Born in St. Louis on October 18, 1926 Charles Edward Anderson was destined for greatness. Berry gave his first performance while in high school and has been entertaining crowds ever since.
Berry played a major role in broadening the appeal of rhythm-and-blues music during the 1950s and he helped create rock and roll. Berry was signed to Chess Records and in the summer of 1955, and his first recording session yielded "Maybellene" which reached #5 on the Pop Charts and #1 on the R&B Charts. He drew upon a broad range of musical genres in his compositions. Berry continued his success with such hits as "Brown-Eyed Man," "Too Much Monkey Business," "Memphis," "Roll Over, Beethoven!" "Johnny B. Goode" and "Reeling and Rolling." Click here to find out how Berry's tunes fared on the charts.
"Of all the early breakthrough rock & roll artists, none is more important to the development of the music than Chuck Berry. He is its greatest songwriter, the main shaper of its instrumental voice, one of its greatest guitarists, possessing the clearest diction, and one of its greatest performers."
-Cub Koda
Maybelline.
Johnny B. Goode (widely considered Berry's masterpiece)
In the 1960s and 1970s, Berry's music was the inspiration for such groups as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Berry had a number of comeback recordings and in 1972 had the first and only #1 Pop Chart hit of his career with "My Ding-A-Ling. . In 1984 he was presented with a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement. 1986 fittingly saw him inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the very first inductee in history. As a tribute to his pervasiveness in the realm of rock, a clip of "Johnny B. Goode" was played in the Voyager I spacecraft on a copper phonograph record attached to the side of the satellite. 1987 saw the publication of Berry's book Chuck Berry: The Autobiography.
Chuck Berry is in his 80s today and continues to rock out crowds with his signature "duck walk."
In December 2008, Cadillac Records, a film chronicling the rise and fall of Chess records and its artists was released. Mos Def portrayed Chuck Berry. Check out one of the scenes below:
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