Background

Born on October 18, 1926, in St. Louis, Missouri, Chuck Berry was the fourth child in a family of six. He grew up in the north St. Louis neighborhood known as the Ville, an area where many middle-class people lived. His father, Henry William Berry was a contractor and deacon of a Baptist church; his mother, Martha Bell (Banks) was a certified public school principal.

Education

Chuck Berry gained early exposure to music through his family’s participation in the choir of the Antioch Baptist Church, through the blues and country-western music he heard on the radio, and through music classes, especially at Sumner High School. Berry was still attending high school when he was sent to a Missouri prison for young offenders to serve three years for armed robbery.

Career

In 1944, at the age of 17, Berry and two friends dropped out of high school and set off on an impromptu road trip to California. They had gone no farther than Kansas City when they came across a pistol abandoned in a parking lot and, seized by a terrible fit of youthful misjudgment, decided to go on a robbing spree. Brandishing the pistol, they robbed a bakery, a clothing store and a barbershop, then stole a car before being arrested by highway patrolmen. The three young men received the maximum penalty - 10 years in jail - despite being minors and first-time offenders.

Berry served three years in the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men outside of Jefferson, Missouri, before gaining release on good behavior on October 18, 1947, which was his 21st birthday. He returned to St. Louis, where he worked for his father's construction business and part-time as a photographer and as a janitor at a local auto plant.

He also took up the guitar again when, in 1951, his former high school classmate Tommy Stevens invited him to join his band. They played at local black nightclubs in St. Louis, and Berry quickly developed a reputation for his lively showmanship. At the end of 1952, he met Jonnie Johnson, a local jazz pianist, and joined his band, the Sir John's Trio. Berry revitalized the band and introduced upbeat country numbers into the band's repertoire of jazz and pop music. They played at the Cosmopolitan, an upscale black nightclub in East St. Louis, which began attracting white patrons.

In the mid-1950s, Berry began taking road trips to Chicago, the Midwest capital of black music, in search of a record contract. Early in 1955, he met the legendary blues musician Muddy Waters, who suggested that Berry go meet with Chess Records. A few weeks later, Berry wrote and recorded a song called "Maybellene" and took it to the executives at Chess. They immediately offered him a contract; within months, "Maybellene" had reached No. 1 on the R&B charts and No. 5 on the pop charts. With its unique blend of rhythm and blues beat, country guitar licks and the flavor of Chicago blues and narrative storytelling, many music historians consider "Maybellene" the first true rock 'n' roll song.

Berry quickly followed with a slew of other unique singles that continued to carve out the new genre of rock 'n' roll: "Roll Over, Beethoven," "Too Much Monkey Business" and "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," among others. Berry managed to achieve crossover appeal with white youths without alienating his black fans by mixing blues and R&B sounds with storytelling that spoke to the universal themes of youth. In the late 1950s, songs such as "Johnny B. Goode," "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Carol" all managed to crack the Top 10 of the pop charts by achieving equal popularity with youths on both sides of the racial divide. "I made records for people who would buy them," Berry said. "No color, no ethnic, no political - I don't want that, never did.''

Berry's soaring music career was derailed again in 1961 when he was convicted under the Mann Act of illegally transporting a woman across state lines for "immoral purposes." Three years earlier, in 1958, Berry had opened Club Bandstand in the predominantly white business district of downtown St. Louis. The next year, while traveling in Mexico, he had met a 14-year-old waitress - and sometimes prostitute - and brought her back to St. Louis to work at his club. However, he fired her only weeks later, and when she was then arrested for prostitution, charges were pressed against Berry that ended with him spending yet another 20 months in jail.

When Berry was released from prison in 1963, he picked up right where he left off, writing and recording popular and innovative songs. His 1960s hits include "Nadine," "You Can Never Tell," Promised Land" and "Dear Dad." Nevertheless, Berry was never the same man after his second stint in prison. Carl Perkins, his friend and partner on a 1964 British concert tour, observed, "Never saw a man so changed. He had been an easygoing guy before, the kinda guy who'd jam in dressing rooms, sit and swap licks and jokes. In England he was cold, real distant and bitter. It wasn't just jail, it was those years of one-nighters, grinding it out like that can kill a man, but I figure it was mostly jail."

When Berry was released from prison in 1963, his return to recording and performing was made easier because British invasion bands - notably the Beatles and the Rolling Stones - had sustained interest in his music by releasing cover versions of his songs, and other bands had reworked some of them, such as the Beach Boys' 1963 hit "Surfin' U.S.A.", which used the melody of Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen". In 1964, and 1965 Berry released eight singles, including three that were commercially successful, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard 100: "No Particular Place to Go" (a humorous reworking of "School Days", concerning the introduction of seat belts in cars), "You Never Can Tell", and the rocking "Nadine". Between 1966 and 1969 Berry released five albums for Mercury Records, including his first live album, Live at Fillmore Auditorium, in which he was backed by the Steve Miller Band.

Berry's touring style, traveling the "oldies" circuit in the 1970s (often being paid in cash by local promoters) added ammunition to the Internal Revenue Service's accusations that Berry had evaded paying income taxes. Facing criminal sanction for the third time, Berry pleaded guilty to evading nearly $110,000 in federal income tax owed on his 1973 earnings. Newspaper reports in 1979 put his 1973 joint income (with his wife) at $374,982. He was sentenced to four months in prison and 1,000 hours of community service - performing benefit concerts - in 1979.

Berry continued to play 70 to 100 one-nighters per year in the 1980s, still traveling solo and requiring a local band to back him at each stop. In 1986, Taylor Hackford made a documentary film, Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, of a celebration concert for Berry's sixtieth birthday, organized by Keith Richards. Eric Clapton, Etta James, Julian Lennon, Robert Cray and Linda Ronstadt, among others, appeared with Berry on stage and in the film. During the concert, Berry played a Gibson ES-355, the luxury version of the ES-335 that he favored on his 1970s tours. Richards played a black Fender Telecaster Custom, Cray a Fender Stratocaster and Clapton a Gibson ES 350T (de), the same model that Berry used on his early recordings.

In November 2000, Berry faced legal issues when he was sued by his former pianist Johnnie Johnson, who claimed that he had co-written over 50 songs, including "No Particular Place to Go", "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Roll Over Beethoven", that credit Berry alone. The case was dismissed when the judge ruled that too much time had passed since the songs were written.

Berry announced on his 90th birthday that his first new studio album since Rock It in 1979, entitled Chuck, would be released in 2017. His first new record in 38 years, it includes his children, Charles Berry Jr. and Ingrid, on guitar and harmonica, with songs "covering the spectrum from hard-driving rockers to soulful thought-provoking time capsules of a life's work" and dedicated to his beloved wife of 68 years, Toddy.

Achievements

• 

  A pioneer of rock and roll, Berry was a significant influence on the development of both the music and the attitude associated with the rock music lifestyle. Berry contributed three things to rock music: an irresistible swagger, a focus on the guitar riff as the primary melodic element and an emphasis on songwriting as storytelling.
  
  On July 29, 2011, Berry was honored in a dedication of an eight-foot, in-motion Chuck Berry Statue in the Delmar Loop in St. Louis, Missouri, right across the street from Blue Berry Hill.
  
  Among the honors Berry received were the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984 and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000. He was ranked seventh on Time magazine's 2009 list of the 10 best electric guitar players of all time. On May 14, 2002, Berry was honored as one of the first BMI Icons at the 50th annual BMI Pop Awards. He was awarded along with BMI affiliates Bo Diddley and Little Richard. In August 2014, Berry was made a laureate of the Polar Music Prize.
  
  Berry is included in several of Rolling Stone magazine's "Greatest of All Time" lists. In September 2003, the magazine ranked him number 6 in its list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". In November his compilation album The Great Twenty-Eight was ranked 21st in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In March 2004, Berry was ranked fifth on the list of "The Immortals – The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In December 2004, six of his songs were included in "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time": "Johnny B. Goode" (#7), "Maybellene" (#18), "Roll Over Beethoven" (#97), "Rock and Roll Music" (#128), "Sweet Little Sixteen" (#272) and "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" (#374). In June 2008, his song "Johnny B. Goode" was ranked first in the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time."
  
  Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" is the only rock-and-roll song included on the Voyager Golden Record.

Works

More photos

• music

  • After School Session 1957
  • One Dozen Berrys 1958
  • Berry Is On Top 1959
  • Rockin' At The Hops 1960
  • New Juke Box Hits 1961
  • Two Great Guitars 1964
  • St. Louis To Liverpool 1964
  • Chuck Berry in London 1965
  • Fresh Berry's 1965
  • Chuck Berry's Golden Hits 1967
  • In Memphis 1967
  • From St. Louie to Frisco 1968
  • Concerto in B Goode 1969
  • Back Home 1970
  • San Francisco Dues 1971
  • London Chuck Berry Sessions 1972
  • Bio 1973
  • Chuck Berry 1975
  • Rock It 1979
  • CHUCK 2017

Religion

Berry was raised a Baptist, but is non-religious as an adult.

Politics

Berry helped to shape American culture and has supported the Democratic Party throughout his life.

Views

Berry tapped into rock’s sense of rebellion, but slyly. His songs were celebrations of youth’s new sovereignty; they were also demarcations.

Quotations: "Rock's so good to me. Rock is my child and my grandfather."

"Music is science. Everything is science. Because science is truth."

"I wanted to write about school because most of my audience at the particular time was of a school element."

Personality

Berry was a humble person. Despite the accolades, in his own book Berry shrugs off his contributions, stating that "my view remains that I do not deserve all the reward directed on my account for the accomplishments credited to the rock 'n' roll bank of music."

Physical Characteristics: In his autobiography Сhuck mentioned his height and weight, saying "I weighed in at 172 pounds, stood six feet, one-half inch."

Quotes from others about the person

• "If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'. - John Lennon
  
  "If you don't know every Chuck Berry lick, you can't play rock guitar." - Ted Nugent
  
  "Chuck Berry was rock's greatest practitioner, guitarist, and the greatest pure rock 'n' roll writer who ever lived." - Bruce Springsteen

Connections

On October 28, 1948, Berry married Themetta "Toddy" Suggs, who gave birth to Darlin Ingrid Berry on October 3, 1950.

Father:

Henry William Berry

Mother:

Martha Bell Banks

Wife:

Themetta "Toddy" Suggs

Daughter:

Darlin Ingrid Berry

References

• Chuck Berry: Mr. Rock N'Roll
• American Legends: The Life of Chuck Berry
• Chuck Berry: Rock 'N' Roll Music
• Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry
• Chuck Berry: The Biography