The life’s
work of a musical giant...
It’s
impossible to overestimate Chuck Berry’s mammoth influence on rock’n’roll,
indeed on western culture at large. Irrespective of the bizarre way his 60-year
career has played out, his music, poetry and early spirit cast an enormous
shadow on everything rock’n’roll was, is, even what it might still be. Berry
had it all. A fine singer, arranger and melodist, well-versed in pop, jazz,
country, boogie and blues, he was adept at assimilating everything, formulating
it anew for young ears.
His sly
wordplay – compact but complex narratives and deft character sketches –
reflected the hopes and aspirations, trials and tribulations of school-age (and
beyond) persons. Berry was the portent of a new kind of adulthood, and those
rolling, roiling and over-boiling guitar arpeggios, carried the listener into
ecstatic new realms, signaling more than just a watershed. After “Roll Over
Beethoven” Sinatra was on the ropes, Mitch Miller in the ditch. The music,
especially once the formative Rolling Stones, Beatles and Beach Boys paid their
debts, swiftly became canonical, overshadowing mightily the oft-troubled figure
that created it.
At the
same time in a bitter twist of irony, Berry himself – brilliant yet paranoid,
outrageously vilified in Jim Crow America – struggled to command his chaotic,
if quasar-like career. Despite some notable exceptions, dime-store nostalgia,
artistic redundancy and cavalier performances would dominate his career
post-1965. While Berry’s been endlessly anthologised, Bear’s 16-disc, 21-hour
monster represents the first effort at beginning-to-(presumably)-end
documentation, foisting the brilliant early rocker against the bland pop
vocalist, raucous, brain-rattling riffage against excruciating Latin balladry
and “exotic” pop excursions, and finally to the diminishing return of countless
remakes, remodels and, well, “My Ding-A-Ling”. Its formula invites liberal use
of the skip button, yet countless rare treasures await: instrumentals galore,
with extraordinary Berry/Johnnie Johnson guitar-piano interplay; superb,
little-noticed Berry compositions both early (“Dear Dad”) and late (“Tulane”);
the virtually forgotten Rock It, his final studio LP from 1979. His momentous,
oh-so-brief 1964 post-prison comeback – “Nadine”, “Promised Land” and,
eventually, his finest LP, St Louis To Liverpool – may stand as his definitive
work.
As
tangible as this set is – the life’s work of a musical giant – it’s the
intangibles, the pure joy of Berry’s finest work, that rule the day. There was
a sense of freedom flying out of those guitar solos; of possibility, optimism,
adventure. Human aspirations transcending time and generations lie within those
rhythms. It’s simply some of the most glorious pop music ever produced.
Luke Torn
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