When you’ve been pronounced the King of Rock & Roll by Jerry Lee Lewis’s mother, it’s a pretty fair conclusion that that is precisely what you are. Only Chuck Berry had that honour, and he was acknowledged as a key inspiration by some of music’s most historically important exponents, from John Lennon (who called him “the greatest rock & roll poet”) to Little Richard.
And Chuck didn’t just set the guitar template for rock & roll. His style also set the template for pub rock, punk rock lead guitar breaks, and many of the indie offshoots that descended from punk. His influence is everywhere.
Although few people would dispute that Chuck Berry defined the archetypal rock & roll format, there have been various theories on how the format came about. There’s no doubt that Chuck’s relentless knack of fusing populist, ‘fifties youth culture lyrics into highly rhythmic phrases was the driving force behind the success of his records. But commentators – many of them famous musicians themselves – have speculated on the other ingredients.
Keith Richards said he believed that much of the style came from a process of adapting pianist Johnnie Johnson’s work to play on a guitar. Johnnie Johnson and his band were the nucleus of what became Chuck’s original sonic backdrop. They were an existing trio that Berry took over in the early 1950s and then led from the front.
Others (including Eric Clapton, Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers) suggested that Berry may have melded rhythm & blues with country music, which gave things a brighter and happier “good time” feel. This was heightened by Chuck’s use of “black note” piano keys for his songs, which are more challenging for a guitarist to play in, but sound refreshingly vibrant compared with the usual guitar band keys.
Another important element that changed the game was that Chuck Berry wrote his own songs, and as such he was one of the first artists in modern music to see songwriting from the viewpoint of a performer.
But Berry himself saw it more simply. He stated that his guitar style was a mix of what he’d heard from Carl Hogan, T-Bone Walker and Charlie Christian. He also acknowledged specifically tailoring his music and lyrical content to a young white audience. Beyond that, just keep it simple, he said. And as the existence of this Best of… audio cassette demonstrates, It worked.
The tape is a 1991 release, containing all of the most synonymous Chuck Berry recordings, with a programme time of well over an hour. It’s UK manufactured for the Music Club label, with a product code of MCTC 019.
Unlike other pre-recorded cassettes I’ve looked at recently there’s not a massive amount of blurb. But there doesn’t need to be. The contents of this ferric-oxide media have been more instrumental in propelling the history of modern music than any almost any other album that found its way into a record store.
Tape Tardis 