As a rock pioneer, he has no peer, and is one of the most important musicians of the last 150 years.
As a human, his legacy is pretty goddamn gross.
RIP.
A great songwriter. Nothing conjures up the spirit of 50s rock and roll than a Chuck Berry lyric.
Three of my favorite slightly-less-played Berry songs (there actually aren’t all that many obscure Berry songs, since just about everything he wrote was endlessly covered.):
I just read about this. I’m going to have to pop in my DVD of Hail Hail Rock 'n Roll some time this weekend.
When Berry does Promised Land, it’s so different from when Elvis does it. Not that Elvis’ version is bad, far from it, but Berry’s has the weight of, well, actually experiencing being a black man travelling across the south in that era. The lyrics mean a lot more when he sings it…
In a career full of WTF moments, this may be the WTF-iest.
It’s all the way at the very end, about 3:44
Roll over Beethoven
And tell Tchaikovsky the news
So passes a legend.
I can’t hear it, ,what does Chuck say to him?
I’m not sure that in a career that included dragging a 14 year old girl around the country while on tour as Chuck’s personal sex toy and trying to wave that off in court by calling the girl a whore, that I’d call forgetting that John Lennon was dead is more of a WTF moment.
Nor would I consider that on-stage forgetfulness more WTF-ish than Chuck Berry installing an elaborate video camera system in the women’s restroom of the restaurant he owned in Wentzville and secretly videotaping hundreds of women without their knowledge using said bathroom.
Chuck Berry was an awful human being who did some of the same kind of shit that we (rightfully) condemn Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski for. Had he done those same things in today’s more enlightened era on sexual transgression, he’d have gone to jail for the rest of his life.
I thought he died in that plane crash with La Bamba and The Big Bopper…
“Say hi to your pop.”
Who had been dead for 6 years by then.
All true, no argument there. Then again, most of the greats of rock and roll had or have pasts (and presents) that range from checkered to abhorrent. Not just rock; Wagner was a terrible person but wrote great operas. Artists often are horrible people.
Berry’s influence on modern music was immense, and deservedly celebrated. I agree though that that should not obscure the problems of Berry the man. It is possible I think to acknowledge both.
There’s no choice but to acknowledge both. As with Wagner, his contribution to music cannot be ignored.
My point isn’t to dismiss Berry’s artistic importance because of his personal failings at all. My point is to say that “Hey, maybe someone out there in journalism land might want to fucking bring up his personal failings at some point, if that’s OK with everyone?”
Berry’s a complicated legacy and complicated guy. But to have even left-leaning feminist-allied places like the Huffington Post simply gloss over those flaws (such as referring to the incident that today would carry charges of statutory rape, kidnapping, enslavement, and the Mann Act as an add on as “an affair with a teenage coat check girl”) kind of creeps me out.
I will say this: whomever did Chuck’s PR did one hell of a job of burying the bad stuff.
Very valid point. It’s indicative perhaps of our culture’s inability to accept ambiguity and to think critically, but instead only function on intellectual binaries.
It his shortcomings have been buried, they haven’t been buried too deeply. While perhaps not common knowledge, most people with more than a passing familiarity with his life are aware of them.
If you want to talk about the media not bringing them up in his obit, that’s another story.