The riff that rewrote rock and roll left Earth on Voyager
Chuck Berry turned rhythm and blues into teenage anthems with guitar solos and showmanship that defined rock and roll. Maybellene sold over a million copies in 1955. Johnny B. Goode became the only rock song placed on the Voyager Golden Record—yet Berry's opening riff owed a debt to Louis Jordan's 1946 hit.
Charles Edward Anderson Berry was born in St. Louis in 1926, the youngest child of a deacon and a school principal. He gave his first public performance at Sumner High School in 1941, then served time in a reformatory for armed robbery from 1944 to 1947, where he sang in a quartet. After marrying Themetta Suggs in 1948 and working factory and janitorial jobs, he trained as a beautician and began performing with Johnnie Johnson's trio by 1953, mixing country tunes into blues sets for black audiences who soon demanded the hillbilly numbers.
In May 1955 Berry traveled to Chicago, met Muddy Waters, and recorded Maybellene—his adaptation of Ida Red—for Chess Records. The track topped Billboard's rhythm and blues chart and reached number five on the pop chart, selling over a million copies. Hits like Roll Over Beethoven, School Days, and Johnny B. Goode followed, along with film appearances in Rock Rock Rock and Go Johnny Go! Berry opened Berry's Club Bandstand, an integrated St. Louis nightclub, but Mann Act convictions in the early 1960s sent him to prison for roughly eighteen months.
British invasion bands kept Berry's catalogue alive during his incarceration—the Beach Boys' Surfin' U.S.A. borrowed the melody of Sweet Little Sixteen. After release in 1963 he scored fresh hits including No Particular Place to Go and Nadine. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, he was ranked fifth among greatest artists by Rolling Stone and second among guitarists in 2023. Three of his songs shaped the Hall's list of 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll—and Johnny B. Goode alone was chosen to represent humanity beyond the solar system.
Source: Chuck Berry
