A Record a Week: Chuck Berry's Golden Decade

SIDE 1.
MAYBELLENE
DEEP FEELING
JOHNNY B. GOODE
WEE WEE HOURS
NADINE
BROWN-EYED HANDSOME MAN

SIDE 2.
ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN
THIRTY DAYS
HAVANA MOON
NP PARTICULAR PLACE TO GO
MEMPHIS
ALMOST GROWN

SIDE 3.
ALMOST GROWN
SCHOOL DAYS
TOO MUCH MONKEY BUSINESS
OH, BABY DOLL
REELIN' AND ROCKIN'
YOU CAN'T CATCH ME
TOO POOPED TO POP

SIDE 4.
BYE BYE JOHNNY
'ROUND AND 'ROUND
SWEET LITTLE SIXTEEN
ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC
ANTHONY BOY
BACK IN THE USA

Chuck Berry was part of the formation of rock and roll throughout the 50's and 60's. His career was helped along by Muddy Waters, who told him to take his music to Chess Records, where he signed on. Taking his influences of southern blues and R&B, he kicked up the tempo and focused on riffing guitar solos over simple blues bass lines. Many of his songs are extremely popular, even iconic. Many of the early rock bands like the Beatles and the Stones were influenced by and covered his music. In fact, the Beach Boys song Surfin' USA is essentially Berry's Sweet Little Sixteen with surfing lyrics sung over top.

Even though this record covers the earlier and perhaps most successful part of his career, he has gone on to write and play music for decades, always sustaining a great popularity.

I love that early rock and roll sound and it makes me sad to see what passes for Rock and Roll today. Besides making you dance, it was a vehicle for change. It helped break down walls between race and gender, as well as being a powerful tool for uniting people to stand up for what they believe in. These days, much of so-called rock music is about getting wasted and 'picking up sluts'. It's almost like a reverse in meaning. Music that stands for something can often feel forced and leave you wondering if it is sincere or if it's meant for making a buck, and that shouldn't be. I'm not saying that Chuck Berry's songs are particularly meaningful or change-inducing on their own, but they were heavily influential to an entire generation of music that saw much of that. It is interesting, though, to chart the changes in rock music and hopefully it can reinvent itself in a way that is less packaged and commercialized in the future.

Listening to this collection provided many opportunity to 'shake it' with my daughter as she held my hands to balance her wobbly stance.