Chuck Berry: An Original Rocker
While attending Sumner High School, the first all black high school west of the Mississippi, Berry’s musical talents were showcased in a 1941 All Men’s Review. He sang Confessin’ the Blues, by Jay McShann, and later recorded it on his album Rockin’ at the Hops.
Chuck Berry’s rise to fame was not an easy one. In 1944, while joy riding to Kansas City with two others, he was arrested and found guilty of armed robbery. All three men were sentenced to 10 years a piece in the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men at Algoa, Missouri.
A year after his 1947 release from Algoa, Berry married Themetta Suggs. Afterwards, Berry worked at an auto assembly plant, trained to be a hair stylist, freelanced as a photographer, worked with his father, all while persuing a music career. In 1952, he joined Sir John’s Trio, a small ensemble with a pianist, drummer, and the leader, Johnnie Johnson. Chuck Berry was such a showman that he eventually took over the band. Impressed by Berry’s rendition of Maybellene, originally Ida Red, Chess Records recorded the song. Alan Freed, a popular and prominent disc jockey, played the song nonstop for two hours one night on his show on WINS in New York. As a result, the song was in the top ten on the R&B chart, number five on the Hot 100, and sold over a million copies.
With the success of Maybelline came the realities of stardom. Since Alan Freed, Russo Fratto were on the copyright, he had to share the royalty even though he was the one who wrote the song. To add to the hardship of reality, Teddy Reig, Berry’s first road manager, was bilking money earned from Berry’s live performances.
Not only was Berry a tremendous rocker, but he appeared in several of Alan Freed’s movies-Rock, Rock, Mr. Rock and Roll, and Go, Johnny, Go. Even though he acted in these movies, he continued touring. On one of his tours, he met Buddy Holly, and the two men became friends and joined together for tours promoted by Alan Freed. Also a part of the tour was Jerry Lee Lewis. Lewis was a hot commodity in the late 1950’s, and assumed he would perform the closing at each performance of the tour. He had not counted on Freed’s and Berry’s friendship to come into play. Consequently, having his third top ten single, Johnny B. Goode, Chuck Berry was the favored performer to close the show. Needless to say, Lewis was not happy. Due to racial tensions, Chuck Berry closing out the night incited fights in the audience in Boston Massachusetts. After Alan Freed made disparaging remarks about the Boston Police, he was later arrested and charged with inciting a riot. The arrest proved to a positive because it was this incident that inspired Freed’s movie, American Hot Wax, staring Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis in 1978.
On December 1, 1959, while performing in El Paso, Texas, Berry met a young American Indian woman, Janice Escalanti. She was from Yuma, Arizona. She asked Berry for a job as a hat check girl at his establishment, Club Bandstand in St. Louis. After two weeks of working in Berry’s club, Escalanti was let go. Instead of returning to Arizona, she prostituted at a hotel. One night after not having a way home, she called the Yuma police. Berry was charged with being in violation of the Mann Act-transporting a woman across state lines for immoral intentions. The guilty verdict of Berry’s first trial was overturned after the judge was overheard making racist statements. Berry’s second trial had the same guilty verdict and he was sentenced to three years in jail and a $10, 000 fine. At the beginning of Berry’s sentence, The Beach Boys released Surfin’ USA, which was a note for note copy of Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen.
After Berry’s release from jail, he did not disappoint his fans. In February, 1964 to March, 1965, Chuck Berry released six singles-Nadine, No Particular Place to Go, You Never Can Tell, Promised Land, and Dear Dad-all made the top 100. After Dear Dad, Berry did not have another hit for seven years.
In 1966, Berry signed with Mercury Records which marked the decline in his career. Berry’s signing with Mercury Records in 1966 contributed the decline of his work. Mercury was not willing to tolerate artist quirks they as independent Chess Records had. Frequent conflicts and disputes over musically differences resulted in work that was way below the type of music Chuck Berry had produced in the past. The only exception was Live at the Fillmore with the Steve Miller Band.
Berry returned to Chess Records in 1970, but Berry’s former record company had undergone a change and had a more corporate feel to it, and eventually sold to the corporate GRT tape distribution company. But before doing so, the surviving owners of Chess Records, in 1964, produced some of the old Chuck Berry sound with Tulane and Have Mercy Judge. In 1972, Berry recorded My Ding-A-Ling with Mercury, originally My Tamborine, his only number one hit.
