Beloved rock ’n’ roll icon and pioneer Chuck Berry — who is credited with redefining the genre and inspiring countless musicians — died yesterday at his St. Louis home. He was 90.
After receiving an emergency call from Berry’s caretaker about 12:40 p.m., responders arriving at the musician’s home found him unresponsive. After attempts to revive the superstar failed, he was pronounced dead about 1:30 p.m., according to police.
Berry, who gained worldwide fame for classics including “Johnny B. Goode,” “Sweet Little Sixteen” and “Roll Over Beethoven,” was a musical inspiration to countless artists that followed him, including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and scores of other rock ’n’ roll acts.
“R.I.P. And peace and love Chuck Berry Mr. rock ‘n’ roll music,” Beatles drummer Ringo Starr tweeted in reaction to Berry’s passing. “Just let me hear some of that rock ‘n’ roll music …”
Well before the rise of Bob Dylan, Berry wedded social commentary to the beat and rush of popular music.
“He was singing good lyrics, and intelligent lyrics, in the ’50s when people were singing, ‘Oh, baby, I love you so,’ ” John Lennon once observed.
Berry, in his late 20s before his first major hit, crafted lyrics that spoke to the teenagers of the day and remained fresh decades later.
Charles Edward Anderson Berry was born in St. Louis on Oct. 18, 1926. As a child he practiced a bent-leg stride that enabled him to slip under tables, a prelude to the duck walk of his adult years. His mother, like Johnny B. Goode’s, told him he would make it, and make it big.
He began his musical career at age 15 when he went on stage at a high school review to do his own version of Jay McShann’s “Confessin’ the Blues.”
Meanwhile, his troubles with the law began in 1944, when a joyriding trip to Kansas City turned into a crime spree involving armed robberies and car theft. Berry served three years of a 10-year sentence at a reformatory. A year after his October 1947 release, Berry met and married Themetta Suggs, who stayed by his side despite some of his well-publicized indiscretions. Berry then started sitting in with local bands. By 1950, he had graduated to a six-string electric guitar and was making his own crude recordings on a reel-to-reel tape machine.
In 1955, Berry signed with Chicago’s Chess Records. “Maybellene” reworked the country song “Ida Red” and rose into the Top 10 of the national pop charts. Several hits followed, including “Roll Over Beethoven,” “School Day” and “Sweet Little Sixteen.” Among his other songs: “Too Much Monkey Business,” “Nadine,” “No Particular Place To Go,” “Almost Grown” and the racy novelty number “My Ding-A-Ling,” which topped the charts in 1972.
Berry also appeared in a dozen movies, doing his distinctive bent-legged “duck-walk” in several teen exploitation flicks of the ’50s.
Berry’s career nearly ended when he was indicted for violating the Mann Act, which barred transportation of a minor across state lines for “immoral purposes.” An all-white jury found him guilty in 1960, but the charges were vacated after the judge made racist comments. A trial in 1961 led to his serving 1 1⁄2 years of a three-year term. Berry continued to record after getting out, and his legacy was duly honored by the Beatles and the Stones, but his hit-making days were essentially over.
Tax charges came in 1979, and another three-year prison sentence, all but 120 days of which was suspended.
“Every 15 years, in fact, it seems I make a big mistake,” Berry acknowledged in his memoir.
Still, echoing the lyrics of “Back in the U.S.A.,” he said: “There’s no other place I would rather live, including Africa, than America. I believe in the system.”
