Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry died at the age of 90 on March 18. We’ve become used to the rock ‘n’ roll legends dying off, and I originally dismissed the death as someone who had lived a long life. But his legacy is such that I couldn’t let hid death go by without commenting on how profound he was to the development of rock music. He epitomized the formation of rock back in the 1950’s from its jazz and rhythm and blues beginnings, and made it a style unto itself.

Chuck played a great guitar (supposedly learning some of the important riffs from his piano player, Johnnie Johnson), was a fantastic singer and great lyricist (motorvatin”? wonderful).He learned how to command the stage and used the tricks of guitar solos, aping the duck walk and other solo stylings from T-Bone Walker and other jazz guitar players until he made it his distinctive style. That’s what rock ‘n’ roll was – an amalgamation of different styles distilled into a simple, jumping style of play. And Chuck was the first master.

Many rock guitarists learned the great riffs of Chuck Berry before finding their own styles, especially Keith Richards. Although Chuck has finally passed on, his rock ‘n roll leagcy will live on. I bumped another podcast to bring you this one, that looks back at Chuck Berry. So let’s groove on and listen to Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Dave Edmunds, Duane Allman, the Creation, the Pretty Things, Small Faces, the Who, Real Estate, DIIV, Beach House, Lower Dens, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Garland Jeffreys, Mink Deville, and Chuck Berry.

This podcast is available to stream or download at http://brennick.net. Thank you for taking the time to stream or download this podcast, or any of the other podcasts which are all still available at the site. Please leave comments and suggestions (I do read the comments), and share this with other like-minded friends. Thank you.