what it is. Sandy Bull's version, though, is a really grand achievement. Turns it into something new, otherworldly, amazing. Uses the strange mode as a platform for junked out, droning guitar hero bliss, both rock+roll and fringe experi-mentalism. But there's like 1000000000 versions, and I've never heard a bad one.

sandy bull's "memphis" really is great. a little commentary (from here):

"Memphis was influenced by Lonnie Mack's version of the song, and the jazz records I was listening to, particularly Bag's Groove," Bull explains. "I'd been messing around with a little tape recorder in the summer of '64, playing electric bass. I was listening to a lot of Chuck Berry and the Supremes, and I couldn't find any rhythm guitars players who were steady enough for my liking. So I put my own rhythm guitar on tape and played to that. Memphis was one of the tunes I liked for that; it was really meditative, and had interesting changes, almost blues but not quite. I was already into the oud by then, and Indian-style music on the guitar, along with standard guitar licks. It just all fell together."

But there's like 1000000000 versions, and I've never heard a bad one.

Um - if you ask me, Johnny Rivers's #2 hit version is absolutely atrocious - totally stripped of any pathos, mood, or personality save jovial honky exclamation.

Like, the guy sings it like he's warming up for "Secret Agent Man."

Doubling back to "Almost Grown" - Chuck's best solo maybe? It just shimmers.

The great thing about this poll/album/career is that any time I try to do a more thorough rundown of songs I'm not that crazy about, I remember some part of them that's just unstoppably good. Like, "Sweet Little Sixteen" I could take or leave...but then I remember the way the drums come thundering back into the chorus after the "...and back in class again" bit.

Wait, now I think the shimmering solo might be on "Sweet Little Rock n Roller" - gotta check when I get home.

I forgot about the Lonnie Mack version! Sandy Bull's comment "almost blues but not quite" is almost too vague to say anything but it's actually perfectly descriptive.

I have not heard Johnny Rivers sing it and hope I won't.

It was inescapable in my youth listening to "Fox 97," at the time a 60s pop-rock oldies station - consider yourself lucky.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I don't like Chuck Berry because he bastardized the blues.

Just kidding. I would've gone for the disquieting "Let It Rock" if the metaphor didn't overwhelm the narrative, e.g. why on earth did they build a teepee right on the tracks? So I chose "Roll Over Beethoven" because you can really hear rock & roll animate the world. Or rather, one very vocal portion thereof.

'cause his uncle (what a great detail) took her message

Gawd yes! How redolent. With just one word, he gives the song a vivid socioeconomic setting.

I saw Chuck Berry play last month. He did a short version of Memphis, lasting only a minute or so.

Blonde hair, good lookin'
tryin' to get me hooked
want me to marry get a home settle down
- write a BOOK!

Beautiful Delilah
bathin' in the suuun
Audience of seventeen
and noticed not a one
Lo!cal Casanova
who wouldn't be outdonne
Let her steal his heart away
and break it just for fun!

Seriously, like 3/4 of these songs, after you get done listening to them, you go "Shit, I should've voted for THAT!"

none for Around and Around.... shame

I love the way he spits out "Twelve o CLOCK!" in the verse about the police busting in. Great drumming on that one, too.

none for Around and Around.... shame

yep and!

15. Carol 0
19. Little Queenie 0
22. Let It Rock 0

:(

"Memphis" is a fantastic song, even though his recording of it isn't terribly spectacular. So, not that one...

-- Myonga Vön Bontee, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 14:37 (2 days ago) Link

Explain, please. I love the recording -- slow, soft, steady blues, no Johnny B. guitar solos necessary. Also, Doctor Casino OTM.

― Jake Brown, Wednesday, August 6, 2008 8:17 PM

I've reevaluated, and you're right, I take it back! It was the cardboard-box drums that made the thing sound like a demo (plus a lingering fondness for Jan & Dean's cover, first version of the song I'd known). I've since come to love those drums for their own ramshackle sake.

(Is there a statute of limitations wrt replying to years-old direct questions that you completely missed first time around?)

No! This is the great thing about ILX.

Her home is on the south side,
High up on a ridge
Just a half a mile from the Mississippi Bridge....

Songs where it's fun to say HOOS in place of the actual lyrics

chuck playing 'johnny b. goode' on the mike douglas show with john and (on tambourine?) yoko. it's adorable how thrilled john looks to be there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYTqzcc-WNk&feature=related

awwwwwwwwwwwwwww that is pretty great for exactly that reason. Makes me think of that thing of how - and maybe this is just me misremembering Hail! Hail! Rock n Roll, but wasn't Chuck's cost-cutting touring practice, for ages and ages, to just pull into town and scoop up whatever local musicians were available, on the grounds that any musician with a pulse could play his entire catalogue by heart? There must be thousands of people out there who made an okay living playing whatever gigs and teaching guitar lessons and tending bar on the side, and whatever else happened in their life they can still tell the story that they backed up Chuck Berry once. Hard to imagine Lennon not thinking of it as a life highlight.

god damn though - dude STILL plays one show a month at that club in st. louis. Thirty-five dollars a head. Any ilxors ever gone? I'm starting to feel like I should coordinate some kind of big cross-country road trip soon just to say I saw the guy once.

holy shit I didn't know he gigged regularly like that in STL. I live pretty close by American standards, maybe I'll arrange a trip to see him. still shocks me that he's alive & all those other rockers afterward are long dead; same with Little Richard. like these giants are still in our midst & we care about such trivialities by comparison.

It's like when I was last in NY, I walked past a gig board that had "Les Paul, Live" and I was like "Wow, he still goin?", and yeah about 3 months later he died.

Not that long ago, I saw a LPaul live gig on SkyArts, a celeb guest version of what I would have seen, doubtless, and I enjoyed it but the kids would have, um, been refused entry actually. But yeah. or something.

Will Chuck someday become the first of the original rock n rollers to die of natural causes?

but wasn't Chuck's cost-cutting touring practice, for ages and ages, to just pull into town and scoop up whatever local musicians were available, on the grounds that any musician with a pulse could play his entire catalogue by heart?

iirc, all he says to his musicians is, "When I put my foot down, start. When I put it down again, stop."

chuck playing 'johnny b. goode' on the mike douglas show with john and (on tambourine?) yoko. it's adorable how thrilled john looks to be there.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, October 17, 2012 6:59 PM (Yesterday)

I love ILM! That is a conga drum that Yoko's playing.

Will Chuck someday become the first of the original rock n rollers to die of natural causes?

― Faster than food (Myonga Vön Bontee), Thursday, October 18, 2012 9:42 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bo Diddley beat him to it

no vote for school days! one of my fav tracks

Turned 85 today.

Saw him twice. The first time was in Rhode Island, at a free concert in the parking lot of a shopping mall. Saw him get off a helicopter and meet the band right before hitting the stage. Also stopped the show for a few minutes because he spotted a video camera in the crowd. "Chuck Berry will play no until that camera is gone."

I've got him down as turning 86. Showed this to the class today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDV_GDuJaUQ

no vote for school days! one of my fav tracks

― flopson, Thursday, 18 October 2012

one of mine too "RING ring goes the bell" "DROP the coin right into the slot" "HAIL hail rock n roll"! it's probably hurt by its similarity to "no particular place to go" which is a great song and has an evocation of cars & girls & aimlessness youth culture which probably feels more authentic than the high school and juke spot one. i might be the vote for "almost grown" if i was here then, which is also along the latter lines. "memphis" is a fine song and performance but its winning puts me vaguely mind of noz and tim f. musings about innovation "transcending" a genre being prized above innovation within a genre or something

still shocks me that he's alive & all those other rockers afterward are long dead; same with Little Richard. like these giants are still in our midst & we care about such trivialities by comparison.

this amazes me every time i think about it. jerry lee lewis too!

i've always wanted to see him live too -- i mean, i have a hard time imagining little richard can put on anything resembling his old act anymore, but chuck can probably still kick anyone's ass when he feels like it.

FWIW, I am a huge fan of working within a genre and if I voted for "Memphis" it was just because it really gets me sometimes and I think it's just a fantastic performance. I would just as happily vote for "Nadine" (which I may have in fact done?) for being the apex of Chuck-as-Chuck, the propulsive, inventive, urgent rock-and-roll storyteller.

FWIW, I am a huge fan of working within a genre and if I voted for "Memphis" it was just because it really gets me sometimes and I think it's just a fantastic performance

yeah obv i accept this totally

I've got him down as turning 86.
I stand corrected.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTnoSsaeOn0

That's awesome! What a showman. Love the naughtier work-through of the lyrics. And the Coca-Cola bit is something else.

I've almost always confined myself to Chuck's "classic period," but I gotta say I'm really digging this comp of the 1969-1974 material on Spotify. Loose and often silly; he sounds like he's having fun which carries Chuck a long way with me even when the songwriting's not writ in lightning. "My Ding-A-Ling" sorta tests the limits of that, but it's generally very good listening.

"Tulane" rules.

Top 10:

1. "Come On"
2. "Almost Grown"
3. "Promised Land"
4. "Johnny B. Goode"
5. "Brown Eyed Handsome Man"
6. "No Particular Place to Go"
7. "Maybellene"
8. "Too Much Monkey Business"
9. "Sweet Little Sixteen"
10. "Reelin' and Rockin'"

Love this thread.

A possible way of broadening the conversation: while I grew up with The Great Twenty-Eight and would without question put it forward as THE collection for anybody remotely curious about Chuck Berry and his place in history, for the last many years what I actually have in my collection is its predecessor, the three-volume, six-disc The Golden Decade, put out by Chess in '67, '73, and '74. The first, heavy with hits, overlaps a lot with TG28, while the latter two start loading up on b-sides and lesser-known cuts, and paint a much more complete picture of his work, in particular his allegiance to the blues and to guitar instrumentals. Admittedly, they're a lot to take in, there are some duds, and there's something to be said for the chronological organization of TG28. And of course, the restriction to 1955-64 cuts out a lot of stuff, including "I Wanna Be Your Driver" (an album track from 1965's Chuck Berry In London)... though conveniently "My Ding-A-Ling" is doomed in the process. I'd pick TG28 for the car and any musically curious kids, but all three of these together for an afternoon of dedicated Chuck listening.

Anyway, I just figured I'd post the tracklist here (with TG28 tracks in bold) and see if people have thoughts about any of the other songs! Dates and source information started from Wikipedia, but relied heavily on Dietmar Rudolph's great discography site - Wiki uses this as a source but several times scrambles the A- and B-sides. Most if not all of the A-sides also appeared on LPs at the time, but I only bothered noting album source for non-single tracks. Interestingly, even all these discs together don't give you a complete slate of his sides from this period as there are plenty of missing B-sides. But man, what an output.

Chuck Berry's Golden Decade

Maybellene 1955
Deep Feeling 1957 (b-side to "School Day")
Johnny B. Goode 1958
Wee Wee Hours 1955 (b-side to "Maybellene")
Nadine 1964
Brown-Eyed Handsome Man 1956 (b-side to "Too Much Monkey Business")
Roll Over Beethoven 1956
Thirty Days 1955
Havana Moon 1956 (b-side to "You Can't Catch Me")
No Particular Place To Go 1964
Memphis 1959
Almost Grown 1959
School Day 1957
Too Much Monkey Business 1956
Oh, Baby Doll 1957
Reelin' and Rockin' 1958 (b-side to "Sweet Little Sixteen")
You Can't Catch Me 1956
Too Pooped to Pop 1960 (b-side to "Let It Rock")
Bye Bye Johnny 1960
Around and Around 1958 (b-side to "Johnny B. Goode")
Sweet Little Sixteen 1958
Rock and Roll Music 1957
Anthony Boy 1959
Back In the U.S.A. 1959

Chuck Berry's Golden Decade Volume 2

Carol 1958
You Never Can Tell 1964
No Money Down 1955
Together We Will Always Be 1955 (b-side to "Thirty Days")
Mad Lad (Davis) 1960 (b-side to "I Got To Find My Baby")
Run Rudolph Run 1958 (Marks, Brodie) (b-side to "MerrY Christmas Baby")
Let It Rock 1960
Sweet Little Rock and Roller 1958
It Don't Take But A Few Minutes 1958 (from One Dozen Berries)
I'm Talking About You 1961
Driftin' Blues" (Brown, Moore, Williams) 1960 (from Rockin' at the Hops)
Go Go Go 1961 (b-side to Come On)
Jaguar and the Thunderbird 1960
Little Queenie 1959
Betty Jean 1960 (from Rockin' at the Hops)
Guitar Boogie 1958 (from One Dozen Berrys)
Down the Road Apiece (Raye) 1960 (from Rockin' at the Hops)
Merry Christmas Baby (Baxter, Moore) 1958
The Promised Land 1964
Jo Jo Gunne 1958 (b-side to "Sweet Little Rock and Roller")
Don't You Lie to Me 1961 (from New Juke Box Hits)
Rockin' at the Philharmonic 1958 (from One Dozen Berrys)
La Juanda (Espanola) 1957 (b-side to "Oh Baby Doll")
Come On 1961

Chuck Berry's Golden Decade Volume 3

Beautiful Delilah 1958
Go Bobby Soxer 1964 (b-side to "Little Marie")
I Got to Find My Baby 1960
Worried Life Blues (Big Maceo Merriweather) 1960 (b-side to "Bye Bye Johnny")
Rolli Polli aka Roly Poly 1957 (from After School Session)
Downbound Train 1955 (b-side to "No Money Down")
Broken Arrow (E. Anderson) 1959
Confessin' the Blues (Walter Brown, Jay McShann) 1960 (from Rockin' at the Hops)
Drifting Heart 1956 (b-side to "Roll Over Beethoven")
In-Go (author unknown) 1958 (from One Dozen Berrys)
Man and the Donkey 1961 (prev. with fake crowd noise on Chuck Berry on Stage)
St. Louis Blues (W.C. Handy) 1965
Our Little Rendezvous 1960 (b-side to "Jaguar and Thunderbird")
Childhood Sweetheart 1959 (b-side to "Broken Arrow")
Blues for Hawaiians 1958 (from Chuck Berry Is On Top)
Hey Pedro 1958 (b-side to "Carol")
My Little Love Light 1965 (from Chuck Berry In London)
Little Marie 1964
County Line 1959 (prev. unpublished)
Viva Viva Rock And Roll 1966 (chronology cheat!)
House of Blue Lights 1958 (Don Raye, Freddie Slack) (prev. unpublished)
Time Was 1958 (prev. unpublished)
Blue on Blue 1959 (prev. unpublished)
Oh Yeah 1958 (prev. unpublished)

...and, to start the ball rolling, a few must-hears off the top of my head:

You Never Can Tell - I mean, duh.

Wee Wee Hours - from his very first session (along with "Maybellene," "Thirty Days" and "Together We Will Always Be" - damn, what an afternoon!) and a good glimpse of the sort of blues he arrived from.

No Money Down - interesting variant on his automobile material, here a catalogue of desired car features rendered as a stop-time blues in the vein of "I'm Your Hoochie Koochie Man" (put out by Chess in January 1954) and "I'm A Man" (ditto, April 1955). Chuck's recording was in December 1955.

Bye Bye Johnny, Little Marie - sequel songs to "Johnny B. Goode" and "Memphis" respectively.

Broken Arrow - departure from his usual subject matter and with a much more laid-back rhythm and backing vocals - feels kinda lo-fi compared to most of his stuff from this period to be honest but that makes it interesting imo

Downbound Train - great little "vision of hell" narrative.

Down the Road Apiece, Jaguar and the Thunderbird, Jo Jo Gunne, Our Little Rendezvous, Go Bobby Soxer, St. Louis Blues - pretty good numbers in the vein of Chuck's main line. The last, as Handy's name might suggest, is a blues standard dating back to 1914 but here made over with Chuck's most familiar guitar stylings and, typical of Chuck Berry In London, a slightly rougher, louder rhythm section. I don't think any of these are quite the equal of the Great Twenty-Eight, but who knows - maybe if they'd been on there and I'd grown up with them they'd be just as obviously classic.

Oh, and fair warning: most of the "Latin" numbers feature Chuck trying on some sort of usually cringe-inducing accent. :-/

My #1 above, "Come On," is brilliant. Whenever I play it for students, they love the line "I wish somebody'd come along and run into it and wreck it." I've got the three Golden Decades too--got Vol. 2 as a cutout somewhere, one of my greatest finds ever.

Would love to hear more about students reacting to Chuck! The "run into it and wreck it" line is fantastic, though it's "some stupid jerk tryin' to REACH ANOTHER NUMBER" that always comes to mind for me.

Another obscurity from GD III: "Viva Viva Rock and Roll," which isn't a great composition but is nonetheless cute, as the lyric tries to cram in as many Chuck Berry song titles as possible ("Sweet little sixteen, you will soon turn twenty-one; no more reelin' and a rockin', your school days will soon be done," et cetera).

I love the stupid jerk line too. What's so amazing about "I wish somebody'd come along and run into it and wreck it" is how he makes such a wordy line rhythmic.

I don't know Vol. 3 at all--played it once and shelved it. I'm sure there are good songs in there worth salvaging.

I've been working through it today - it's good listening but less of a "great songs" kind of deal. If they'd known they were going to eventually do six discs maybe they'd have spread the hits around more evenly - as it is, it feels like two packages of mostly hits, with some oddities and b-sides, and then one that's overwhelmingly the latter. Feels suddenly more "box-set-like" if you know what I mean.

This has been my go-to Chuck song these days — absolutely cooks. Those drums!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ2Z1oG1EEs

Wow, that's good. Man, if they were gonna put "I Wanna Be Your Driver" on these comps they could have slotted that in. Maybe I need to pick up Chuck Berry In London ... between that and his "St. Louis Blues" it sounds like a pretty hot session.

Recently discovered the Rolling Stones' "Come On" - their debut single! - and boyyyyyy is it lame. Kind of a skiffley/Merseybeat kinda version I guess, but it just makes the whole thing way too chill and pleasant-feeling. Also they change it to "some stupid GUY" which is really distracting (especially since they sing that part twice). In general I'd trust these guys to do some roaring covers but I'll take the Beatles' "Roll Over Beethoven" any day.

They did also do "Bye Bye Johnny," and it's got a little more grit and noise to it.

but I'll take the Beatles' "Roll Over Beethoven" any day.

Ditto. It took the Stones a while to do a decent Chuck cover...and it took the Beatles a while, too, but they'd been hammering away at Chuck's songs for years before they recorded any (and before the Stones even formed).

Recently discovered the Rolling Stones' "Come On" - their debut single! - and boyyyyyy is it lame.

Read that too fast, missed Rolling Stones, almost fainted...I think I have their version (on the import EP Around and Around?), but I don't remember it.

Andrew Loog Oldham picked "Come On" for the 1st single because it was the "Most Pop" number in the Stones' set list at the time, something I think he really encouraged when they arranged it for the studio.

No votes for Around and Around, but its got the coolest guitar sound

Holy shit, this list of songs!

I've probably heard at least one cover of each of these songs, as well as the originals.

In terms of sound, very little in the history of electric guitar recordings tops the opening to Maybellene... but yeah I do dig Around and Around.

Question: when Nadine gets into that coffee-colored Cadillac, do you picture (a.) a black Cadillac, because this is just a clever way of getting a standard black Cadillac into a song lyric, or (b.) a Cadillac that's some shade of medium brown?

I had always pictured B, but it just occurred to me that A is actually more likely.

Good question. I think of coffee-colored as brown fwiw. For Berry's purposes obviously what he's enjoying is just the alliteration of coffee-colored Cadillac — which both starts and ends with a hard "c." Dude could write.

sounds funky, but what about a "chartreuse Cadillac"? from 1950:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRXCeEcWjXk

2:17

https://hdpaintcode.com/files/cadillac-20.jpg

"cocaobar Cadillac" sounds cool too...

Wow, I had no idea there were so many colors of Cadillac. The cocoabar and the taupe both seem like they could be coffee-colored.

I always thought dark brown, and also always think of Springsteen in the "Hail! Hail!" doc, saying something to the effect that he's never seen a coffee-colored Cadillac, but damned if he doesn't know exactly what Chuck's singing about.

Speaking of Nadine, and going back to the Berry influence on Dylan discussion way up thread, I was at this show and this was the highlight of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLKODmOHIZU