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R.I.P. Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry has died at age 90. What a legend and what an enormous talent. In this video, watch him dance at about 1:17 in.

R.I.P. Chuck Berry

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    I worked on a show (5.00 / 4) (#1)
    by Repack Rider on Sat Mar 18, 2017 at 08:28:32 PM EST
    ...at the Hollywood Palladium where he was on the bill.  Only time is decades of roadying that I was at all star-struck.  Backstage I stood about fifteen feet away from him, didn't bug the dude, who was famously unfriendly.

    Chuck was looking for a place with a lawn near St. Louis, so he bought a golf course and built a house on it.  He rented the property to promoters for outdoor concerts.

    I worked on a concert there in 1976.  Chuck was driving around on the grass in his Cadillac convertible with a pair of longhorns on the front the width of the car.

    It wasn't Chuck's fault that the concert went south, because he wasn't the promoter, but it did.  The promoters ran out of money with three bands left to play, and they refused to perform.  We were already done, but as it got uglier, I forced my truck through the crowd and got out of Dodge.

    Got back to the hotel and flipped on the news, watched the stage burning on live TV.

    So glad I got to see him live (none / 0) (#6)
    by Peter G on Sun Mar 19, 2017 at 11:18:00 AM EST
    in Central Park, NYC, summer of 1968.

    Parent
    Roll over Beethoven, (5.00 / 2) (#2)
    by desertswine on Sat Mar 18, 2017 at 08:53:47 PM EST
    Tell Tchaikovsky the news.  

    Thanks for a million dances.

    Oh, my, but that little country boy could play (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by Molly Bloom on Sat Mar 18, 2017 at 09:31:37 PM EST


    If Chuck Berry had been white (none / 0) (#4)
    by Chuck0 on Sat Mar 18, 2017 at 10:10:00 PM EST
    he would have been the "king of rock and roll." (Not an Elvis fan).

    Then I guess he'll just have to settle for ... (5.00 / 2) (#5)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Sat Mar 18, 2017 at 11:16:06 PM EST
    ... being one of the genre's true "Founding Fathers," and a man whose influence now spans several generations of rock musicians.

    While Chuck Berry will be missed, we'll always have his music.

    Parent

    Everybody who knows rock-n-roll... (5.00 / 1) (#11)
    by kdog on Mon Mar 20, 2017 at 11:00:37 AM EST
    knows who the real King is.  Chuck is the King of Kings....with piano man Johnnie Johnson as the man behind the curtain.

    Parent
    No matter what the Colonel (none / 0) (#9)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sun Mar 19, 2017 at 04:59:12 PM EST
    and Hollywood told us.

    Elvis wan't Rock and Roll.

    Maybelline was.

    Parent

    I can't say that I was ever really a fan, but I do know talent when I see it, and Elvis's versatility and stage presence as a singer / entertainer was astonishing. He did rock. He did country. He did rhythm and blues. He did gospel. He did pop. He did movies. He did Vegas.

    And unfortunately, he also did drugs, which likely contributed to his early demise in 1977 at age 42. While Elvis's candle may have burned twice as brightly as Chuck Berry's for a time, it also flamed out 40 years earlier.

    Although Elvis Presley's music never quite evolved in the 1960s to meet the changing times and tastes of that era, a decision that probably rests with Col. Parker's dubious marketing choices, he certainly lasted a lot longer professionally than did so many of his contemporaries from the late 1950s and early '60s. His last No. 1 record was "Suspicious Minds" in 1969, and last Top 20 hit was "Temperature Rising" in 1972. Had he lived, he'd have likely been playing on nostalgia at Caesar's Palace in his later years.

    (Coincidentally, and years after he had reached his peak in popularity, Chuck Berry also enjoyed his only No. 1 hit in 1972, the double entendre-laden "My Ding-a-Ling.")

    From Col. Parker's standpoint, Elvis's death was undoubtedly a great career move that cemented his immortality among his legions of fans. But Chuck Berry's legacy as a musician is far more substantive and enduring. For while Elvis first capitalized on rock, Chuck was literally invented the genre and thus influenced several generations of musicians -- including Elvis himself.

    Aloha.

    Parent

    And for the many TL folk music fans (none / 0) (#10)
    by Peter G on Sun Mar 19, 2017 at 09:30:41 PM EST
    Chuck (none / 0) (#7)
    by TrevorBolder on Sun Mar 19, 2017 at 12:35:48 PM EST
    http://tinyurl.com/z8vbh5y

    Has 1 more album to bestow upon us

    Chuck Berry Celebrates 90th Birthday With First Album in 38 Years
    'Chuck,' dedicated to Berry's wife of 68 years, features new songs written, recorded and produced by rock legend

    Rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry celebrated his 90th birthday by announcing that his new LP 'Chuck', his first LP in 38 years, will arrive in 2017.


    As Muddy Waters said, the blues had a baby (none / 0) (#8)
    by jondee on Sun Mar 19, 2017 at 01:09:32 PM EST
    and they called it rock n roll.

    And the blues aren't about revelling in misery, they're about taking life warts and all and distilling it into musical medicine for the soul.

    Chuck, Little Richard, Bo Diddly, Joe Turner et al pumped carbonation and effervesence into it.