Shell-shocked?
It’s true.
The man who gave us “Johnny B. Goode,” “School Days,” “Maybelline,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Rock And Roll Music,” “Reelin’ and Rockin’,” “School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes The Bell),” “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” and “Carol”–to name a few—turns 90 on Tuesday.
That’s enough to even make Beethoven roll over a whole bunch of times!
It began in 1955 with the car classic “Maybelline.” A year later, when Berry was 30, he duck-walked to “You Can’t Catch Me” on Alan Freed’s rock n’ roll flick “Rock Rock Rock”…10 years later The Rolling Stones covered it and a decade after that, in 1975, John Lennon recorded his version. That’s high praise.
Berry’s included in several of Rolling Stone magazine’s “Greatest of All Time” lists. In 2003, they ranked him #6 in its list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”. He’s been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
That’s high praise, too,
Chuck Berry kick started the soundtrack of a generation: he was pure bop, 50s pile-driving rock n’ roll, and, for us older Boomers, those were our formative years.
Berry is an original, an iconoclast, gifted and cantankerous, bitter and persecuted, his life has been high drama including numerous run-ins with the law, stints in prison, fines, probations, and community service.
He still performs, intermittently, at a local club, near his hometown of St. Louis, MO.
Hail Hail Chuck Berry! Happy birthday, and long live rock n’ roll.