xxmikexx's Blog

You left out one of my favorites of Chuck Berry.....My Ding-a-ling! I've got a recording that goes over 11 minutes. Good stuff.

What's your second favorite? I'd like to get together on this but even though "My Ding-A-Ling" was his biggest selling record, I can't get with the program.

Well, I DID say "one" of my favorites. I guess if I had to pick just one, it'd be JOHNNY B GOOD.

Yes, that's absolutely classic Chuck Berry, from when he was just hitting his stride.

 

I should have mentioned earlier that I had a large music biz autograph collection (a story for another day) but that I never was able to get Chuck Berry's -- he simply brushed me (and everybody else) off every time.

 

He was a bitter man. Having served time for his Mann Act violation, he believed that he had been prosecuted (by rednecks) only because he was a) a black man and b) playing demonic music.

 

I don't disagree. You will remember the mood of the mid 50s, when many people still considered rock to be "race music" and were opposed to the music and its performers, and especially to non-white performers, for that reason alone.

 

Anyway, all he ever wanted to do was get in, do his show and get out. If his later career was any guide he would have insisted on being paid cash in hand, in advance, or he would have refused to go onstage. But those things said, the man was an incredible performer, and if you click on any of the live concert links you'll see how much he loved working an audience even if he wanted no contact with people as individuals.

 

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Unlike James Brown and Bo Diddley, who continued to tour right up to their deaths, Chuck Berry has given up touring. Instead he gives unannounced unplugged peformances to people who come by a certain bar? cafe? in the North Saint Louis district know as ... Blueberry Hill.

 

So now we know what those Fats Domino lyrics were referring to. I suppose he was honoring a place that may have given him is professional start.

 

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One of the sad things that happened re Hurricane Katrina is that Fats lost all his gold records. I don't know whether they were stolen, or lost in the flood, or if something else happened. There was a movement afoot to get him replacements but I haven't heard anything since that very short news story.

 

Yes, I did get his (Fats) autograph. Amazing hands -- short fat fingers which clearly would have constrained his playing style. Heck -- we can hear it in his records -- as deserving of the monicker "slowhand" as Eric Clapton.

Edited August 26, 2008 by xxmikexx

Oh, I remember the Fifties quite well. I have a large selection of 50s stuff on the computer that I listen to now and again. Get teary-eyed every time. I remember my Dad wasn't too happy with my listening to that "stuff" back then. My Mother on the other hand is probably responsible for my love of music. She always had something on the "Victrola" from the previous era: Benny Goodman, et al.

Victrola ...

 

We had one. My father, an alcoholic, bought it so he could play Tex Ritter's "Rye Whiskey" over and over and over, which was fine with me -- fine singer, fine song.

 

We also had an Edison wax cylinder playback machine but I can't recall what was on the cylinders. (We only had a few.)