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New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

“woke” is the new caravan.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

I was promised a recession.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

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Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

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You are here: Home / Music / Long distance information, get me Memphis Tennesse

Reader Interactions

80Comments

  2. 2.

    Scamp Dog

    It’s my favorite, too. There are a bunch to choose from, though, and I may change my mind when I read through the comments to come and get reminded of another one…

  3. 3.

    Mike J

    Grew up in Memphis, so yeah. I saw Chuck two or three times in revival shows. No matter what the crowd was like he rocked.

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    ‘favorite’ anything varies according to my mood, but I’ll put in a vote for Rock and Roll Music, and give second to No Particular Place to Go

  7. 7.

    shecky

    Hanava Moon, If I have to choose. But so many of his songs hold up, have been reinterpreted and referenced, how can you choose? He pretty much invented the vocabulary of rock and roll.

  9. 9.

    Death Panel Truck

    I’d just heard the Johnny Rivers cover before then.

    Never heard the Faces’ version? It’s on A Nod Is As Good As a Wink… to a Blind Horse.

  12. 12.

    Mary G

    No Particular Place to Go is my all-time fav. I’ve been playing it on repeat with other of his bests all evening.

  13. 13.

    Keith P.

    “Earth Angel”….wait, that’s a Calvin Klein. I have to say “Johnny B. Goode”. It’s just an iconic rock n roll song. It has to be one of the most influential rock songs ever made.

  21. 21.

    Ruckus

    How can you pick out any one song? It just isn’t possible to have a favorite.
    90 yrs of great.

  24. 24.

    James Powell

    My favorite Chuck Berry song is always the one I haven’t heard in a while. But more seriously he’s got 15 to 20 stellar rock & roll songs, whatever words indicate the rank above classic. If you would seek his monument, just listen to rock & roll.

  25. 25.

    piratedan

    so many classics…. but for me it was School Days with Almost Grown a close second.

  26. 26.

    John Revolta

    I also tend to like the ones you don’t hear all the time “Havana Moon” is grea, “C’est La Vie”……also there’s a cool spooky one called “Downbound Train” that Jagger totally stole his “Southern Drawl” off of.

    I already told this story over at LGM but it’s funny. Chuck famously used to use local cover bands to back him up at concerts. Once in the 70s a friend of mine in Chicago got to do this. They wanted to be prepared so my friend got Berry on the phone to ask him what songs he was gonna do. Chuck told him “What songs am I gonna do? I’m gonna do CHUCK BERRY SONGS!!!”

  28. 28.

    TriassicSands

    Chuck Berry, RIP, was almost certainly more important as an influence on other individuals and groups than he was as an individual. Over the years, I’ve heard many R&R Hall Famers claim Berry as a primary influence either for why they became musicians, how they performed, or both. He would have to be one of the easiest choices to vote into the R&R Hall of Fame of all time. If he hadn’t existed, the Hall of Fame would probably look very different today. One doesn’t even have to like his music to recognize how important he was.

  29. 29.

    Tom Q

    Pressed to pick, I’d go with School Days. But any one of more than half a dozen could fill an all-time-favorite slot. Just an amazing talent, without whom the last 50 years of music wouldn’t be the same.

  30. 30.

    john fremont

    You Never Can Tell gets plenty of play. Memphis Tennessee and You Can’t Catch Me are favorites too.

    An early Chuck Berry tune that I always liked was one I had on a Chess Records compilation calley the Blues Volume One.. Chuck Berry’s track was Worried Life Blues. Clapton covered it but Chuck’s is still the one I go to.

  33. 33.

    Cacti

    Alice Cooper said it best on Twitter:

    RIP #ChuckBerry, the genesis behind the great sound of rock n roll. All of us in rock have now lost our father.

  36. 36.

    fuckwit

    @John Revolta: Back in Berry’s day, a working band had a ridiculous repetoire of covers. They literally knew *all the songs*. In the era when people hired bands not DJ’s for events, cover band players had an encyclopedic knowledge of music on the level of today’s best DJs who might carry around terabytes of tracks and know them all. So he probably wasn’t expecting a cover band to *not* know all his songs– along with all of everyone else’s songs. I mean, how can you win “Stump the Band” if you don’t? Must have thought the band had some kind of chutzpah to call him asking what songs he was going to do, rather than do their fucking homework and learn them all like any self-respecting band of his era would. “Hey teacher, is this going to be on the test?”

  38. 38.

    Cacti

    Sweet Little Sixteen is probably my favorite Chuck Berry tune.

    Very memorable riff, and one of the earliest examples of unapologetic rock and roll lechery.

  40. 40.

    Mohagan

    @Suzan: Thanks for the link. That was wonderful – had a big grin on my face all the way through I Saw Her Standing There

  44. 44.

    John Revolta

    @fuckwit: Chuck Berry wouldn’t stand for any shit. He always demanded to be paid, IN CASH, BEFORE he went out on stage.

  45. 45.

    Suzanne

    I just listened to “You Never Can Tell” on YouTube, which then suggested a video of Amy Winehouse covering “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and now I’m sad.

  50. 50.

    terben

    Arguably his best song, and one that sadly, couldn’t be written today, was Born in the USA. When I was a teenager, ‘My Ding-a-Ling’ was always played at gigs to get the crowd up and dancing (and singing along).

  51. 51.

    ThresherK

    C’est la vie I first heard via a zydecoish Emmylou Harris cover in the 70s, and is one of those touchstones, to me, for when country people cover rock without losing the country inflection.

    ELO’s baroque and roll version of Roll over Beethoven is my favorite.

  52. 52.

    Elizabelle

    Happened to hear Linda Ronstadt covering “Living in the USA” on a beach radio station, a few days ago. Recognized it as Mr. Chuck Berry’s immediately.

    RIP, Chuck. Good long, influential life.

  56. 56.

    divF

    Promised Land. Subtle rhymes, great licks (from a melody bootlegged from Wabash Cannonball), and it is how I’ve felt about moving from Virginia to California for the last 48 years.

  58. 58.

    TriassicSands

    Late night OT.

    Reading an opinion piece in the WaPo, I decided that what we really need is some extreme collusion on the part of journalists. As many as possible (forget Fox News, The Washington Times, etc.) need to get together and agree to confront Trump at the next opportunity with an unbroken barrage of questions about his wiretapping accusations. One question after another with no rest for the dishonest. Put Trump on the spot and keep him there. Refuse to accept his idiotic jokes and snide remarks. Refuse to accept his deflections and claims that he’s not saying anything, he’s merely quoting a talented lawyer or other such nonsense. Make his life miserable. Show him that in our system the president may have a lot of power, but he is not above the press. They are not there to serve him or to get his message out. They are there to hold him accountable and if necessary, call him a liar and a fraud to his face.

    Reporters (and editors) need to treat Trump like what he is — an employee of the people undeserving of respect that isn’t earned. So far, not only has Trump earned no respect, he has behaved in ways that deserve open contempt.

    And when they are done with the wiretapping issue, they should move on to questioning him relentlessly about the barbaric AHCA. Force him to reveal he doesn’t know the first thing about it. Force him to confront the fact that the bill is a boon to the wealthy and a crushing blow to the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and many of his supporters.

    And when they’re done with that…

    It’s late and I’m dreaming.

  59. 59.

    Anonymous patient

    Johnnie Johnson played piano with Chuck Barry for many years, and was in the first Marine unit with Black men. So probably plenty tough!

    Born in Fairmont WV. He was the subject of “Johnnie be good” as he was a huge drinker.

    While he had nothing to do with that song, he wrote or co-wrote many of Chuck’s greatest hits. Really one of the great talents of our generation! And a unique stage presence!!

  60. 60.

    Zinsky

    Maybelline or Johnny B. Goode are my favorite Chuck Berry songs. As a guitarist myself, Chuck Berry added a number of techniques to the guitarist’s repertoire, such as the “double-stop” and the legato slide, that are still used by guitar players to this day. Ask any guitarist of a certain age and they will probably tell you they spent hours learning the opening riff to Johnny B. Goode. Berry also wrote songs in keys like B flat and E flat, that are not typical keys for electric guitar, unless you use a capo. I guess that was because he played a lot with horn players, who are more comfortable in those keys. As a person, I heard Berry was kind of a shithead – egotistical and not very friendly to others. He would play his gigs and then leave immediately without socializing afterwards, as most musicians do. I heard that from a friend who played backup for Berry at a State Fair gig in the 1990s. Regardless, Chuck Berry was someone who you can honestly say changed the course of rock and roll music and whose influence will be felt for decades to come, if not millennia, since his music is on the Voyager I space probe!

  61. 61.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @TriassicSands: Back when there first started being presidential debates, the two moderators were supposed to take turns asking questions and they agreed not to let the candidates off the hook. If a candidate evaded a question, the other moderator would ask it again until the person answered. Very journalistic.

    Now sometimes it feels like the moderators are trying to boost their own careers.

  62. 62.

    Just one more canuck

    @John Revolta: like a lot of other musicians, he learned that the hard way- I came across an interview he did with Robbie Robertson- it was he and RR going through Chuck’s scrapbook and telling stories – he found out his manager was taking one-third right off the to without telling him
    About a half hour in two parts – well worth it

  63. 63.

    MomSense

    I don’t think I can pick a favorite. I’ve always loved Why Not but the guitar in Rollover Beethoven kills me. He was a genius.

  64. 64.

    Culture of Truth

    Johnny B. Goode is like a perfect rock song. But there’s something about Hail Hail that I love. Also Roll Over Beethoven.

  65. 65.

    Culture of Truth

    Chuck Berry should be egotistical! And if he doesn’t want to socialize, that’s okay.

  67. 67.

    Brachiator

    Richard Williams wrote a great piece in the Guardian which notes how important Berry was to popular music, period, and how he was the backbone to post war British pop culture. A tidbit or two:

    To the generation born in Britain around the end of the second world war, his songs opened up a new world. What Little Richard and Elvis Presley suggested in sound, he portrayed in words as well: a world of freedom and pleasure, in which adults no longer set the whole agenda….

    The Beatles’ second album included Roll Over Beethoven, and the anthemic Rock’n’Roll Music appeared on Beatles for Sale. A few years later, on the White Album, Paul McCartney paid homage to Back in the USA with Back in the USSR. John Lennon, who once said, “If you had to try and give rock’n’roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry”, modelled a line in Abbey Road’s Come Together – “Here come ol’ flat-top, he come groovin’ up slowly” – on one from Berry’s You Can’t Catch Me….

    Berry was the great librettist of the first era of teenage music. He took the preoccupations of the blues and country music and gave them a rejuvenating twirl, introducing names, detail and incidental colour in a way that brought entire scenes to vivid life, painting pictures in the minds of those for whom Georgia and Louisiana were an ocean away.

  68. 68.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @Brachiator:

    and gave them a rejuvenating twirl, introducing names, detail and incidental colour in a way that brought entire scenes to vivid life

    Right… like in the lyrics of Nadine…

    I saw her from the corner when she turned and doubled back
    And started walkin’ toward a coffee colored Cadillac
    I was pushin’ through the crowd to get to where she’s at
    And I was campaign shouting like a southern diplomat

    Nadine just doesn’t walk to a car, or a Cadillac… it’s a coffee colored Cadillac…

    It’s the details that make the difference…

    And a damned good singer… people talk about the guitar playing and the songwriting but don’t forget that voice… one of the great rock’n’roll singers… a voice like John Lennon or Bob Marley… clean, hard edge… enunciates every syllable… lots of power behind the words…

    The man was a triple threat all the way… and a fantastic showman to boot…

  71. 71.

    frosty

    Probably “Memphis Tennessee” for me, because the lyrics have that sad twist at the end. And while it’s not my favorite, every rock guitar player of any level of competence knows Johnny B. Goode. At every jam, one of the answers to “What do you know?” is going to be “Let’s play “Johnny B. Goode.”

  73. 73.

    El Caganer

    Performed by him? Roll Over Beethoven. Performed by someone else? Santana’s version of Havana Moon.

  74. 74.

    Lizzy L

    All of them, Katie!

    Srsly? Rock And Roll Music, Memphis Tennessee, and Johnny B Goode. Dear God, how that man could rock! The opening of Johnny B Goode has got to be one of the all time great opening dance riffs; by the time he’s halfway through it you’re on your feet.

    I saw him live, can’t remember if it was in Cleveland or Chicago.

    Roll over, Beethoven, tell Tchaikovsky the news.

  75. 75.

    Mnemosyne

    @John Revolta:

    Elvis Costello has an encyclopedic knowledge of pop music because his father was a bandleader who would play records over and over again so he and his band members could learn them.

  78. 78.

    Bonnie

    Johnny B. Goode is my favorite right now. I have a cat named after one of his songs, Nadine–is that you.. Still, he is an artist who I cannot really choose just one song. But, Johnny B. Goode was probably the second rock n roll song I heard. My older brother brought it home after he had brought home Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots by The Cheers.

  79. 79.

    mvr

    @Steeplejack (phone): Yes, Brown Eyed Handsome Man has got to be the one for its subtle insertion of topicality into popular music, though the guitar licks on Johnny B Goode are hard to ignore. And that song was almost about race as well, though he changed ‘colored’ to ‘country’ by the time it was done.

  80. 80.

    mvr

    Oh, and go to the Museum of African American History and Culture in DC if you can get in. (Actually standing in line in the dark before dawn to get same day tickets was part of the good experience last year, but I guess they don’t do that anymore.) The music floor has both a red Cadillac owned by Chuck, and one of his guitars. As others up-thread have noted, he was a get-the-money-first kind of guy (with good reason). That both of these things are there is evidence that he knew his place in history and was proud of it. Guy earned it.

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