Feeling that he was ready to record his music, he travelled to Chicago and, through a meeting with Muddy Waters, was encouraged to approach the iconic Chess label with a view to scoring a recording session. The huge success of both Berry and Presley serves as proof that the best music always comes from a mixture of cultural influences, and also that it could only ever have happened in the USA.Īs Chuck’s popularity grew, so his ambitions gathered pace. Where Berry took blues and added country to create a potent formula, Presley did the opposite by adding blues to country (one of Presley’s major influences was Chuck Berry!). One of the most fascinating aspects of this is how Berry’s ‘new’ music almost exactly mirrored that of his nearest rival in the 50s, Elvis Presley.

They quickly became the most popular band on the St Louis club scene. Having taken charge, Berry’s mix of blues, country, Nat ‘King’ Cole ballads and T-Bone Walker showmanship propelled the trio to new heights. Johnnie Johnson left the trio in 1954, with Chuck renaming it the Chuck Berry Trio. The huge success of both Berry and Presley serves as proof that the best music always comes from a mixture of cultural influences'Ĭhuck Berry was so taken with Walker that he lifted many of T-Bone’s trademark licks, doublestops and unison bends, incorporating them into his own emerging style. Walker was also a consummate showman, playing the guitar behind his back whilst doing the splits and delivering solos that, at times, would make an audience think his guitar was speaking to them. Playing mostly blues and ballads at gigs, Berry began to take an interest in presenting some country-flavoured tunes to the club’s black audience, and later wrote: they began requesting the hillbilly stuff Chuck Berryīy the early '50s, Berry was also ‘moonlighting’ with local bands at clubs in and around St Louis graduating to a regular group in 1953 - the Johnnie Johnson Trio - which held a residency at the Cosmopolitan Club.

Knowing, as we do, the abundance of motor-related metaphors in his later songs it’s intriguing to picture a young man, bursting with ideas, working in a mundane job but composing riffs, rhythms and lyrics in his head to the beat of the factory machinery.Ĭuriosity provoked me to lay a lot of country stuff on our black audience. Berry worked in a variety of jobs in order to support his young family, including - significantly - two stints at car assembly plants in St Louis. They were married in October 1948 and had a daughter Darlin Ingrid, born 3 October 1950. On the day of his 21st birthday in 1947, Berry was released from custody, and shortly after met Themetta Suggs. Picture a young man working in a mundane job but composing riffs, rhythms and lyrics in his head to the beat of the factory machinery He was sentenced to three years at the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men in Algoa, Missouri, where he took up boxing along with forming a vocal quartet. The song he chose, Confessin’ The Blues, by Jay McShann, was a big band hit at the time and boasted in its ranks another fledgling genius in the form of alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, one of the inventors of be-bop jazz.Ĭhuck’s first of many brushes with the law occurred three years later when he was arrested, and convicted, of armed robbery.

Hillbilly rock and roll music