<back - CHUCK BERRY - Charles Edward Anderson Berry was born October 18, 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri. His mother, Martha, was a schoolteacher; his father, Henry, was a contractor and deacon of the nearby Antioch Baptist Church. Chuck sang in the church's choir starting at age 6. He learned to play the guitar while attending Sumner High School.  At Sumner, Berry got his first taste of stardom, singing Jay McShann's Confessin' the Blues in the school's concert in 1941, a song he was later to record on the 1960 album Rockin' at the Hop. In 1952 on new years Chuck Berry  joined the Sir John Trio, which became the house band at the Cosmopolitan Club in East St. Louis and would be the start of Berry's long association with the trio's leader Johnnie Johnson.

They played Blues, but Berry's joking 'hillbilly' songs were the real pleasers. "Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our Country stuff on our predominantly black audience. After they laughed at me a few times they began requesting the hillbilly stuff and enjoyed dancing to it." states Chuck. In May, 1955, with an introduction from Chuck's idol Muddy Waters, he went to Chicago to audition for Leonard Chess in hopes of landing a recording contract. So on May 21, 1955 Chuck Berry recorded 'Maybellene', with Johnnie Johnson, Jerome Green (from Bo Diddley's band) on the maracas, Jasper Thomas on the drums and Blues legend Willie Dixon on the bass. Maybellene reached the Pop charts and #1 on the R&B charts. The hits started coming over the next few years, Roll Over Beethoven, Thirty Days, Too Much Monkey Business, Brown Eyed Handsome Man, You Can't Catch Me, School Days, Oh Carol, Little Queenie, Memphis Tennessee, Johnny B Goode, and Rock n' Roll Music. In the mid-60s America had discovered The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, both of whom based their music on Berry's style, with the Stones' early albums including many of his songs. After a short stint with Mercury Records, he returned to Chess in the early '70s and scored his last hit with a live version My Ding a Ling, yielding Chuck Berry his first official gold record. In 1987, he published his first book, Chuck Berry: The Autobiography, and the same year saw the film release of Hail! Hail! Rock 'n Roll, which included live footage from a 60th-birthday concert with Keith Richards, Robert Cray, Etta James, and Johnnie Johnson. John Lennon said, "If you were going to give Rock n' Roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry". He was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy Awards in 1985. On January 23, 1986, Chuck Berry is inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.  Mp3- Maybellene