Chuck Berry - Johnny B Goode: His Complete 50s Chess Recordings

Some of the greatest songs ever written and much more…

It’s hard to believe that Charles Edward Anderson Berry, a true rock’n’roll pioneer whose adroitly-crafted songs articulated the hopes, aspirations and anxieties of teenage America in the 50s, is 82 this year. Fifty years ago, though, the duck-walking guitar player and singer from St Louis, Missouri, was enjoying his second year as a recording artist and was about to score his second US R&B chart-topper with School Day.

This stupendous 103-song collection includes every track Berry laid down for Chicago’s mighty Chess label during the first four years of what turned out to be the most fertile phase of his career. For rock’n’roll aficionados and Berry completists, the set is a cornucopia of riches comprising demos, alternate takes, plus fascinating fragments of studio dialogue and a clutch of previously unissued songs (15 in all) exhumed from the archives.

All the seminal 50s recordings are here, from his debut hit Maybellene, to immortal numbers Roll Over Beethoven, Sweet Little Sixteen and, of course, Johnny B Goode. Witty, observant and eloquently expressed, those songs helped crown Berry the poet laureate of rock’n’roll. More importantly, they provided the building blocks for rock and influenced thousands of musicians, including the Stones and The Beatles. Sheer genius.

Hip-O Select | B 0009473-02 (4-CD)

Reviewed by Charles Waring
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