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93. 'Berry Is On Top' - Chuck Berry (1959)
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Collating and organising some of Chuck Berry’s most iconic previously released singles into one legendary release, ‘Berry Is On Top’ stands as a milestone in rock ‘n’ roll history. Released in 1959, this third studio album by Chuck Berry essentially functions as a mini greatest hits compilation, showcasing the raw energy, revolutionary guitar riffs, and lyrical genius that defined his career. Packed with timeless classics like ‘Johnny B. Goode’, ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘Maybellene’, and ‘Carol’, this album cemented Berry’s legacy as one of the true pioneers of rock ‘n’ roll music. Whether you’re a die-hard Chuck Berry fan or exploring the roots of rock for the first time, ‘Berry Is On Top’ remains an essential listen, brimming with the rhythm, blues, and youthful rebellion that shaped a generation!
Episode Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4mum0f0N5LT8VDLYRqOHWN?si=7c2d4e9bfc784fe9
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Transcript
Introduction to Chuck Berry's 'Berry Is On Top'
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Long Live Rocking Roll podcast. Collating and organising previously released singles into one release, Berry Is On Top was Chuck Berry's third studio album. Acting essentially as a mini greatest hits compilation, this 1959 release contained some of Berry's most well-known songs, including Johnny Be Good and Roll Over the Beethoven. To discuss this with me is my co-host Mr Felipe Amorim, how you doing bro?
00:00:28
Speaker
A great man and you. good Yeah, very well. Thank you very well. Keeping well over there. Yeah. You know, it was your birthday this week, wasn't it? How did you? Exactly. ah I just feel older. That's fine. but That's what happens with birthdays for me. Yeah. yeah yeah one Back pain and all that stuff. yeah Things you only have after 40. Every year ah that goes on another limb just starts. Yeah. It's like we're feeling great overall. Well, happy birthday, man. Thank you very much. um Chuck Berry.
00:00:56
Speaker
Now this, I'd say I really enjoyed this one and obviously we're going to get into it now. Just a few quick details about the album. Released July 1959. Now it was recorded, this wasn't like a normal album and we're going to get into this pretty soon. The songs were recorded between 1955 and 1959. The genre is obviously rock and roll. It's just under, it's just over 30 minutes long and it was produced on the chess label and it was produced by Leonard and Phil Chess. Now Let's talk about the album and why I said it's unusual.
Historical Significance of the Album
00:01:27
Speaker
This was essentially rock and rolls, maybe even rocks, first ever greatest hits album, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think you'd had before, you know, you had Bill Haley. They come in with the album is called the Stage Show or something. You have Elvis Presley, who had done compilations, who had put song right here. Songs I've recorded for the last few years, they're all together onto one album.
00:01:51
Speaker
But the difference with this one for Chuck Berry is that these were all singles that did really well. Yeah. So they kind of put them all together. He's like, right, that one worked, that one worked, this one worked. I got this one from 1955 that put me on the map. I've got this one, which was my latest, and he just stuck them all together. And it is essentially Rock and Roll's first greatest hits album. It is. And it's like um but all the singles were released ah from 55 to 59. So that was the most prolific um phase of his life career. It was the the the the ah the best time of his career. He was really
00:02:28
Speaker
on fire and like recording hit after hit. So the singles were already successful when he put them together in an album. It was a common thing at the time to put singles together and make an album because albums were not the main thing for the labels. They were making more money out of singles.
00:02:42
Speaker
the the ah the the the yeah recording industry was kind of a new thing that people still still trying to figure out was the best way of marketing and selling music. And singles were clearly the best or the most profitable um option for the label. So they would release singles. And then when you have a certain amount of good singles, you put them together and do an album. And then there has changed in the 60s and 70s. But ah that was the formula by then. And I think, but So you would be normal to have an album with a collection as a collection of singles from an artist, but all those singles being hits, it's not it's not that you
Singles vs. Albums in the Music Industry
00:03:24
Speaker
know usual. it's not the Well, it's not for everyone. you know If you check Barry and then you can have an album with 12 songs and they're all great, yeah which is the case. I think you know part of what i agree with most of what you're saying in terms of like, but but I'm saying in the 50s, although albums were made, I think a lot of albums
00:03:43
Speaker
where would have a couple of singles on. yeah The other stuff would be filler song or week yeah songs. and um New material, because you have to remember these guys, you know these rock and rollers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, ah Little Richard, they were all constantly releasing music in terms of writing and covering new songs. But however,
00:04:05
Speaker
very few of them became hits and became sort of worldwide, you know, worldwide, countrywide known and successful. Which is why, like I said, most albums in the 50s kind of, you know, you'd have a few hits on and then you stick a couple of fillers, yeah maybe some new songs, another cover here or two, but to to to just stick all of your famous ones on. There's absolutely no fillers in this album. and there isn is one of those Even the ones that feel like fillers, like, I don't know, let's say, Hey Pedro and Hawaiian Blues, they're still brilliant.
00:04:36
Speaker
yeah Blues for Hawaiians isn't it? They feel like fillers in the sense of they don't follow the structure of the other songs but when you listen to them that the guitar in Blues for Hawaiians is just stunning.
00:04:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's amazing. It's the only instrumental piece in the album, by the way. It's a really cool, um really cool song. And ah yeah, I mean, the thing is, there's not, um although Chuck Berry is a great guitar player, the album's not only about that, so is it really about the songs? It's it's more about the songs than the guitar. Let's talk about the song line then. Yeah, yeah. Go for it.
Chuck Berry's Business Acumen
00:05:07
Speaker
Yeah, actually, ah just a little bit of background before that, because we we didn't agree on talking about the background of the album, but here we go. Just improvising here. Now, i'm ah the interesting thing about, um ah Chuck Berry's life at the time, his because those singles that came way before the album were so successful, he was making tons of money. And he was clever with money, he invested the money. on the And so but Little Richard was famous for spending a lot.
00:05:34
Speaker
And Chuck Berry was famous for using his money wisely. And so he was so he in 1958 or just before the album, he launched Chuck Berry Music Inc. So he was one of the first rock and roll songwriters to self publish.
00:05:51
Speaker
So yeah, so that means no one is taking like a big share of your profits when you publish your own songs. Well, hes but he I don't know if all those songs were published by chess or if there's ah an agreement on that, but he was self-publishing at the time and he invested in in a nightclub in his hometown as well. So he put a lot of ah you know, ah money into investments. And he was doing really well. So the but the by the moment this album is released, he's already a really wealthy ah big star in in the music industry. So he was he was literally on top. So the album name is very suitable. Like he was on top. He felt like he was the biggest star of the time. And he was definitely was. Yeah. And and this is a big move for a big star. And considering, you know, we've had, you know, you've got to think um
00:06:40
Speaker
going to talk about classical music a little bit later.
Cultural Shift to Rock and Roll
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah. Don't turn off anyone who doesn't like classical music. actually well but yeah We've had, you know, a lot of classical music when they were put onto vinyls way back at the end of the 1800s. They were greatest hits. But it wasn't a thing to do for traditional, for for for rock and roll, this new and matching sub-genre of it, to be the first one to come out and say, actually, do you know what? I'm good enough that you've already paid me money for 10 of these singles individually. Now you're going to pay me money to hear them all on one vinyl. I think it's the master stroke. And whether it was him who did it or chess, it's just whoever whoever did it was... Yeah, exactly. so
00:07:21
Speaker
yeah yeah so again now considering what you just said because the album's 59 so he was publishing songs from 58 so some of those songs were probably not not into his publishing company yeah yeah because it's like at the end of it i was going to talk about some songwriting yes of course yeah well you love lyrics so i'll hand this over to you but i just find the whole album just hilarious because it doesn't take itself seriously at all and you've got the iconic Johnny Be Good that tells the story of this kid. Rollover Beethoven, I'm going to touch on a little bit later, but that the whole album is just full of wit, humor,
00:07:54
Speaker
whilst supporting and exuding the kind of youthful energy of the 50s, the rebellion, you know the ambition that these kids have, and this new style of music.
Thematic Exploration of Chuck Berry's Lyrics
00:08:06
Speaker
Putting across, I don't want to say the word aggression, but it which you know it almost is aggressive. When you say aggressive with music, you think heavy metal, and when you say energetic, you think rock and roll. I feel like there's a little bit of both here,
00:08:19
Speaker
and I don't mean a nasty aggression, it's just some of the the way some of those guitarists start the song, like yeah and and it it that's heavy man, that's it hits you and I just feel like it properly encompassed that youthful energy that was going on at the time, so what do you have to say about the lyrics? i'd say Well the lyrics, okay here's a question for you, what do you think is the biggest difference between blues and rock and roll? um i'm goodnna I'm gonna answer, i think if if you've asked me that question I'm gonna say the lyrics, yeah Yeah, but because you can you can claim is like the the rhythm rock and roll is a little bit more straight than blue blues doesn't swing as much. And so it's normally it's normally up tempo, whilst the blues can be up tempo, it can be slow. But
00:09:01
Speaker
If you forget about the musical elements of it and and you focus on the lyrics, Blue's lyrics are always, ah not always, but mostly about sadness, about you know um about the things you you couldn't achieve, the things you haven't done, your suffering, and because it's it started as as ah things that were sung by either working class people or slaves. You've got to consider that. Those people are not having a great time. So this this the lyrics are normally a bit like, some people can even claim it's a bit depressive sometimes, but But the blues is about getting rid of that feeling. So that's why you sing about it. Chuck Berry wanted to sing the blues. So I'm going to quote in him on this because that is amazing. What he said was like, I wanted to play the blues, but I wasn't blue enough. We always had food on the table.
00:09:55
Speaker
So did the whole thing starts like, actually, I think the ah historical political moment that brings rock and roll into existence is the Marshall Plan, which was America's plan to fund the rebuild of Europe after war. So after World War Two, America was doing well because they didn't have a war in their territory. Think about it. So apart from Pearl Harbor, everything else happened in in Europe.
00:10:20
Speaker
and Japan. So basically, ah America was giving money to to the whole of Europe, the allies and the enemies as well. So they were just funding everyone. So that was good for their economy, because ah you know, all you have you have this huge continent that owes you money. And then they were helping these countries to are become more industrial, and they could actually buy the American goods. So that's the whole thing. So we're going to rebuild Europe with our money. And we're going to sell our products to to European people. So America was becoming the the biggest country in the world and ah under the economic point of view. So there's no place for the blues in terms of lyrics. So yeah everyone is starting to do to do well in life and buying fancy cars and going to nightclubs and dancing. That's why rock and roll songs are about like ah teenagers or young people in general going out and having a good time because they had the money for it.
00:11:13
Speaker
They were not struggling, not all not struggling as much as the previous generation.
Engaging with Chuck Berry's Music
00:11:17
Speaker
So so Chuck Berry was like, I'm not going to sing the blues because it wouldn't be true.
00:11:24
Speaker
So he was being true to himself by just singing about ah his true feelings and singing about being happy, having a good time and enjoying his life. And driving fast cars and going out with girls is all about that. So I think that is one crucial element of songwriting and the whole album. ah The first song is about that, isn't it? It's entirely about like, you know, I think it's getting late to school because you had a you know good night and um and it's just like um not caring too much about the problems in life because you're actually doing well.
00:11:53
Speaker
ah Johnny B Goodis is another one we're going to talk about that one later. ah But yeah, so I think lyric lyrics are the main difference between rock and roll and blues. And also, the interesting thing about this album is because rock and roll that sort of fifties is the first decade of rock and roll music. So people didn't know how to, how can I put it, how to label an artist? Is this a rock and roll artist? Is this a country artist? Like, um Joe Lee Lewis' first hit song was a country song. so but But it's rock and roll, the way he plays it. So with Chuck Berry, it's kind of the same. So most of those singles were featured in R and&B charts. That's really interesting. For us, this is rock and roll. But for people at the time, that was still R and&B.
00:12:36
Speaker
in hindsight exactly and it it's good that you mention that because I had a note here that i I'd always, you obviously, you heard you hear the famous Chuck Berry songs. You hear Johnny Be Good, you hear You Never Can Tell, you hear Roll Over Beethoven. By the way, listeners and viewers, um if you go down to your show notes, you will see a dedicated playlist, which we've created. and We do this for every episode. Every song from the album we're talking about will be on there, and any other song we mention as well, um plus some examples so that you can listen along. And when we mention a song, you can listen and see what we're talking about.
00:13:07
Speaker
see whether you agree or disagree, but that will be down in your show notes and below there. So click and you'll go to our Spotify. um You have your normal standard Chuck Berry rock and roll songs, which are obvious and easy to define and easy to hear and listen. um But what I took straight away from the first song, which quite not surprised me or shocked me, but do you know the song Almost Grown?
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah. First one. I didn't, I never figured, I'd never delved into Chuck's roots before, but my God, you can hear the R and&B, the rhythm. Oh yeah. And I was just quite shocked that I didn't, you know, with an album like that, with a song as famous as Johnny Be Good on, I thought, wow, there's going to have to be something incredibly rock and rolly to start the album off, to match Johnny Be Good. Not that it's a competition, but you know what I mean. Yeah. But when Almost Grown came on, I was,
00:13:56
Speaker
It was really, really lovely. And I really enjoyed that song because it started me off as soon as I, like I said, I was waiting for the energy of Johnny Be Good to come on. And as soon as Almost Grown came on, I was like, oh, this is lovely.
00:14:07
Speaker
um sit back Yeah. relaxx And it kind of set me up for the rest of the album. It was a really great first song. It is. And it's got that like that Chicago blue swing to it, which is super cool on the drums. And I like the lyrics. There's one point in this song, I think at the beginning of the song, ah which that really um sums up what I said about the optimistic lyrics at the time. So listen to this. I don't run around with no mob. I got myself a little job.
00:14:34
Speaker
I'm going to buy me a little car, drive my girl in the park, don't bother us, leave us alone. So it's like we're almost grown. So it's as it's that like I'm growing up, I'm, you know, starting to take responsibility over my own life, but I'm having a good time. But not like I'm not dealing with those, you know, ah gangsters and stuff like that. So it's really positive, which I think ah there's nowadays, there's a lot of ah lyrics about like being a gangster in school, which I really don't like, I'll be honest with you.
00:15:04
Speaker
I'm not like entirely against modern music, I'm not like that kind of old man. I like a lot of modern stuff but I'm not really into the gangster thing like you gotta to be a gangster because that's cool. Checkmate is like don't don't go around with those guys, to buy yourself a car, drive your girl around, have a good time, get a good job. Talking about the roots of the music, I mean As we've said in all of our rock and roll episodes, what we've we've done, we've done Little Richard, we've done Jerry Lee Lewis, we've done Elvis Presley, Bo Diddley, all of these guys, we know why they're famous in rock and roll because they blended genres. They took elements of gospel, they took elements of R and B, they took elements of the blues.
00:15:43
Speaker
one I was quite shocked at in the Chuck Berry one was the song, Antony Boy, because that's just and that's just country. Yeah. um Like the little, it's the root, like just going back and forth, up and down the root and the fifth of the of the the meaning of the baseline, proper country, twangy guitar, singing like very simple melodies where the lyrics matter more than the the the passage of the melody. So that I just have to say that that that one shocked me, I suppose I didn't expect such an obvious country song or such an obvious country influence in a Chuck Berry song exactly it's more it's more evident on that one when we listen if you listen to maybe lean that for me is a country song but it's too heavy for country it's just that i think it's just the guitar makes it rock and roll but my opinion okay yeah it's not it's not like uh uh an official critique of the song it's just my my opinion on it it's like if you listen to it it's a kind of the double the double tempo um sort of uh i'm sorry
00:16:40
Speaker
frame Yeah, it's it's not necessarily a trained beat, but you've got the snare on the offbeat, so it feels ah like a double tempo kind of vibe. And it's um and it's that that's country, that's Western swing, that's like the the the early country stuff is all played like that. exactly And that song is a good good example of of that. Again, the lyrics are not country and and the guitar is definitely not country. but the the rhythm is country.
Musical Influence and Guitar Innovation
00:17:09
Speaker
Another one I wanted to touch on, and I mentioned it earlier, well actually both of these I want to talk about. um Blues for Hawaiians, I just wanted to sort of touch on a little bit and just say how different it was because the the emphasis on, we're going to talk about guitar in a little bit, but um the emphasis on guitar in this album is very much on the riffs and on the rock and roll side of things and the the chords that he's playing, you know, the the freedom he has with the guitar.
00:17:36
Speaker
slide guitar in Blues for Hawaiians that kind of took me by surprise. Yeah. And do you know if it's him playing it? I assume it i think it's him. Yeah. Very I just didn't expect it. Didn't expect it. I thought that was a nice little twist at the end of the album. But the other one I will talk about was Hey Pedro.
00:17:51
Speaker
um which is hilarious because imagine you do that now he'd be cancelled wouldn't he oh yeah yeah ah you can't imitate a mexican you can't do a mexican accent like that or cuban i don't know isn't it because it's habana oh does he say yeah okay yeah i don't know either see this yeah thats see say we gotta get cancelled as well now but i just thought it was funny because you gotta think in years a few years later Ennio Morricone is writing the soundtrack to the all his Spaghetti Western movies. And I just hear the way that textures and timbres are used in this song. yeah um But yeah, anyway, I want to move on and talk about the appeal of the album because yeah the reason that this works so well. um And let's talk about guitar first and the so but the speciality of his guitar playing. Now, you've got the iconic riffs and licks like um in Johnny B. Goode, which everyone knows.
00:18:44
Speaker
But what I found shocking was how many songs essentially start off the same. There's a formula to it, you know, it's like, like ACD, isn't it? And there's something like, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, you know, just a little chromatic move up and then a little riff played before you just send into the, when the rest of the band comes in. And you've got this on songs, Carol, Sweet Little Rock and Roller, Little Queenie, JoJo Gunn, Rollover, Beethoven. There's such an obvious formula here.
00:19:17
Speaker
And I thought, you know, looking back on it, listening to the album. So I listened to it first and they all took me by surprise and now I listened to it again. And I thought, right, I think the novelty is going to wear off a bit here because I know what to expect from the intro of every song. yeah But yet every little guitar lick is just different in a tiny little way that you're sat there.
00:19:36
Speaker
um you're sat there in the end just just finding it a little different and waiting okay well what song is this i'm on now just ah yeah you might get confused is this jonah be good yet no not yet uh caro is a song that's got the same stops as jonah be good as well there's like starts and stops all the time And it's it's a formula. you know When you know something works, you just do it again and again. ah As long as you change the tempo and you change the lyrics and the melody, it's not the same thing. it's not exactly It doesn't feel the same in the end.
00:20:07
Speaker
and i think um and I've heard people criticise it. Oh, you know, every Chuck Berry song starts with that riff or not every Chuck Berry song. And if you say that you haven't listened to enough of his music. But yeah, there's a lot of songs of that riff. But that's his riff. It's just like the Jimi Hendrix chord he used in a lot of songs. That's his chord. That's his his interpretation of of a particular kind of chord. And it's the same with Chuck Berry. So he came up with that sort of lick.
00:20:36
Speaker
ah which everyone borrowed and copied after him. So he was a lot he was entitled to to use that riff as many times as he wanted. That's my opinion. It's exciting. And it would generates a It does generate a feeling of wondering what's going to happen next because it's like, okay, right. It's starting the song off the same, but you know yeah Carol did the lick and then went into here. ah Little rock and rollers did the lick and then went there. You're just wondering when it comes around on like the fifth or sixth song of the album, it doesn't get boring. You're not sat there saying,
00:21:07
Speaker
Oh, another lick. You're just kind of like, OK, what's going to come after this lick? It's really interesting.
Youth Rebellion and Freedom in the 50s
00:21:12
Speaker
um the the The distorted guitar in Maybelline, that's quite significant because Maybelline was written in 1955 and you can hear it because it does sound quite underproduced compared to the other songs.
00:21:24
Speaker
yeah But that distorted guitar, like that electric sound, must have been very pioneering at that time, sort of forwarding and innovating the the electric. dis Well, it sounds a lot ah like the guitar sounds we have in the 70s. So you can even claim he was 20 years ahead of the game. You know, and so really, I like really, really great guitar tone. And it's not much to it. It's just distortion, is it? It's not like a tone of effects and stuff like that. Now, we touched on it a bit already. But the other thing that this appealed to was the youth of the 50s.
00:21:53
Speaker
you mentioned you had that great little section when you were talking about World War II and the impact that that had on um well on society and the youth after it. The only thing I really wanted to add to that is, you know, it really did resonate with the teenagers of the era. yeah And because of um because of um what had happened and how, i think I think the war, and I think the ending of the war must really have freed up a lot of people's minds, especially, yeah let's say you're, I don't know, let's say you're,
00:22:23
Speaker
20 when the war begins. Okay. And you've gone through, you know, we know what parents and generally society was like back in the twenties. It was always do as your parents say, you must lead the life that your parents set up for you. I think the war must have had an effect on people where little 20 year olds come back from the war or the war ends. And they said, you know what, life's too short. And I'm um'm massively generalizing here. I have no idea if that's what people thought, but you mentioned the reason that America was so prosperous and happy in the 50s. And I think mentally something must have happened as well because teenagers wanted to break out of what they were used to. They wanted to break out of the societal norms. They didn't want to listen to what their parents had to say all the time. They didn't want to have to just go with the plan that was given to them. yeah um And I think this album just does a wonderful job of capturing the spirit of rebellion, the youthful energy, the ambition that that these teenagers had without
00:23:17
Speaker
without being so oppressive because the lyrics are witty and funny and humorous. Exactly. I think there's there's a lot of humor in it, isn't it? is' ah it's like um He's never too serious about anything.
00:23:29
Speaker
it's just let like let's have a good time. So that's why people need to um listen back to that that kind of music with considering the context of the time, you know. yeah So some things that someone put in lyrics or or some instrumental ideas, you might think, well, yeah that doesn't resonate with me, but do you understand what's going on there? like Do you understand how the world was at the time? And I think, yeah, I think he captured the spirit of the time ah really well without um How can I put it? He captured the spirit of the time, but it's still ah worth listening to in this day and age, which is
Analysis of 'Johnny B. Goode'
00:24:08
Speaker
amazing. Oh, yeah, it's not limited to the time. No, it's not limited to the time. That's it. Cool. um Right. we're gonna What we're going to do now is Felipe is going to talk about song. I'm going to talk about song, just little aspects of it that we thought was really interesting and why we think.
00:24:20
Speaker
is these songs make this album um so Felipe go ahead you're going to talk about the obvious song to do talk about mr johnny be good johnny be good who was johnny do you know who johnny was i don't know Yeah, i ah he's he had um a piano player in his manhood who doesn't play in this song, funny or not, because he's got like two or three piano players in the album. And there's a lot of different musicians in the album because the singles were recorded at different times. um And the song was originally inspired by Johnny Johnson, who was his piano player. So he wanted to talk about Johnny's life.
00:24:54
Speaker
So like a country boy, whatever. But he said that the song became more and more about himself. That's why it's not a piano player, it's a guitar player. In the end, it became like an autobiographic song, but it started about Johnny. So that's why it's called Johnny, ah Johnny Be Good. So and the the the the rest of the the name, the surname Good is because um Chuck Berry's childhood home was in ah in a street called Good Avenue in St. Louis. so space talk So the good comes from that and Johnny from the piano player, but the song is about himself. And he said, that's an interesting point about it. We talk about how much ah Elvis
00:25:37
Speaker
managed to to break the barrier between white and black audiences, which in America was still kind of a thing. if you' If you're a black person, you've got to listen to this. If a white person got to listen to that. Chuck Berry was really aware of that, that a lot of white kids were listening to his music and he didn't want to be like ah a black singer singing for a black audiences. He wanted to sing for everyone. So his music is not about that. He didn't want that sort of division. So he initially wrote the song as um a colored boy called Johnny B. Goode. And then he said, wait a minute, it I'm going to change that to country boy.
00:26:12
Speaker
because that could be anyone. yeah So basically he's talking about a boy who was born in a really humble house and he starts to play the guitar. His mom recognizes the talent in him and everyone knows he's a great guitar player and someday his name is going to be in the light. That is like, that is a beautiful story. And he made it for like, for everyone. Anyone could be joining. So that's the story. It's not him, doesn't have his name on it.
00:26:38
Speaker
So it's a generic name in a certain way. Anyone can be Johnny. And it's ah it's a country boy. Anyone could be that country boy or girl. So anyone could be that person. So it's it's such a such a great story in itself. And that's the lyric side of it. So someone who is talented. And I love the lyrics when it says at the beginning. um So there stood a log cabin made of earth and wood, where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode.
00:27:05
Speaker
could never ever learn to read or write so well, but he could play the guitar just like ringing a bell. So imagine he had he didn't have access to great education, but he had a music talent. So that's such a cool story, right? And I think it resonates with everyone. And what I like about it is like,
00:27:23
Speaker
he sings it so fast that you need to pay attention to the lyrics if you want to understand what's going on like he tells yeah it tells ah like the whole life of this boy in in two and a half minutes or i don't know how long the song is but like it's a short song and he just tells the story really quickly and proceeds to play the guitar solos and that's the ah the best guitar solos in the album so that is really a song where he's showing off as a guitar player but i believe it makes perfect sense because it's a song about a guitar player Yeah. So everything's got context. Yeah, exactly. So I'm really good on guitar. Check it out. That's why ah that's ah why I've made it. So I really like that. I love the lyrics. I love the context. Now, um I'd like to just quickly reference that this song gets played in the movie Back to the Future. Oh, yes. When he goes back to the to the fifties and he played Marty McFly plays it at the of the ball of the the high school dance and he goes off soloing. And the audience sit there looking at him and he goes,
00:28:23
Speaker
Yeah, you guys aren't quite ready for this. your kids are going to love yeah but you go to love it. Yeah, so he plays Johnny Be Good before the song was written. It's just a phenomenal scene. that one and He plays a guitar himself. I think yeah us yeah some speed of music recorded but like the audio is out of sync in the movie, but yeah but um Michael J Fox is playing it the properly. Yeah, that is one of these well-known, this song is known for that movie as well. Yeah, exactly. And it's one of the things that that ah made Chuck Berry kind of a
00:28:58
Speaker
popular again after many years and it's like everyone knows the song from that movie and it's such a perfect song for that scene and it really shows like there's a little kind of blues and it just turns to the band it's just like just a blues right just follow me and and yeah it's just a blues in terms of chords and progression and and structure but it's not blue so the band is shocked and the audience is shocked because that's too heavy right and yeah that really really ah ah that that scene is just Perfect for the song or the song is perfect for the scene as well.
Cultural Commentary in 'Rollover Beethoven'
00:29:30
Speaker
ah Yeah. So the other thing I want to say about that is like there's that um there's a conflict between guitar and drums in the song. Have you noticed that?
00:29:38
Speaker
well Well the whole song, he's swinging but not that much. He's bringing the riff into the kind of straight vibe that we know as rock and roll. Well how can I explain that like in music terms like when you play a straight vibe and one and two and three and four and one as opposed to shuffle which is from the blues. it's so what ah that's ah The drum beat it links more towards the shuffle feel. And the guitar, in my opinion, is a bit more straight. okay So when you listen to it, you have kind of a straight guitar with a swung drum beat underneath. It's like, it it's like how but how does that work? I don't know. It just works.
00:30:20
Speaker
ah So that song for musicians, you can play it as a straight fill or a shuffle fill and it works both ways. And you can even have two musicians playing slightly different vibes in the same thing. It works because it's way too fast. So you can't really notice that conflict, that rhythmic conflict. Do you know who plays bass in this one?
00:30:40
Speaker
Yeah, I do, go on. Willie Dixon, who was a ah phenomenal ah blues musician, had loads of hits of his own and influenced a lot of blues and rock artists that came after him. He plays bass in loads of the songs in his album and he's essential yeah he's essential to the album. yeah All the double bass tracks, I think it's him and the electric bass, someone else. But yeah, he plays a big role in the album.
00:31:05
Speaker
So yeah, that's it. That's going to be good. One of the most influential songs of all time. And if you're a guitar player, you have to learn that riff. It's kind of mandatory, isn't it? The funny thing is one of my mates, he's just he sort of just started learning guitar. And the the the irony is is that he's learned this riff. It's one of the first things he's learned. And he's not... I'm trying to say this without offending him or Chuck Berry. He he messes it up sometimes when he plays it.
00:31:34
Speaker
isn But when he messes it up, it doesn't sound that far away from the original. And that's not saying Chuck Berry couldn't play guitar far from it. But Chuck Berry had such a such a loose, wild way of playing it. I bet if you were to transcribe Chuck Berry's playing accurately, it wouldn't be in perfect time. No. There are parts that are too slow. He speeds up at this part. This part's a bit slow and a bit, you know, a bit messy. The loose, wild freedom that he has with this guitar playing is what makes rock and roll, rock and roll.
00:32:05
Speaker
And to have that much of an influence without being able to play guitar perfectly is again what makes this song so iconic. And again, ah rock and roll blues, R and&B, soul, country, they're not metronomic.
00:32:19
Speaker
there about wheel Exactly. So you don't you you have that push and pull feel, ah which is evident in Johnny B Goode. I think Johnny B Goode is, um yeah, of course, it's his most famous song, but it's a great song. um if you If you're not familiar with Chuck Berry, you start from that one and then you listen to Maybe Lean and then you listen to Hollover Beethoven, and then that's which you're going to talk about now, right? Let's do it. Yes, I'm just going to quickly touch on Rollover Beethoven.
00:32:47
Speaker
The one thing, the thing that got me is the the title because I am a massive classical music fan. um It's probably my second favourite genre after Heavy Metal. And I just thought, you know, I'd heard the song before, The Beatles have covered it, ELO have covered it. And I thought, I just wonder, I'm going to look into this a little bit. Now, obviously, since it came up on the album, I thought, what better time to do it now? What a hilarious song because what it is doing is it is doing what we said about the sort of encouraging the youthful teen teenagers, the young adults of America, to break away from societal norms. But he's not doing it, you know, you've got throughout the 20s, 30s and 40s, you've got jazz became a massively popular genre in America. And there were people, you know, and people like Miles Davis, who every household names everyone knew, he didn't call the song Roll Over Miles, because you're kind of like that's in the territory where you might offend a few people and you might lose a few fans.
00:33:44
Speaker
But Beethoven is too far away. He's still got fans. Obviously, he still has a fan here in me today. But you know what I mean? A lot of people back then in the 40s and 50s were still listening to classical music regularly. They were either listening to classical music, jazz, your traditional R and&B, gospel and country or traditional pop. Rock and roll came and it was a new thing. And I think Chuck Berry is very clever in these lyrics because he doesn't want to piss off anyone. He doesn't want to say right. He doesn't want to piss off the jazz lot. He doesn't want to piss off these lot.
00:34:13
Speaker
So he goes for the classical music, and it just symbolizes the rise of rock and roll in this dominant music form, overtaking these genres that were established. And this is my favorite this my favoriteite lyric. Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news. I love that. There's a new genre here to stay, and it's rock and roll, rhythm and blues. He's basically telling the DJ, stop with that now. Rock and roll is the new classical music. yeah Rock and roll is here to
Impact of 'Berry Is On Top' on Rock and Roll
00:34:40
Speaker
stay. And it's just, ah it's just again,
00:34:42
Speaker
again just capturing that energy of the youth in the 50s break away from your parents and their tastes do your own thing and come and check out this new sub genre of music it's a massive artistic statement to do but it's also a huge cultural statement and what I mean by that is that looking back on it 30 years now that is an iconic moment now like I said people were listening to jazz a lot in the 40s not classical music so much but to actually say what What you guys were listening to in the 40s and 50s, park that to one side, because there's a new genre here. Looking back on it now, I have many peers, you know. Yeah, it's just 70 odd years ago. Special moment. Yeah, it is. like It is special. It's funny, witty, clever lyrics, energetic, rock and roll, great guitar, everything.
00:35:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's just nothing is missing on that song. And the Beatles cover that song. So ah there's a lot. there's a lot that So the artists that covered him, like the list is endless. Like everyone has played Johnny B. Goode and recorded at some point. But you have the Beatles doing a whole other Beethoven. ah you have um I had an album, like I had a Rolling Stones bootleg album.
00:35:54
Speaker
like when I was really young and I was listening to it and a CD, right? Really old. um And I was just really in love with this one song. I said, oh, that's the best Rolling Stones song ever. It was Little Queenie, which is actually a song from Berries on Top. So it's it's one of Chuck Berries. You know, I think Berries on Top is the soundtrack of post-war America. You know, he has the yeah the feeling of every young person in the country summarized in the lyrics and it's got the most aggressive guitar sound ever recorded to that point and you have some of the best blues musicians playing in the band with him making that transition from country and blues to rock and roll
00:36:43
Speaker
So if you want to know what Rock and Roll is all about, you have to listen to Berries on Top. I think is it is Rock and Roll's greatest hit first album, as you said. And I'm going to finish this with a quote from John Lennon. If you
Podcast Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:36:58
Speaker
had to give Rock and Roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry. Perfect.
00:37:04
Speaker
And on on that note, we will will end because that is not a more perfect quote could be said to end this episode. Anyway, guys, thank you very much for joining us. If you are listening on Apple and Spotify, we'll ask you to do a massive favor and scroll down to the bottom.
00:37:17
Speaker
and give us a review because it does a massive favour for us. Any review you give, if you give us five styles and write a little sentence, we're going to shoot up the charts, so we're going to see be seen by more people, what we listen to and heard by more people as well, which does the world of good for us. 20 seconds of your time, but means a lot to us. If you're watching on YouTube, please hit like and subscribe so you can stay up to date with our new content. Thank you once again for joining us on another episode. Thank you very much for being with us once again.
00:37:43
Speaker
Keep on rocking everyone and don't do anything I wouldn't do. And as usual, take care guys and long live rock and roll.