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Chuck Berry: Hail, Hail Rock 'n' Roll by C. Bottomley Seventy-five years ago today in St. Louis a brown-eyed handsome man was born, and it would be churlish for pop fans not to celebrate the occasion. Without him, it's very likely that I wouldn't be writing this, you wouldn't be reading it, and the world would be a much duller place. His name is Chuck Berry. Like the greatest pioneers, Berry hit upon a simple formula that changed the world: Teenagers would buy records that spoke to them in their own language about their own concerns. On the road, in the street, at the drive-in, down the highway - Berry's tunes saw America as action central, and in his eyes its only citizens were kids. Creating a canon with songs about after-school antics, he possessed the skills to make trivial events seem crucial. Pretty impressive considering he was also canny enough to simultaneously have a formal music innovation boast a wildly cavalier demeanor. Ultimately it all boiled down to rock 'n' roll. Berry's music is often unfairly designated R&B, yet to this day seems beyond antecedent. On "Johnny B. Goode" and "School Days" his guitar dives under the melodies, gives them a shove, and rushes forward to fill in any gaps. It's as jumpy as a couple in the backseat of a Chevy. And his singing was just as nimble. In his early 30s when his parade of hits took over the pop charts, Berry delivered the teenage news in the breathless rush of the messenger who ran all the way from Marathon to inform the Athenians of victory. The music's irresistible thrust may have been the cornerstone of rock revolution, but Berry's lyric writing was just as incisive. "School Days" is reportage as neat as a Frederick Wiseman documentary, setting up the who, what, where, when, and why with remarkable economy. "Up in the morning and out to school/ The teacher is teachin' the Golden Rule," Berry announces. Two and a half minutes later he's summed up the ennui of indoctrination and the sweet release of the three o'clock bell when, "You finally lay your burden down." Sure, that sentiment is gospel given a bourgeois spin, but Berry didn't worry about genre. He was the ultimate democratic capitalist, happy to feed himself by speaking to boys and girls as boys and girls. It's a consumer market he defined as obsessive in "Sweet Little Sixteen." And zealous, too. In "Roll Over Beethoven" he writes a little letter and mails it to his local DJ, demanding the latest hit. And why not? Again and again he touted the power of his new creation, as well as its ability to entertainingly cure all ills. Berry used this power better than anyone, cockily setting out his credentials with "Roll Over Beethoven" by announcing the "shot of rhythm and blues" that was going to annihilate the great white Western composers. While Elvis was singing blues covers, Berry was perfecting poetic flair. While Little Richard was getting overexcited, Berry offered the leer of sophistication. While Jerry Lee was ... well, old Jer was just too unstable to go very far. Berry's "Maybellene" equates cars and girls in a high-speed pursuit between its Romeo and Juliet. Similarly teachers who really want to teach their students the golden rule of symbols can do no worse than play them "No Particular Place to Go," in which undoing his girlfriend's safety belt is clearly an indication of more than mere reckless driving. "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" showed just how subtle he could be. It's a veiled boast about black sexual prowess sung by a black man who many believed, due to his clear enunciation and verbal dexterity, was not only white, but a country artist to boot. Once you've made that a hit, there's no turning back. His abiding 1958 anthem "Johnny B. Goode" is a seismic moment in the history of music. It's perfect pop, stamped with a trademark fanfare that introduces a reflexive self-portrait of a kid from Nowheresville who could "play the guitar just like ringing a bell." That peal was ominous. Time was up for the aging Tin Pan Alley teams supplying Perry Como with "Magic Moments" or Dean Martin with "Return to Me." Even Tchaikovsky was issued an update: Rock 'n' roll was for racing and dancing in the street, and "Johnny B. Goode" invented the youth-culture hero - outlaw, musician, eternal illiterate golden youth. These days he's easily found in any issue of Spin. History conspired against Berry. As a black performer, he was at the mercy of white DJs like Alan Freed, who slapped his own name on "Maybellene" in return for essential airplay. Record execs were happy to reward the singer's genius with a new car and not much else. But Berry did himself no favors. Unable to adjust to the next generation's maturity, his heyday was kaput by the time the Beatles put a spin on "Rock and Roll Music," and Bob Dylan appropriated his torrential phrasing ("Too Much Monkey Business" is a speed rap as thick as "Subterranean Homesick Blues," right?). Sadly, his biggest hit turned out to be 1972's hollow novelty "My Ding-a-Ling," on which he appeared to have lost all sense of precision and subtlety. In 1979 he suffered the indignity of playing for the president mere days before being sentenced to jail for tax evasion, although during his prison spell he wrote an autobiography that proved his old wit was still within reach. Since then Berry has become the last of the Sweet Sweetbacks, playing like he's on the lam, allegedly refusing to perform until he receives a suitcase of cash, and eschewing the professionalism of a touring band in favor of the vagaries created by pickup combos in each new burg he visits. It's his birthday, so we'll try to overlook the video cameras he once installed in his restaurant's ladies room. Chuck is three-quarters of a century old, but his art is timeless - and you can say that of only a very few. Listen to the acrobatic turns of sass on tunes like Destiny's Child's "Bills Bills Bills" and TLC's "No Scrubs" and you've got the essence of Berry. And although the next sullen Baudelaire you see with a guitar under his arm would like to think he's the next Reed or Cobain, his instrument of choice first became a spear of destiny in the hands of the original Johnny B. Goode. John Lennon, who got his own pithy turn of phrase from Berry's 45s, was succinct about his opinion: "If you tried to give 'rock and roll' another name, you might call it Chuck Berry." Hail, hail then. It's rock 'n' roll music, he sang, any old way you use it. |
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