Biography

Chuck Berry was born October 18, 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri. As a child Chuck sang in his churches a Baptist choir. Berry learned to play the guitar while attending Summer High School. Local jazz guitarist Ira Harris as an early teacher, Berry learned the rudiments of the instrument on a four-string tenor guitar. By 1950, however, he had changed over to a six-string electric Berry, in his youth, was involved in a number of small burglaries which landed him in Reform School for three years. After his release in 1947, Berry worked with his father as a carpenter, in an auto assembly plant and studied to become a hairdresser. During this time he was playing the guitar and developing a reputation around St. Louis. In 1952 Chuck Berry began to play professionally at different clubs in St. Louis. On New Year's Eve Berry joined the Sir John Trio. The leader of the group was Johnnie Johnson and the third person was the drummer Eddie Hardy. The Sir John Trio became the house band at the Cosmopolitan Club in East St. Louis.This would be the start of a long association with Johnson whose piano boogie riffs would have a great influence on his guitar playing. Johnson recognizing that people were coming to see Berry wisely renamed the band The Chuck Berry Trio. The most popular music in the area among whites was hillbilly. The band played mostly blues and ballads but, Berry"s joking "hillbilly" songs were the real pleasers and it wasn't long before a white crowd got word of a black hillbilly and began coming to his shows "Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering "who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?" After they laughed at me a few times they began requesting the hillbilly stuff and enjoyed dancing to it." Chuck Berry, "Chuck Berry: The Autobiography" While attending a nightclub in Chicago in 1955, Berry met his idol Muddy Waters and asked Waters where he might be able to cut a record. Waters directed him to Leonard Chess of Chess Records In May, 1955, with an introduction from Waters, Berry went to Chicago to audition for Leonard Chess in hopes of landing a recording contract. Berry thought his blues material would be of most interest to Chess. To his surprise it was the hillbilly "Ida Red" that got Chess' attention. Chess, a great blues label, in recent years had seen its market shrink. Looking to move beyond the rhythm and blues market Chess thought Berry might be that artist that could do it. May 21, 1955 Berry recorded, Ida Red was renamed Maybellene, the name taken from a line of cosmetics, with Johnny Johnson, Jerome Green (from Bo Diddley's band) on the maracas, Jasper Thomas on the drums and blue legend Willie Dixon on the bass. Johnson's piano playing, the heavy drums and maracas and Berry's lead style gave Maybellene the hard rhythm and blues feel that balances the country elements. Maybellene reached the pop charts and #1 on the rhythm and blues charts. To help get airplay 2\3 of the writing credits were given to Allan Freed and his associate Russ Fratto, something that Berry was unaware of until the song was released and published. With nearly twenty chart hits between 1957 and 1960, Berry became famous for his examination of the adolescent experience, particularly on "Rock'n'Roll Music", "School Day" and "Sweet Little Sixteen". He even made several big-screen appearances - "Rock Rock Rock", "Mr. Rock'n'Roll" (both 1957) and "Go Johnny Go" (1959), while his live concert show was captured on film in "Jazz On A Summer's Day" (1960) In December 1959 following and appearance in El Paso, Berry and his band visited nearby Juarez, Mexico. There he invited a fourteen year old Apache waitress to work as a hat check girl at his nightclub Berry's Club Bandstand in St. Louis.. According to Berry, when he refused her advances she left in a fit of anger. December 21 following the woman's arrest for solicitation Berry was charged with violation of the Mann Act.. This federal statue forbid the transporting a minor across state lines for the purpose of prostitution. Berry was convicted to five years in prison and fine $5,000. . An appeal was made based on racial comments made by the presiding judge and a new trial began in October, 1961 Most of the original verdict was upheld and Berry received three years at the Indiana Federal Prison and fined $10,000.. Two months later he was transferred to Leavenworth Federal Prison in Kansas. He completed his sentence at the Federal Medical Center in Springfield, Missouri. He was released on his birthday October 18, 1963. Chuck Berry was never the same again. He felt he had been hounded by the press and betrayed by the both sides of the legal professional. Upon has release he resumed recording and touring. Among the his hits were "Promised Land," "Nadine" and "Promised Land" Berry left Chess in 1966 only to return in 1970. In the late sixties and early seventies Berry was a fixture at "Rock Revival" shows. It was at one of these shows that unknown to him "My Ding-A-Ling"was recorded. It's ironic that this silly, smutty sing along would be Berry's only number one record.Berry then began playing oldies revivals and shows. Unfortunately, Berry didn't think that his records had any longevity, and he treated them like perishable products. It was only a matter of time before he dropped his band (allegedly because of excessive drinking) and started playing with local pick up bands. His standard procedure was to have the local promoter make all the arrangements, with different players in every town to avoid the expense of travelling with a steady band. More often then not, he would show up at a club or concert hall minutes before show time, get paid, then meet the band if time allowed. If not he go out on stage, tune his guitar and then tell the band to watch is leg for clues. The shows were usually disappointing to his fans, and he has since developed a reputation for being more concerned with saving a buck or two then pleasing his audience Berry was a moody man who burned many bridges in his life. He was never nice to those he did not know well. It should be remembered that Berry was a victim of prejudices of the time, songwriting credits were stolen from him ( Freed and a Freed associate Russ Fratto were listed as a co-writers on Maybellene) and was harassed by the government. However, in the 1950s he led the way in uniting the white and black races when it came to music. Berry had a unique talent of being able to put his thoughts into song form. While most of his songs dealt with teenage life, Berry also covered a wide range of universal subjects: love, money, fame, glory, loneliness and rejection. Berry was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.