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"While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Chuck Berry comes the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together. It was his particular genius to graft country & western guitar licks onto a rhythm & blues chassis in his very first single, “Maybellene.” Combined with quick-witted, rapid-fire lyrics full of sly insinuations about cars and girls, Berry laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance. The song included a brief but scorching guitar solo built around his trademark double-string licks. Accompanied by long-time piano player Johnnie Johnson and members of the Chess Records house band, including , Berry wrote and performed rock and roll for the ages. To this day, the cream of Berry’s repertoire—which includes “Johnny B. Goode,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Rock and Roll Music” and “Roll Over Beethoven”—is required listening for any serious rock fan and required learning for any serious rock musician.

Charles Edward Berry was born in St. Louis on October 18, 1926. In the early Fifties, Berry led a popular blues trio by night and worked as a beautician by day. He befriended , who thought highly enough of Berry’s ability to introduce him to , head of Chicago-based Chess Records. It was not his bluesy numbers that convinced Chess to sign Berry but a song on his audition tape called “Ida Red,” an uptempo, R&B-country hybrid that Berry later reworked into “Maybellene.” Released on August 20, 1955, “Maybellene” went to Number 5 in Billboard and established Berry as a rarity: a black artist who successfully crossed over to the largely white pop charts. Asked why he made the transition when so many other deserving black artists in the Fifties had been locked out, Berry replied: “I think it had a lot to do with my diction. The pop fan could understand what I was saying better than many other singers.” It also had a lot to do with his knack for language. Berry offered eloquent testimony to the experience of being a teenager in the changing world of the Fifties, whether he was describing the boredom of classroom-bound students in “School Days” ("Soon as three o’clock rolls around/You finally lay your burden down") or the liberating appeal of rock and roll itself in “Rock and Roll Music” ("It’s got a backbeat, you can’t lose it"). In his words, “Everything I wrote about wasn’t about me, but about the people listening.”

UK COLUMBIA DB 3951  10" 78rpm SHELLAC

A SIDE: SCHOOL DAY (RING! RING! GOES THE BELL) 

B SIDE: DEEP FEELING

CONDITION -  EX      nice copy  

Comes in a Columbia cover 

HERE'S YOUR CHANCE TO PICK UP THIS CLASSIC ROCK AND ROLL 78