Deep down Louisiana close to New Orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play the guitar just like a ringing a bell
Go go..Go Johnny go… Johnny B. Goode
As my living room resonated with that peppy Rock N Roll
number in Chuck Berry’s joyous voice, accompanied by emotion-rousing guitar
licks wafting from the micro grooves of a black record, my young daughter
happily enacted the delightful scene of playing the imaginary guitar, rocking
her head to the fast beat of the all-time great number. She is five. But that
song Johnnie B. Goode is 55 years old! So what if she has no clue, which those
song lines are against racism? The guitar music of the black boy Johnny
B. Goode who is living in the dark green plains of Louisiana is going to
be written up in multi-hued lights all over the world, breaking all racial
barriers! The song’s beat and peppiness will not fail to attract the listeners
into its captivating fold.
For some time now I had taken to hearing music from black
discs. Do not run away with the idea that music is now released in new black
CDs. I am referring to Vinyl records. After listening to music over the last
thirty years, starting from Audio Cassettes to Compact Discs, Super Audio
Compact Discs, Digital Video Disc – Audio, Computer, various media players,
iPod, iPad and many such media turn by turn, I have come to the considered
opinion that no medium has that extraordinary high quality high fidelity sound
clarity and separation which a well produced vinyl record can unfold!
But where do we get such records today? The last vinyl
record in Tamil language was that of film songs of Kizhakku Cheemaiyile by
A R Rahman released in 1993. The last records produced in India belonged to the
period 1990-93. Thereafter all the factories producing copies of vinyl records
in India closed down. A few copies of records were produced abroad for the
Hindi film Dil To Paagal Hain in 1998 and Veer Zara in 2004
for release and distribution in India. Today, on demand, hundred or two hundred
copies per title have begun to be released in India. These are now available in
Indian markets for film music, ghazals and classical music. But these records
sold only through select music store or two in big cities of India. Last year
an album of some Malayalam film songs of Yesudas of the period 1995-2005 was
released as a vinyl record by the valiant efforts of my friend Shijo Manuel, a
die hard record fan and the Music Manager of a Malayalam FM radio
station.
But the price of these vinyl records produced in Germany,
Netherlands or England and distributed here ranges from Rs.800/- to Rs.2500/-!
Vinyl records of international labels, which are sold only through a few music
stores like Rhythm House of Mumbai, carry price tags of Rs.1000/- to Rs.5000/-!
How can one afford such listening experience? The records that I now listen to
are from my old collections as well as ones borrowed from music friends from
all over India. Fortunately, a few extremely rare records of Chuck Berry, who
is known as the creator of Rock N Roll have been part of my collection since
long time.
When we talk of popular forms of Western music, two forms
stand out. One is Pop music and the other is Rock music. Pop is short for
popular. It means that pop music is the form popular among people. But
what about Rock? The meaning that comes to mind when we say Rock is of stones,
boulders, etc. What is the relationship between these hard materials and music?
But Rock also means shake or move or as in rocking the cradle. English language
has for hundreds of years used the word rock in that sense. But its entry in
the dictionary of music is merely sixty years old.
But the word Rock did not enter the world of music alone. It
first entered the music along with Roll, as Rock & Roll. Roll can mean
rotation, Roll as in roll up or roll on the ground, continuing roll of sound,
continuing beat of drums or stream of words. Thus Rock & Roll became a new
form of music meant for fast dance numbers. This new form took shape with Chuck
Berry’s song ‘Maybelline’. Later, Chuck Berry took this form of music to
worldwide fame through his two songs ‘Rock & Roll Music’ and ‘School Days’.
Chuck Berry raised his clarion call worldwide through the lines of his song
‘School Days’: ‘Hail, hail Rock and Roll, Deliver Me from the days of
old ’.
Gospel music has slow beat but has high note elaborations
and it became popular among American black people in the 1930s and 1940s.
Another form of music that was the forte of American black people for a long
time was Blues which deeply reflected their sad life and mental stresses set to
a slow beat. From this was born the Rhythm & Blues form of music which
appealed to the tastes of young so much that it became very popular. But it was
still the music of black people.
During this same period Country, Pop, Jazz and Swing
remained exclusively the music of the whites in America. Hillbilly and
Bluegrass were forms of country music with a fast beat that were mostly popular
among whites for dinner time dances. But none of these soft forms of music had
the virility or excitement to reach large masses. It was the age when blacks
did not look at the forms of music of the whites and whites would not look at
the forms of music of the blacks! It was a terrible age when racial hatred had
totally segregated the popular music.
In such a time of deep divide, a roughly 30 years old black
young man from Missouri, then considered an unimportant state of United States
of America, changed the scene and brought both the blacks and whites together
under the sway of his unique form of music. He created his new form of music by
fusing the lyrics of Blues that touched the heart, the excitement of
Rhythm & Blues, the high pitched appeal of the Gospel music, fast
paced piano movements of Jazz and Swing, Guitar dominance of the Country music,
the dance appeal of the Hillbilly and ‘I don’t care’ attitude of Blue Grass.
When he proclaimed through this new form of music ‘Deliver
us from the days of old’ the world of music was stunned. It became the national
anthem of young people between the ages of 15 and 50 coming from diverse
communities and races. That was how Rock, popular to this day, was born.
And with it the racial divide in music began to disappear slowly.
Chuck Berry chucked out the acoustic guitar sound of Country
music and brought electric guitar into his music. Not only the lead guitar but
also the bass guitar and rhythm guitars became electronic. He soon changed the
way the popular guitar was used and improvised many new playing techniques. He
replaced the soft piano movements with faster plays of jazz techniques. Snare
drum became the leader of drums in beat. He also gave great importance to the
vibrant kick base.
He greatly toned down the importance of Harmony and made the
solo singer the centre of his music. He made the accompanying instruments
complete the Harmony. He laid emphasis on simple but musical lyrics. He kept
aside the problems of race, poverty and politics and played up in his lyrics
love, sex, infatuation with girls, different models of new cars that were part
of teenage dreams, wine and rebelling against controls and conventions. When he
sang like ‘Roll over Beethoven, I’m taking a bit of your space, and you tell
Tchaikovsky I said so’, it greatly excited the younger generation who hated the
conventions of classical music.
Chuck Berry, with his lean 6’ 2” frame, burnt black
complexion and skinny cheeks, always looked twenty years older than he really
was. It will surprise no one, if at first sight, you guessed him to be a poor
farmer from countryside shriveled by the sun or a small town butchery shop
owner. In 1950s, even a few of black girls had commented that he was ‘kind of
ugly’! But those who had heard him only on the Radio or from a gramophone
record, thought of him as a very handsome man. And those who saw him in his
stage avatar gaped open-mouthed at his sky high self- confidence, his highly
entertaining showmanship and unfailing sense of humour!
He developed a stage dance movement called Duck Walk to suit
his songs that started unexpectedly and ended quickly. If there is a dance move
to equal it in this world, it is Moon Walk alone, created by Michael
Jackson! Chuck Berry’s Duck Walk was unique where he played his difficult
guitar notes, performed his dance steps to the beat bending at knees like a
duck or ostrich moving his neck back and forth. To this day nobody has
succeeded in copying this style of dance! Chuck Berry’s singing and dancing on
the stage as he played his guitar gave him a superhuman feel. Even his
unhandsome looks added notches to his attractive stage persona. He sang and
danced in dripping sweat even in the cool environs of air-conditioned halls and
even in cold winter months!
He created many world-wide hit numbers like ‘Johnny B
Goode’, ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘Memphis Tennessee’, ‘You Can’t Catch Me’,
‘Little Queenie’, ‘Maybelline’, ‘No Particular Place To Go’, ‘Let It Rock’,
‘Promised Land’, ‘You Never Can’t Tell’, ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’, ‘Reelin’ and
Rockin’, ‘Carol’, ‘Thirty Days’, ‘Too Much Monkey Business’, ‘Brown Eyed
Handsome Man’ and so on. Just as Rock music started from his songs, it can be
said that Rap or Hip Hop too evolved from his songs. His song ‘Too Much Monkey
Business’ was a forerunner to Rap music.
Chuck Berry had always stayed on the Top Ten List of Music
Artistes and All-time Great Guitar Players of World. Without the distinction of
black or white, there are very few great musicians of the world who had not
copied Chuck Berry’s songs or remixed them. Elvis Presley, John Lennon,
Beatles, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, Jerry Lewis, Elton John,
Conway Twitty, Uriah Heap, Bruce Springsteen, Simon Garfunkel, Eric Clapton,
Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Van Helen, AC/DC, Paul Anka and David Bowie have
all done it. It will be difficult to find any Rock Guitarist who is not
influenced by his guitar techniques. Jerry Lewis had once remarked: “Elvis and
I are great, but we are not Chuck Berry!” John Lennon had said: “If there is
another name for Rock & Roll, it must be Chuck Berry.”
Chuck Berry’s life reads like a strange fiction book filled
with crimes, confusions and countless unexpected twists in tale. Born in 1926
as Charles Edward Anderson Berry, one of the six children of the part-time
pastor of a church in St.Louis, Missouri, he became famous as Chuck Berry. In
those days, blacks did not have the right to buy land or house in their name in
many parts of America. Though they did have that right in the area where Chuck
Berry’s family lived, they owned neither a house nor anything particularly
valuable.
His father also worked as a carpenter. His mother was a
part-time teacher. She sang well as well. In their deeply religious home, the
church choir conducted regular music rehearsals. These were Chuck Berry’s
initial experiences in music. He started participating in them from the age of
six. In the very beginning of teens he took up the guitar. Without knowing
anything much about it he played it and sang in a school event. It was liked by
all. Very soon and in short order he learnt the basics of guitar. Between
school hours, to earn money, he worked as an assistant at Hair Dresser’s shop.
Is it a must that children brought up in a deeply religious
way should grow up as good persons as well? At 17 Chuck Berry got down to
stealing at the streets with a few friends. They looted three shops in Kansas
City with an old revolver that did not work. Later, when they tried to escape
in a car they had stolen at gun point, they were caught by the Police. They
were sentenced to three years in Jail. He sang by forming a group of four in
that Juveniles Correctional Facility.
When Chuck Berry came out of Jail on his 21st birthday,
his family compelled him into a marriage. His first child was born the next
year. Chuck Berry worked as a daily labourer in an automobile workshop, as a
sweeper in his housing colony and as a night watchman. He was willing to do any
job that fetched him money. With money thus earned and saved, in 1950 he bought
a small house that was forty years old in a locality where only poor blacks
lived. It was from this house that he created the immortal songs like ‘Johnny
B. Goode’, ‘Roll over Beethoven’ and ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’. Today the
government has registered this house, where he lived till 1958 as a place of
historical importance.
Whether he was a bird in Jail or a watchman outside it, he
never gave up on his music. In all these places he spent his time playing on
his guitar and singing. Soon, he started working with the music groups there.
Then one day the lead singer of the music band of Johnny Johnson, a great
pianist himself, took ill. Not having any alternative he invited Chuck Berry,
still a greenhorn with his guitar to perform at the New Year Eve Event of 1952.
But with his uncanny feel for entertaining and unique singing style, Chuck
Berry made the event an unprecedented celebration! None too soon Johnny
Johnson’s band became Chuck Berry’s band!
In those early days, Chuck Berry was mostly concentrating on
Blues. He borrowed the entertaining stage techniques of T. Bone Walker who had
created a few famous Blues songs by then. Chuck Berry was an ardent fan of the
then dominant music personality with the funny name of Muddy Waters who had created
the runaway all-time hit Blues numbers like ‘Hoochi Coochie Man’ and ‘My Home
in Delta’. Chuck Berry also regarded the singing style of Nat King Cole, who
was practically the history of Jazz and Swing music styles, as his ideal.
All these three were blacks and their music reached only
black people. Chuck Berry thought that if he combined the singing and stage
styles of these three great men with the Country music of whites the resultant
new style music will reach both blacks as well as whites. Chuck Berry decided
that his lyrics should not have, in the language or pronunciation, anything
that reminded of blacks. Later it was this fusion music that was celebrated
equally by blacks and whites that took Chuck Berry to the heights of fame.
In 1955, Chuck Berry went to meet his idol Muddy Waters in
Chicago with the desire to release a music record, a desire that had animated
him for long. There ensued the strangest of dialogues lasting a bare three
minutes that can be said to have catapulted Chuck Berry to an international
status of a cult star. The dialogue went like this:
“Good Morning, Sir!”
“What do you want?”
“I am your great fan!”
“Come to the point!”
“I am a singer, poet and composer!”
“I am one, too. So?”
“I want my music record released.”
“Go right ahead.”
“Which firm can be ………”
“Go to Chess Records. See Leonard Chess.”
“Thank you, Sir. May I sing a song of mine? I have the guitar.”
“I have the piano itself here. Spare me. Just leave!”
Chuck Berry put in his attendance the very next day at the
office of Chess Records. He cited the name of Muddy Waters to gain entry. He
sang a few of his Blues style songs for the benefit of Leonard Chess, plucking
his guitar. But none of his songs impressed Leonard. Heart-broken, before
leaving, he sang his own version of the old Country music song Ida Red. Leonard
Chess was impressed and a recording agreement was signed immediately. In the
next few days that song was recorded with many changes titled ‘Maybelline’. A
completely bluesy number ‘Wee Wee Hours’ was placed on the B side of the
record. That record sold nearly a million copies! What followed is the happy
history of Rock & Roll music.
Most of Chuck Berry’s songs became super hits. He made money
hand over fist and fame played his tune. His investments in orchards, houses,
agricultural lands, restaurants and motels, night dance halls, etc. flourished.
Chuck Berry became the idol to follow for millions of music lovers and
thousands of famous musicians as well. But his music alone was the ideal to
follow!
In 1959, at the height of his fame as a world-wide super
star, he was arrested by the Police for the crime of raping a fourteen years
old Red Indian girl. Brought in from Texas, she was a bag checker in his dance
floors at night. By day she was apparently soliciting secretly. Chuck Berry was
sentenced to five years in jail for bringing a minor girl from another state
and forcing her into prostitution. Two appeals reduced the sentence to two
years of jail. Chuck Berry was in jail during the years 1962-63. But that was
also the period when his songs were sung by world-famous music stars and became
famous in nooks and corners of the world.
Chuck Berry who came out of jail was an embittered man
unwilling to trust anyone. He disbanded his music troupe. He snapped his
relations with Chess Records and shifted to Mercury Records. He undertook his
music tours alone, with just his guitar for company. He earned much notoriety
by holding music events with substandard local bands without any rehearsal.
Short temper and unsociable habits became his calling cards. He refused to sing
a song on the stage more than once, however persistent the fans’ requests for
encores were! During this period he released many songs, but only a few like
‘Nadine’ succeeded. But none of them brought in the kind of money he expected.
Chastened, he returned to Chess Records. ‘My Dinga Linga
Ling’ released by Chess in 1972 was the number that sold maximum number of
records during the chequered music career of Chuck Berry. This tasteless song
of below par music secured the kind of success which many of the great musical
creations of Chuck Berry, the creator of Rock & Roll music, did not
receive. The reason was not far to seek, it was the double entendre in the
narration of lyrics, the kind that even an adolescent student will shy away
from.
When I was a little biddy boy
My grandma bought me a cute little toy
Two Silver bells on a string
She told me it was my ding-a-ling-a-ling
My Ding-A-Ling My Ding-A-Ling won't you play with My
Ding-A-Ling
My Ding-A-Ling My Ding-A-Ling won't you play with My Ding-A-Ling
When I was little boy In Grammar school
Always went by the very best rule
But every time the bell would ring
You'd catch me playing with my ding-a-ling
Once while climbing the garden wall,
Slipped and fell had a very bad fall
I fell so hard I heard birds sing,
But I held on to My ding-a-ling
Once while swimming cross turtle creek
Man them snappers right at my feet
Sure was hard swimming cross that thing
with both hands holding my ding-a-ling
Though happy at the way money came pouring in, Chuck Berry
was confused by the success of this absurd song. He did not record a single
song for the next two years. He appeared set against recording another song.
But pressures of contract made him consent to release a few songs. With
that he came out of Chess Records, once and for all. The song ‘Rock It’
released through the music label Atco, four years later, was Chuck Berry’s last
recorded song.
He continued with his music tours, all alone. He kept performing
with any indifferent troupe that came his way, with disastrous consequences to
his reputation! Still, the crowds of fans kept storming his events to just get
a glimpse of this super star of international fame. It is said that he had
always resorted to every trick of trade to collect money and not let it go out.
He had held a huge musical event in White House in 1979 at
the request of President Jimmy Carter, who was his ardent fan. Within a few
days of this event he was arrested again. This was for cheating the Government
of Income Tax that was not paid for many years. He was sentenced to 4 months in
prison and additionally 45 days of social service. During this period of social
service Government arranged for over ten musical events. The proceeds of these
events were appropriated by the Government towards the penal amount due from
Chuck Berry! Chuck Berry continued to hold over 100 music events every year
banking on the fame of his songs.
In 1990, it was discovered that the women’s toilets in the
restaurants owned by Chuck Berry were fitted with hidden cameras. 59 affected
women went to court against Chuck Berry. But they were not able to prove that
he did it. But he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay compensation to
those women to mitigate this new blemish in his reputation. An obscene video
was put on sale everywhere with the claim that he performed in it! But it was
never proved that it was he who was on tape.
In a subsequent sudden raid by the Police Department on
Chuck Berry’s residence they found a little grass and drugs, some weapons and
obscene video tapes of young girls below the age of seventeen. He was sentenced
again and a fine of 5000 dollars was levied as well.
In the year 2000, Johnny Johnson, who was the first one to
get Chuck Berry to sing and who later served in Chuck Berry’s troupe as a
pianist, went to court against him. He advanced the argument that he too had
worked in the creation of over 50 songs of Chuck Berry like ‘Roll Over
Beethoven’ and that he had received neither money nor credit for it. But he
could adduce no proof for his claims. Court dismissed the claim ruling that
there was no basis for the claim raised after 40-50 years of the event. Johnny
Johnson passed away within two years after that.
Every person lives with his very personal and secret
thoughts. Who else can tell what he had thought or done in his secret and
personal moments? Psychology says that criminality is a human trait. Man
escapes indulging his criminal thoughts because of the social and personal
obstructions that happen on a day to day basis. Chuck Berry has spoken very
little in his public life. He has never spoken about the dark recesses of his
mind. He had neither shown excessive pride in his successes nor publicly
displayed his disappointment over his failures. He made no effort to deny or
justify the charges leveled against him before the people!
He had remarked, just once: “I am not a very great person.
Money was always important to me. My dreams were always about land, home and
valuable possessions. But whatever I did, I made the effort to be
whole-hearted. I might have failed in the effort many times. I had no part in
many of the crimes I am supposed to have committed after I became popular. When
millions loved me, it is quite possible that a few thousands hated me
intensely.” Chuck Berry’s obsession with money and possessions must have been
reflections of his early life where he had no right to anything.
At the ripe age of 82 he undertook a music tour of many
European nations. Fans flocked to his events to see him even though he was in
no great shape to sing. He fell, tired, on the stage during a New Year Eve’s
show. Today, at 86 he still performs a few nights every month in a night club
named Blueberry Mountain in his native place. Nobody has to pay money to listen
him singing now! Chuck Berry, weighed down and fatigued by his age plays on his
guitar and makes the effort to sing in a low sunken pitch.
Go Johnny go… Johnny be good!
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