Chuck was born only a few months after my mother (1926), which is incredible to think about. Where most rockers--well, most anyone in pop music--got their start or first success in their late teens or early twenties, Chuck was twenty-nine when "Maybellene" was moving up the charts; that is, he was by pop music standards an oldster right out of the box. And then came great one after great one, defying his age: "Too Much Monkey Business," "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," "Thirty Days," "You Can't Catch Me," "Roll Over, Beethoven," "School Day," "Rock and Roll Music," "Around & Around," "Sweet Little Sixteen," "Reelin' and Rockin'," "Johnny B. Goode," "Memphis," "Almost Grown," "Little Queenie," "Carol," "Back in the U.S.A."...and those are just the better known '50s tracks! I mean, if he'd gotten on the wrong plane in 1959 instead of Buddy, Ritchie and the Bopper, he'd be no less legendary today, the respected and seminal performer and rock that he was. But there was more to come: "Bye Bye Johnny," "Come On," "I'm Talking About You," and the 1964 'comeback' singles--"Nadine," "No Particular Place to Go," "You Never Can Tell," "Little Marie" and "Promised Land."
Reviewing his career, in fact, I can only think of a few sides I've never dug, like "Anthony Boy" (I think his first A-side not to make the Hot 100) and the 1972 #1 "My Ding-A-Ling," which IMO was beneath contempt. But the scattered, somewhat forgotten gems are there, like "Wee Wee Hours," "Havana Moon," "Deep Feeling," "No Money Down," "Oh Baby Doll," "Jaguar & Thunderbird," "Joe Joe Gun," "Run Rudolph Run," "It Wasn't Me," "Tulane."
Given his maturity when his first hit arrived, it's even more remarkable how Berry not only articulated teen life in the newly minted Rock 'N' Roll age, but understood it. He was like your older brother who wrote chronicles about his younger siblings and their friends, particularly his kid sisters, who symbolized the youthful innocence and excitement of the teen years, and of the new music of the 1950's, too. That the reality of his life and proclivities might have been something less pure seemed beside the point: the purity was and remains in the music, the unforgettable words and guitar lines, the tinkling piano, and the sly voice, always letting us know that he understood it all.
Rest in peace? Don't bet on it! In a just universe the spirit of the music--and therefore, C.B.--will trump everything else, still echoing somewhere long after we are all dust and debris in that Great Cosmos Dr. Sagan so often spoke about.
ED