Chuck Berry 1926-2017: Celebs pay tribute to controversial ‘father of rock ‘n’ roll’ — whose Ding-a-Ling got him in trouble over the years
Rocker's stardom was tainted by sexual deviance, a bitter distrust of his industry and spectacular greed
HIS swinging hips and killer guitar licks made rock ’n’ roll what it is today.
And yesterday the superstars lined up to pay gushing tributes to Chuck Berry after his death at the age of 90 on Saturday, including Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
There was no mention, of course, of the time Berry punched Richards backstage in a tantrum or threw a lit match down his shirt at LA airport.
Nor did Bruce Springsteen refer to when, as a young guitarist, he played in Berry’s band but the older man refused to talk to him — or even tell him the set list.
Because just like the rest of Chuck Berry’s life, greatness and adulation went hand in hand with darkness and trouble.
From before he left school to the twilight of his life, his stardom was tainted by shocking sexual deviance, a bitter distrust of his own industry and spectacular greed.
Married for 68 years and a father of four, he was also accused of sex with a 14-year-old prostitute and secretly filming women in his restaurant toilets.
A long-time family friend said last night: “Chuck had his problems right from the start.
“He was a brilliant showman on stage but in private he barely trusted a soul.”
Chuck was rock’s greatest guitarist and the greatest pure rock ’n’ roll writer . This is a tremendous loss of a giant for the ages
Bruce Springsteen
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His childhood began normally enough in St Louis, Missouri, with father Henry working as a repairman and deacon of a Baptist church and his deeply religious mother Martha a school principal.
As a child he once amused them by retrieving a ball from under a table by bending down at the knees, keeping his back and head straight.
Later on stage this would become his signature “duck walk,” influencing guitar heroes such as ACDC’s Angus Young and featuring in the film Back to the Future, when Marty plays Johnny B Goode.
But in Berry’s teenage years, influenced by the “wrong crowd”, he broke into a bakery, a barber’s and a clothing store and stole a car at gunpoint.
It resulted in a conviction for armed robbery and a three-year stint in a youth prison.
Asked in his eighties what he would change about his life, Berry snapped back: “Not to take that man’s car — and to leave the shirt that I took off a counter of a dry-goods store.
"Anything to do with crime, I wouldn’t do.”
I am so sad to hear about Chuck Berry passing — a big inspiration. He will be missed by everyone who loves rock ’n’ roll
Brian Wilson
Almost exactly a year after his release on his 21st birthday in 1947, he married Themetta “Toddy” Suggs just five months after meeting her.
Berry worked at a car factory and as a cleaner and even trained to be a beautician, all to support his fledgling music career.
He was canny enough to appeal to both black and white audiences and by the end of the Fifties he had become a huge star with hits including School Days, Sweet Little Sixteen, You Can’t Catch Me and Johnny B Goode.
He said: “I wrote songs white people could buy because that’s nine pennies out of every dime.”
By 1959 he was touring the US with the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly, but scandal was just around the corner.
Aged 33, he met a 14-year-old vice girl, Janice Escalanti, and gave her a job checking hats in his St Louis nightclub.
It started with Chuck Berry. He inspired us all. The first album I bought was Chuck’s Live at the Tivoli, and I was never the same
Rod Stewart
After he fired her, she was arrested for prostitution but told police about Berry.
He was charged under a law that prohibited taking a girl across state lines for “immoral purposes”.
The first trial, in March 1960, was marred by accusations of racism against the judge.
Berry was convicted but won an appeal.
The second trial resulted in a three-year sentence, of which he served 20 months in Indiana from February 1962 to October 1963.
But while such a conviction should have ended his career, Berry emerged from jail to find Swinging London had fallen in love with his music and The Beatles and the Stones were playing his old songs to screaming crowds across the world.
He was furious. But his hunger for cash drove him on and the glowing praise heaped upon him by these mop-topped youngsters meant he was still in demand to play live.
Carl Perkins, the late American singer songwriter who toured with Berry a year after his release, said: “Never saw a man so changed.
“He’d been an easy-going guy before, the kinda guy who’d jam in dressing rooms, sit and swap licks and jokes.
“In England he was cold, real distant and bitter.
"It wasn’t just jail. It was those years of one-nighters — grinding it out like that can kill a man.
"But I figure it was mostly jail."
His greatest success was to come in 1972 with a novelty record, My Ding-a-Ling.
His only UK and American No1 was filled with innuendo about masturbation and recorded in front of school children in Coventry.
He said later: “Ding-a-Ling was clean. Made a lot of money, a $200,000 cheque.
"I’ll never forget that cheque. And it’s all dirt. Nice, cleeean dirt.”
Chuck lit up our teenage years and blew life into our dreams of being musicians and performers. His lyrics shone above others & threw a strange light on the American dream. Chuck, you were amazing. Your music is engraved inside us forever
Mick Jagger
It was his obsession with cash that brought about his third spell behind bars.
As his mistrust of the music industry grew he became notorious for demanding payment in cash only, usually before a show.
The taxman grew suspicious and in 1979, shortly after playing for President Carter at the White House, he was jailed for four months for tax evasion and ordered to carry out 1,000 hours of community service.
His diva demands were now out of control.
He would refuse to do encores unless paid extra and issued fines if a venue failed to provide a specific Fender Bassman amplifier.
If a stretch limo was sent to pick him up at an airport, instead of the Lincoln Town Car he demanded, Berry would send it back.
He wanted cash upfront before a performance, and then, after getting robbed in Texas, requested payment be sent in advance.
Venues were chosen for their proximity to restaurants he liked, so he could waste as little time as possible after the gig before eating.
Once he played a show in Nottingham purely because the hall was opposite a curry house he fancied.
If he was paid to do an hour-long set from 8pm, he would wait behind the curtain counting down the seconds, absolutely refusing to start playing any earlier.
During the Eighties he toured the US playing up to 100 shows a year, travelling solely with his guitar and relying on promoters to find local musicians to accompany him.
Berry would barely nod at them and instead launch into songs, expecting them to know what to play from the opening riffs.
As a result, gigs were usually dreadful and his reputation suffered even more.
But the worst was yet to come.
In 1990 a magazine published a series of nude photos of him sitting alongside unidentified women.
Berry said they had been stolen but explained they were a kind of “rape insurance” — proof that the women had consented to sex.
RIP Chuck Berry, the genesis behind the great sound of rock ’n’ roll. All of us in rock have now lost our father
Alice Cooper
Later that year he was found to have installed hidden cameras in the ladies loos in his Missouri restaurant, Southern Air, in a scandal that became known as the “toilet tapes”.
Cops raided his home and found videotape footage, including of a child, along with two ounces of cannabis, $130,000 cash and three guns.
Chuck Berry’s life was a treasure and a triumph, and he’ll never be forgotten
Bill Clinton
In a plea deal he agreed to two years’ unsupervised probation for the drugs and paid a £4,000 fine.
On his 90th birthday in October, Berry announced he would be releasing an album, his first since 1979, with collaborations with two of his children.
He dedicated it to his “beloved Toddy” and said: “Now I can hang up my shoes!”
Bob Lohr, pianist in Berry’s band, said: “You hear a lot about Chuck being mean, but the Chuck Berry I know is one of the kindest people you’ve ever met in your whole life.
“Anybody who has spent a lot of time with him will tell you he’s really a good guy and a fun guy to be around.”
Fans hope Berry will be remembered for his music alone.
But as for the man himself, there is so much we may never know.
Idol to the music gods
By Simon Cosyns
WHEN The Beatles and the Rolling Stones started out, they wanted to sing like Elvis Presley . . . and play like Chuck Berry.
Before the towering songwriting partnerships of Lennon/McCartney and Jagger/Richards got into their stride, the young hopefuls learned the ropes by playing Berry covers.
It explains why the St Louis rock ’n’ roll pioneer’s Come On was the Stones’ debut single and why Roll Over Beethoven – a staple of early Beatles gigs – was recorded by the Fab Four for their second album.
John Lennon once said: “If you tried to give rock ’n’ roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry.”
Meanwhile Keith Richards tweeted yesterday: “Today’s the day music died. Probably the most important musical influence in my life. RIP Chuck Berry . . . Sweet Little 16.”
Key to Berry’s enduring influence was his ability to blur genres by employing blues, country and boogie woogie to fashion visceral hits like Maybellene, Rock ’n’ Roll Music and Johnny B Goode.
The swaggering, staggering Berry didn’t just create excitement with the noise coming from his various Gibson ES guitars, he was also a master showman who broke down racial barriers.
With his trademark sailor’s hat, one-legged hop and duck walk, he was the thriller with the killer licks, who elevated songs like Johnny B Goode with scintillating guitar solos previously unheard of in popular song.
His lyrics about fast cars and teen love would probably draw frowns from today’s PC brigade but they symbolised youthful exuberance and post-war optimism.
In the Sixties, Berry’s influence extended to the Beach Boys, who used the melody of Sweet Little Sixteen in Surfin’ USA while, later, a young Bruce Springsteen briefly played in his band.
The Boss’s debt of gratitude to one of his key inspirations was clear in his tribute yesterday: “Chuck Berry was rock’s greatest practitioner, guitarist, and the greatest pure rock ’n’ roll writer who ever lived.”
You have to say that Berry’s innuendo-filled novelty hit My Ding-a-Ling, recorded live in Coventry with a UK pick-up band, didn’t enhance his reputation.
But only Elvis can beat him as the most influential rock ’n’ roller of all time.
Berry B Very Goode.
