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Chuck Berry's music has transcended generations. He earns respect to this day because he is truly an entertainer. Berry gained success by watching the audience's reaction and playing accordingly, putting his listeners' amusement above all else. For this reason, tunes like "Johnny B. Goode," "Maybellene" and "Memphis" have become anthems to an integrated American youth and popular culture. Berry is a musical icon who established rock and roll as a musical form and brought the worlds of black and white together in song.
Born in St. Louis on October 18, 1926 Berry had many influences on his life that shaped his musical style. He emulated the smooth vocal clarity of his idol, Nat King Cole, while playing blues songs from bands like Muddy Waters. For his first stage performance, Berry chose to sing a Jay McShann song called "Confessin' the Blues." It was at his high school's student musical performance, when the blues was well-liked but not considered appropriate for such an event. He got a thunderous applause for his daring choice, and from then on, Berry had to be onstage.
Guitar Lessons
Berry took up the guitar after that, inspired by his partner in the school production. He found that if he learned rhythm changes and blues chords, he could play most of the popular songs on the radio at the time. His friend, Ira Harris, showed him techniques on the guitar that would become the foundation of Berry's original sound. Then in 1952, he began playing guitar and singing in a club band whose song list ranged from blues to ballads to calypso to country. Berry was becoming an accomplished showman, incorporating gestures and facial expressions to go with the lyrics.
It was in 1953 that Chuck Berry joined the Sir John's Trio (eventually renamed
the Chuck Berry Combo), which played the popular Cosmopolitan Club in St. Louis.
Country-western music was big at the time, so Berry decided to use some of the
riffs and create his own unique hillbilly sound. The black audience thought he
was crazy at first, but couldn't resist trying to dance along with it. Since
country was popular with white people, they began to come to the shows, and the
audience was at some points almost 40 percent white. Berry's stage show antics
were getting attention, but the other band members did their parts as well. In
his own words: "I would slur my strings to make a passage that Johnnie (Johnson)
could not produce with piano keys but the answer would be so close that he would
get a tremendous ovation. His answer would sound similar to some that Jerry Lee
Lewis's fingers later began to flay."
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