Chuck Berry: the first name in the Rock Hall | Ultimate Guitarist Reunion

Why fans still care

CHUCK BERRY was the first person ever inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, on 23 January 1986. The Rock Hall says only Elvis Presley did more to shape rock and roll.

The Polar Music Prize put it another way: he made the electric guitar the main instrument of rock music. Two of the players in this painting, Keith Richards, Who’s Who number 31 and Angus Young, Who’s Who number 35, have said he’s where it started for them.

Early life

Charles Edward Anderson Berry was born in St. Louis on 18 October 1926, the fourth of six children. His first time singing in public was at Sumner High School, where he sang Confessin’ the Blues. He described himself as “a fair wizard at math in high school”.

In 1948 he married Themetta “Toddy” Suggs. They were together for 68 years.

Career chapters

1. 1955Maybellene, on Chess Records
2. 1956Roll Over Beethoven; first duckwalk, at the Brooklyn Paramount
3. 1958Johnny B. Goode
4. 1964No Particular Place to Go
5. 1972My Ding-a-Ling, his only US number 1
6. 1986First inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
7. 198660th birthday concert, filmed for Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll
8. 2000Kennedy Center Honors
9. 2014Polar Music Prize

Chess Records 1955 to 1964

He recorded for Chess in Chicago in 1955, and Maybellene went to number 1 on the R&B chart and number 5 on the pop chart. Why that name? “The only Maybelline I knew was the name of a cow,” he said.

Roll Over Beethoven came in 1956. Johnny B. Goode reached number 8 on the pop chart in March 1958, and No Particular Place to Go made the top 10 in 1964.

The duckwalk 1956

By his own account, he first did the duckwalk at the Brooklyn Paramount in 1956. NBC noted that The Who and AC/DC both took it up.

My Ding-a-Ling 1972

In January 1972 he taped The Mike Douglas Show in Philadelphia with John Lennon, Who’s Who number 5 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon), who called him his hero. They played Memphis, Tennessee and Johnny B. Goode together.

That October he finally had a US number 1, two weeks at the top with My Ding-a-Ling, recorded live in Coventry. It wasn’t his song: Dave Bartholomew wrote it in 1952. It was Berry’s first gold record all the same.

Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll 1986 to 1987

For his 60th birthday he played the Fox Theatre in St. Louis on 16 October 1986, and the concert became the film Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll. Keith Richards, Who’s Who number 31 was music producer, band leader and guitarist. Eric Clapton, Who’s Who number 3, Linda Ronstadt, Who’s Who number 16 in · Ultimate Eagles Reunion (story coming soon), Robert Cray and Etta James were on the bill, and Bo Diddley, Who’s Who number 40 and Bruce Springsteen, Who’s Who number 17 in · Ultimate Eagles Reunion (story coming soon) appear in the interviews.

Final years 2000 to 2017

He received the Kennedy Center Honors in December 2000. In 2014 he won the Polar Music Prize but was too ill to travel, so Dave Edmunds accepted it in Stockholm for him.

Chuck Berry died at home in St. Charles County, Missouri, on 18 March 2017, aged 90. His last album, Chuck, came out that June.

Stories people still tell

1. Another name for rock and roll.

   John Lennon, Who’s Who number 5 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) once said that if you tried to give rock and roll another name, “you might call it ’Chuck Berry’”.

2. The Shakespeare line.

   Bob Dylan called him the “Shakespeare of rock ’n’ roll”.

3. Every lick.

   Keith Richards, Who’s Who number 31 has never hidden where his playing came from. The Rock Hall quotes him: “I lifted every lick he ever had played.”

Legacy

Asked in 2002 whether his songs would last, he said: “I hope mine will be after I’m gone.” They are. Johnny B. Goode is even on the Golden Record riding out of the solar system on the Voyager probes.