The Great Forty-Seven.

As I've listened to Chuck Berry over the past month & a half, I was shocked to realize how small his initial output was.

In his most classic & influential decade--the 1950s--he released a mere 47 songs.

That's it.

Originally issued on three LPs connected by a string of singles, these songs helped to provide the backbone of rock & roll, defining its sound & style.

Until The Beatles hit, only Elvis's discography would be more influential, & even that had over twice as many releases in the '50s than Chuck Berry's did.

But as rock's first great songwriter & guitarist, Berry's '50s discography is a tighter, more precise document. It also speaks of the breadth of rock as a music & source of subject-matter. Over the course of these 47 recordings you can find driving rock, deep blues, country stomps, Latin jams, Christmas songs, & 1940s-style pop crooning.

You can also find songs about cars--buying cars & riding in cars, shiny new Cadillac cars & old broken-down Ford cars, racing cars & flying in cars. You can find songs about girls--getting girls & losing girls, dancing with girls & flirting with girls, thinking about girls & shying away from girls. You can find songs about school--going to school & getting out of school, complaining about school & celebrating school, walking to school & talking about school. & you can find songs about rock--singing about rock & dancing to rock, adoring rock & rebelling to rock, describing rock & listening to rock.

Cars, girls, school, & rock--it doesn't get more elemental than that.

But there is so much more. Chuck Berry's music solidifies a decided American music with a decidedly American vision. Along the way, there are not just teens & guitars, but hamburgers, gas stations, & baseball diamonds; blacks, whites, Jews, Italians, Hawaiians, Cubans, Mexicans, & American Indians; people like Ludwig Van Beethoven, Venus De Milo, Geronimo, Santa Claus, Beautiful Delilah, Jackie Robinson, & Satan populating the land alongside the likes of homegrown heroes Maybellene, Sweet Little Sixteen, & Johnny B. Goode; locations as diverse as the San Francisco Bay & deep in the heart of Texas, way down in New Orleans & all over St. Louis, Chattanooga & Detroit, Boston & Baton Rogue, Philadelphia & Pittsburgh, the New Jersey Turnpike & Portland, Maine. People touch ground on runways, they race each other in the streets, they chase biblical temptresses, they are scared straight by visions of hell, they call up district attorneys, they dance on television. People are born poor & dream of a better life.

In the end, these 47 songs aren't just a (or perhaps the) foundation of rock, they are the foundation of modern America.

What follows is the stats for each song, along with a short review & a ranking on a five-star scale:

***** = Classic

**** = Great

*** = Good

** = Fair

* = Poor

'Cuz like the man said, you gotta hear something that's really hot.

* * *

1. Maybellene [Single A-Side, 1955; #5 US / #1 R&B] *****

The most influential debut single of a major rock star, period. This song changed everything as Berry readapted the country tune "Ida Red" into a song about rock's two founding subjects--cars & girls--& all but invented rock guitar in between.

2. Wee Wee Hours [Single B-Side, 1955; #10 R&B] ****

Berry would take many excursions into the blues over the years, but this was his first & finest. "One little song for a fading memory," he sings, proving that you didn't have to wait another decade before rock music contained poetry.

3. Thirty Days [Single A-Side 1955; #2 R&B] *****

A country romp with just enough blues to bubble over into one of the hardest records of its time. & if it wasn't amazing enough on its own merit, it will always be of paramount historical importance for containing the line that inspired the titular phrase "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction."

4. Together (We Will Always Be) [Single B-Side, 1955] **1/2

Berry reaches for Nat King Cole (& not for the last time) on this long-forgotten B-side, which Berry himself would have loved to see buried. It's not all that bad from a historical perspective but is far from his most memorable work.

5. No Money Down [Single A-Side, 1955; #8 R&B] ***

The great lost Berry A-side from his otherwise flawless streak through to the end of 1958, & oddly a fairly big R&B hit to boot. The stop-start blues pattern may have made it seem not rocking enough, but the car-obsessed subject matter was already intact, down to the smallest detail.

6. The Downbound Train [Single B-Side, 1955] ****

Fierce, spooky rockabilly that could go up against anything that Warren Smith cut at Sun Records. It remains one of the finest train songs of the 1950s, & even came complete with a moral.

7. Roll Over Beethoven [Single A-side, 1956; #29 US / #2 R&B] *****

A rock & roll call-to-arms, brilliant in concept, flawless in execution.

8. Drifting Heart [Single B-Side, 1956] **1/2

The title was country & the chords were jazz, but the tempo was a dinner-club shuffle. It's tempting to call it a glimpse into the music that Berry would've kept making if he hadn't stumbled upon "Maybellene."

9. Too Much Monkey Business [Single A-Side, 1956; #4 R&B] *****

Berry perfects rock & roll's teenage-subject vantage point, filled with fast, witty lines about the "botheration" of modern life. Played today, you can hear both the restlessness of a plugged-in Dylan & the hunger of a young Springsteen.

10. Brown-Eyed Handsome Man [Single B-Side, 1956] *****

Rock's first protest song (the first words are literally "Arrested on charges of unemployment"), cleverly disguised it as love song. The scope is staggering--it goes from the courtroom to the desert to way back in history before landing on Jackie Robinson hitting a homer, as women everywhere chase that elusive Brown-Eyed Handsome Man.

11. You Can't Catch Me [Single A-Side, 1956] *****

The hit that should've been, taking the Platonic car of "No Money Down," giving it wings, & using phraseology so perfect that John Lennon would later get sued for lifting it in "Come Together." Not that you could blame him.

12. Havana Moon [Single B-Side, 1956] ****

A proto-Jamaican groove with pidgin English that would directly inspire the original version of "Louie, Louie." & its deceptively simple tale of love, loss, & rum could nearly double as a Hemingway short story.

13. School Days [Single A-Side, 1957; #3 US / #1 R&B / #24 UK] *****

A driving stop-&-start stomp that tells the agony of the school day, followed by the ecstasy of the three o'clock bell, perfectly captured in a victory dance with words that have long since echoed through the core of the popular music canon: "Hail, hail rock & roll!"

14. Deep Feeling [Single B-Side, 1957] ***

The first of many Berry instrumentals was also one of the best. With the words put away & the tempo slowed to a blues, he could stretch out his strings in a way that was just as articulate as his finest lyrics.

15. Roly Poly [Album Track, After School Session, 1957] **

A lesser instrumental.

16. Berry Pickin' [Album Track, After School Session, 1957] ***

Another fine instrumental, built around a Latin shuffle that shows off his way around a groove.

17. Oh Baby Doll [Single A-Side, 1957; #57 US / #12 R&B] ***

Although it wasn't too much of a hit, someone at Chess must've liked it because it appears on nearly all of the early Chuck Berry compilations. Now its creaky references to singing "old alma matter" & vaudevillian shuffle make it one of the few Berry classics that hasn't aged well.

18. La Jaunda [Single B-Side, 1957] *

An endless Mexican ballad that ranks as Berry's first real clunker, but judging by the sound of it, it may have inspired Jay & The Americans' "Come A Little Bit Closer."

19. Rock & Roll Music [Single A-Side, 1957; #8 US / #6 R&B] *****

A tour of a burgeoning young music that takes in a brave, new world & misses nothing. No wonder The Beatles couldn't get enough of it.

20. Blue Feeling [Single B-Side, 1957] **1/2

Another lesser instrumental, redeemed by the charging chords midway through.

21. Sweet Little Sixteen [Single A-Side, 1958; #2 US / #1 R&B / #16 UK] *****

All corners of the rock globe closing in on a Sweet Little Sixteen dancer, apparently on American Bandstand. & with the tumbling drums and the ringing piano, a reminder that Berry also had one of the best bands in the business.

22. Reelin' & Rockin' [Single B-Side, 1958] ****

"Rock Around The Clock," stripped of its cuteness & filled with hot licks & cool irony. In the 1970s, Berry would blow its cover & re-record it as a song about sex, but it's the original dance-floor version that he revived & sang into his old age.

23. Rockin' At The Philharmonic [Album Track, One Dozen Berrys, 1958] **

As an album track, it's filler, but as a historical document, it's a revelation: A cover of the first entry in Jim Dawson & Steve Propes' What Was The First Rock & Roll Record?, "Blues, Part 2" by Jazz at the Philharmonic: Illinois Jacquet & Jack McVea, J.J. Johnson, Nat King Cole, Les Paul, Johnny Miller, & Lee Young, 1944.

24. Guitar Boogie [Album Track, One Dozen Berrys, 1958] ***

The rare Berry instrumental that was more than the sum of its parts--as aerobic a workout as the electric guitar would get until Jimi Hendrix came along nearly a decade later; it's little wonder that the same year he burst upon the UK scene, The Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds laced it in acid to produce "Beck's Boogie."

25. In-Go [Album Track, One Dozen Berrys, 1958] **

Berry used instrumental cuts in the '50s the same way that Elvis would use movie songs in the '60s: A quick way to fill up LPs. & so, after the flash of brilliance in "Guitar Boogie," we're back to a forgettable R&B shuffle.

26. How You've Changed [Album Track, One Dozen Berrys, 1958] **

Another venture into Nat King Cole territory that no one asked for & no one needed.

27. Low Feeling [Album Track, One Dozen Berrys, 1958] *

A cheat--"Blue Feeling" slowed down & issued as a new track. Philosophically speaking, it was the worst song Berry would release all decade.

28. It Don't Take But A Few Minutes [Album Track, One Dozen Berrys, 1958] ***

After the swindle of "Low Feeling," One Dozen Berrys is revived by this cut, which mysteriously emerges out of & reemerges back into the ether like a Bob Dylan basement tape. & conceived as a jaunty celebration of a Jewish girl who dared to track down Berry at the colored-only hotels in the Deep South, it is another slice of his complex Americana.

29. Johnny B. Goode [Single A-Side, 1958; #8 US / #2 R&B] *****

Rock & roll's greatest record, period. Anyone getting misty-eyed over "Like A Rolling Stone" or "Satisfaction" or "A Day In The Life" doesn't know what they're talking about. Not coincidentally, it's also rock's first (& finest) articulation of The American Dream.

30: Around & Around [Single B-Side, 1958] ****

A call-&-response dance floor rocker that was so irresistible, it was covered by The Rolling Stones. & The Animals. & David Bowie. & The Grateful Dead. & The Germs. & Guided By Voices. You get the picture.

31. Beautiful Delilah [Single A-Side, 1958; #81 US] ***

The sole non-holiday Berry A-side not to appear on an LP until the 1960s, it is the closest thing he has to a forgotten classic--perhaps this is what attracted the future kultist Kinks to it. It is also the closest Berry would step into biblical territory, with the archetypal vixen as its focus.

32. Vacation Time [Single B-Side, 1958] **

A forgotten B-side that, unlike its flip, deserves to be forgotten.

33. Carol [Single A-Side, 1958; #18 US / #9 R&B] ****

A breakneck rocker about learning to dance to impress a girl, filled with enough hot licks to make Keith Richards work overtime. Also one of the few songs in history to be covered by both The Beatles & The Rolling Stones.

34. Hey Pedro [Single B-Side, 1958] *

Barely a song, this two-minute groove ventures into sleeping-under-a-large-sombrero near-racism that remains Berry's worst original song of the decade. Oddly, it still made it onto his finest album, over superior songs like "Beautiful Delilah."

35. Sweet Little Rock & Roller [Single A-Side, 1958; #47 US / #13 R&B] ***

A single for the Christmas season that finds Berry in solid form, but recycling lyrical tropes like the young rocker better used in "Sweet Little Sixteen" & musical tropes like the sharp, driving intro better used in "Carol."

36. Jo Jo Gunne [Single B-Side, 1958; #71 US] **

Berry ventures back to 4000 B.C. for this jungle fable that's chockfull of quick, clever lyrics, but lacks the overall punch of his finest material.

37. Run Rudolph Run [Single A-Side, 1958; #69 US / #36 UK] ****

Sure, it sounds like the rest of his hits, but when Berry applied himself, as he does here, what a sound! Also may be the first yuletide song by a rock singer-songwriter; only Elvis' Christmas Album comes before it in the rock canon, & you know that none of those songs were written by Elvis.

38. Merry Christmas Baby [Single B-Side, 1958; #71 US] ***

A fine cover of Charles Brown's laid-back Christmas fare that has been overshadowed by Elvis's dirty version recorded a dozen Christmases later.

39. Anthony Boy [Single A-Side, 1959; #60 US] **

Label chief Leonard Chess asked Berry to write a song for "the Italian market" & Berry came up with this bouncy concoction, his shortest record of the '50s & not much of a hit. It didn't deserve to be--easily his weakest A-side of the decade.

40. That's My Desire [Single B-Side, 1959] **

A cha-cha flip-side that sounds like more like studio musicians latching onto a new style than a rock combo crafting great music. Sam Cooke's "Everybody Loves To Cha Cha Cha" released earlier that year proved that it was possible to do both.

41. Almost Grown [Single A-Side, 1959; #32 US / #3 R&B] ****

A coming-of-age tale, backed by The Moonglows, featuring a young Marvin Gaye, who himself was coming-of-age. Maybe it was his spirit that helped carry the song--whatever it was, over-30-year-old Berry sings it like a dragster's dare.

42. Little Queenie [Single B-Side, 1959; #80 US] ****

One of Berry's finest B-sides, featuring one of rock's great internal monologues. So driving & clever that Jerry Lee Lewis would try to make it his own, but to my ears it lives on as a secret inspiration for The Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There."

43. Blues For Hawaiians [Album Track, Chuck Berry Is On Top, 1959] **1/2

Clocking in at nearly three-&-a-half minutes, this was Berry's longest song of the decade, & spoke to his fascination with slide guitar. Never one to miss a beat, Chess would retitle & repackage it the following decade as "Surfing Steel."

44. Back In The U.S.A. [Single A-Side, 1959; #37 US / #16 R&B] ****

An unabashed celebration of The Land Of The Free, which, as Greil Marcus has pointed out, is stunning for its lack of irony. This is all the more remarkable since Berry wrote it while struggling with his country's racist judicial system.

45. Memphis, Tennessee [Single B-Side, 1959; #6 UK] *****

A sleeper flip-side that sounded like country & would go onto become of Berry's most-covered songs ever. It also spoke to his mastery of songwriting: Set up like a folksong, it held a surprise twist ending--the girl that was its focus was not a spurned lover, but a six-year-old girl he longed to reconnect with. (& in the minor '60s hit, "Little Marie," he does.)

46. Broken Arrow [Single A-Side, 1959; #108 US] **

Berry ended the 1950s with his first A-side not to make the US Pop or R&B Top 100 since "You Can't Catch Me," which was perhaps a harbinger of tough times to come for the '50s rockers in the new decade. & if its Indian-savage first verse hasn't aged particularly well, the quick wit of the other verses redeem it--even if it was based on "Old MacDonald Had A Farm."

47. Childhood Sweetheart [Single B-Side, 1959] ***

Berry closes the decade with a tune of wistful nostalgia, in a fine cut that finds him seeking solidarity in the harmonies of doo-wop.

* * *

In 47 songs, Chuck Berry defined a music & a country for a new age.

For this, he is & shall always remain an iconic legend of rock & roll whose finest music will never age a day.

The Essential Chuck Berry.

There have been literally hundreds of Chuck Berry collections over the years.

To try & narrow his music down to the definitive canon, I investigated what I consider to be the 10 standard anthologies. What follows is a rating (on a five-star scale) & brief review of each, followed by the songs that appear most frequently on all of them. Many of these collections are out-of-print, but with the comeback of vinyl & the back catalog of iTunes, they may be easier to encounter than one might think.

Because, like the man said, "You gotta hear something that's really hot."

* * *

Chuck Berry Twist: The Original Collection (1962). ****

Chuck Berry Twist was released by Chess Records while Berry was in jail, in a brazen attempt to get some product going for their artist as well as cash in on the omnipresent twist craze. It was the first anthology of his music, & as some like to tell it, the best, period. Rock criticism's old guard have paid it particular tribute, with Greil Marcus listing it in his classic rock discography in the back of Stranded and Robert Christgau once listing it as the fourth greatest record ever. As a listening experience, it simply rocks, but to my modern ears, it is lacking for omitting "Too Much Monkey Business" & "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" in favor of lighter fare like "Oh Baby Doll" & "Come On." However, the running order more than makes up for this; you'll be hard-pressed to find a better Side 1 opener than "Maybellene," a better Side 1 closer than "Reelin' & Rockin'," a better Side 2 opener than "School Day," & a better Side 2 closer than "Back In The U.S.A." All of which makes it seminal collection--no wonder it's still available on iTunes.

Chuck Berry's Greatest Hits: The Long-Time LP Standard (1964). ***

Chuck Berry's Greatest Hits came along two years after Chuck Berry Twist, but apparently too early in the year to catch his massive hit, "No Particular Place To Go." Featuring 12 cuts to Twist's 14, it cut some tunes to make room for the previously-M.I.A. "Too Much Monkey Business" & "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," as well as the classic "Nadine" & the big-hit-by-that-point (thanks to Johnny Rivers) "Memphis." Still, the running order felt top-heavy & clunky after the expert flow of Twist, diminishing the effect of what could have been a smoother, streamlined set. All of this made it a perfectly fine collection, but not the phenomenon that Chuck Berry deserved. Luckily, better ones would come along.



Chuck Berry's Golden Decade: The First Multiple-LP Set (1967). **

Chuck Berry's Golden Decade was apparently conceived as the one-stop shop of the vinyl era. In 1967, Berry had left Chess Records for Mercury, & the latter label quickly tried to cash in on their new acquisition by issuing an LP of re-recorded versions of hits masquerading as the originals under the deceptive title Chuck Berry's Golden Hits; the fact it remained in print well into the CD age just shows the ruthlessness of the music industry.

Mercury's greed had one good result, however--it forced Chess Records' hand to issue Chuck Berry's Golden Decade & gave him his first substantial anthology. (Mercury subsidiary Smash Records pulled the same trick with Jerry Lee Lewis a few years earlier; after issuing the re-recorded Golden Hits Of Jerry Lee Lewis, Sun Records responded with their first Lewis collection, Original Golden Hits, but I digress.) Golden Decade featured 24 songs over two LPs & remained a staple of essential rock LP lists well into the 1970s.

At first glance, it does its job, but then one look at the Volume 2 (1973) & Volume 3 (1974) that were to follow in the next decade, some glaring omissions can be found. For starters, two of Berry's best songs, "You Never Can Tell" & "Promised Land," are missing (although they all but make the second volume almost worth getting if you already have the first). But then again, so are "Carol," "Let It Rock," "Little Queenie," & "Come On." & what's taking these songs' places on Volume 1? Stuff like "Deep Feeling," "Too Pooped To Pop," & "Anthony Boy"--nothing detrimental, but also nothing that should make it into the first 24 classics over the songs that landed on Volume 2. All & all, a missed opportunity--no wonder it's long out-of-print.



The Great Twenty-Eight: The Classic (1982). *****

The Great Twenty-Eight has been making best-of rock lists in the obligatory Chuck Berry slot, at least since it was issued on CD in the '80s on a single disc. For much of the initial CD era, it was the disc to pick, especially since most stores only ever stocked the dreadful Mercury 1967 album Chuck Berry's Golden Hits of re-recordings. The Great Twenty-Eight came at a higher price point, but it was the greatest collection around; even after it lapsed in print by the late-'90s, it's continued to pop up on lists like Rolling Stone's original 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time (#21), TIME's Albums Of The Century & Entertainment Weekly's 100 Greatest Albums (the latter all the more astounding since it includes almost entirely studio albums, as opposed to greatest-hits collections).

& yet...I have always held a grudge against it for omitting two of Berry's stone-cold (albeit slightly later-period) classics: "You Never Can Tell" & "Promised Land." This is especially since both songs fit on a single CD along with the other 28 tracks. Why not put them on as bonus tracks, like The Beach Boys' Endless Summer did with "Good Vibrations"? The fact that "I Want To Be Your Driver," which was never even issued a single made the cut but these other two didn't only adds to the frustration.

However, if you can overlook these two songs, this is the phenomenal compilation that Chuck Berry always deserved. The running order is flawless--chronological (by recording), mostly--& it is little wonder that it is the default favorite of fans & critics all around the world.



The Chess Box: The Boxed Set (1988). *****

The Chess Box arrived in the late '80s with the first wave of CD boxed sets, along with other "Chess Box" masterpiece compilations of Berry label-mates like Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, & Howlin' Wolf. There has probably never been a better series of boxed sets in rock history. It also shocks me to write this, but The Chess Box is also the only collection TO THIS DAY that includes every one of Chuck Berry's US & UK charting hits. There have only ever been 33 of them. Sure, that's a bit too many for a single-disc, but surely with the double-disc sets, they must've thrown them all in right? Nope. Granted, some of his most classic standards like "You Can't Catch Me," "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," & "I'm Talking About You" never charted while non-essential tunes like "Little Marie" & "Dear Dad" did, but once you're past the length of a single disc, you think it would be second nature to put them all together.

Well, the only where this was ever done is The Chess Box. But it also has so much more: Deep cuts, jazz covers, & instrumentals; the only thing missing is the Mercury recordings from the mid-to-late-'60s (for obvious reasons), which only yielded two near-classics (at least in the relative world of Chuck Berry): "Club Nitty Gritty" & "Back To Memphis" (neither of which charted). Otherwise, Chess has it all.

Among the things this collection has is "My Ding-A-Ling," the 1972 live novelty recording that to this day is Chuck Berry's only #1 US (& UK) Pop hit. (Adding insult to injury, Berry's "My Ding-A-Ling" kept Elvis's "Burning Love" from the top spot, a far-superior song that should've been The King's final US #1.) Most rock scholars either ignore the song entirely or sit around chastising it (there is literally a book that picks it as The Worst Rock & Roll Single Of All-Time), but rock snobbery or not, it is an essential part of The Chuck Berry Story. I mean, even Bob Dylan is still waiting for his first US #1 Pop hit. & The Chess Box is the first official collection to include it. (Come to think of it, perhaps this is why everyone loves The Great Twenty-Eight so much--"My Ding-A-Ling" is nowhere in sight.)

Where other Berry albums are a cursory glance at the hits, this remains the full portrait of an American icon. Even though--or perhaps because--it contains "My Ding-A-Ling."



His Best, Volume 1 & Volume 2: The First Two Volume Collection Of The CD Age (1996-1997). ***

His Best, Volume 1 & Volume 2 are the result of Chess Records' 50th Anniversary, where they issued (mostly) one-disc, 20-song summaries of their biggest names: Bo Diddley, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, & others. Of all the artists on their roster, only two were granted two-volume "His Best" sets: One was Muddy Waters. & the other was Chuck Berry. The result is a cross between The Great Twenty-Eight & The Chess Box, but lacks both the punch of the former & the depth of the latter. It misses the Top 10 R&B hit "No Money Down" as well as the fine "Run Rudolph Run" Christmas song, while including stuff like "Anthony Boy" & "Jo Jo Gunne." The second disc does a fine enough job running through the latter years, taking us up to "No Particular Place To Go" before soon dropping us off with "My Ding-A-Ling," as most modern sets would do. But in the end, it is the split nature of His Best that ultimately ruins it. Unlike an act like The Beatles, Berry's hits came very early on & there is no reason to buy Volume 2 unless you already owned Volume 1. Did Chess Records think anyone was gonna just get the volume with "Sweet Little Rock & Roller" & "Come On" at the expense of the one with "Johnny B. Goode" & "Maybellene"? Perhaps that's why they were issued a year apart.



Anthology: The Standard Two-Disc Set (2000; Later Issued As Gold in 2005). *****

The Anthology/Gold picks up the mantle from His Best, adds ten tracks for a cool 50, & sells it in a single two-disc package. Of the 40 tracks of His Best, only one fails to make the cut to Anthology, the less-than-stellar (but still charting) "Anthony Boy," which, while far from essential, is at least as good as "Jo Jo Gunne" & a few others that DID make the cut. The eleven additional tracks, however, do a lot to fill out the story: Among them, "No Money Down" is an oft-overlooked Top 10 R&B hit that finds the rock sound still coalescing from the blues; "Guitar Boogie" is the blueprint for Jeff Beck's "Beck's Boogie" with The Yardbirds; "House Of Blue Lights" gives a taste of Berry's classic R&B covers; & "Dear Dad" & "Bio" help to fill out the picture of his latter days at Chess. Any quibbles have to do more with what isn't here than what is--with the length of CDs, a few more tracks could have easily fit, so why not include "Anthony Boy," plus "Run Rudolph Run," "Merry Christmas Baby," & "Little Marie," which would have covered all of his charting hits, as well as all of his solo A-sides from 1955 to 1965? But in the end, these are quibbles & proof of the set's worthiness is that when Rolling Stone updated its 500 Greatest Albums list, they included this in the place of The Great Twenty Eight, because at that point the latter had gone out-of-print. & to this day, Anthology remains the best full-scope collection to get--although you now have to do it in the gaudily-repacked Gold edition.

The Best Of Chuck Berry (20th Century Masters) & Icon: The Single-Disc Samplers (1999 & 2011). ***

The Best Of Chuck Berry (20th Century Masters) & Icon are lumped together because they are nearly-identical sets that conceived of & made for the budget racks for those people who need some Chuck in their lives but can't bring themselves to cough up more than $4.99 to do so. In this regard, they do their jobs fine; The Best Of contains all of his Top 20 US Pop hits in 11 tracks; Icon includes these exact 11 tracks & adds a 12th, the #23 hit "Nadine," which now means it includes all of his Top 25 US Pop hits. There's nothing wrong with either, although it is a bit depressing to see "My Ding-A-Ling" get a slot over smaller but better hits like "Thirty Days," "You Can't Catch Me," "Memphis," "Almost Grown," "Back In The U.S.A.," "Promised Land," or about a half dozen others (even if "My Ding-A-Ling" is his only #1 Pop hit). Again, there's nothing wrong with these sets, but if anyone is worth shelling out a few more bucks for, it's Chuck Berry.



The Definitive Collection: The Current Standard One-Disc Set (2006). *****

The Definitive Collection seems to have come about from when the Universal Music conglomerate were issuing their Definitive Collection series & realized that The Great Twenty-Eight had gone out-of-print. The solution? This disc, which they might as well have named The Definitive Thirty. A whopping 27 of the 28 tracks of The Great Twenty-Eight make the cut, in nearly the exact running order, with only "Bye Bye Johnny" cut (even though it could have been included as a 31st track). Rounding out the set is the criminally-absent "You Never Can Tell" & "Promised Land" (oddly coming before "No Particular Place To Go," since the latter was the lead single off of the album that held all three), & the infamous "My Ding-A-Ling," in the live single edit. Thus, for the first time, all of Berry's Top 25 US Pop hits were gathered in a single place on a single CD (since the above-discussed Icon wasn't released until 2011). While The Great Twenty-Eight is the sentimental classic, this is the pragmatic choice of the modern age, if only because it includes "You Never Can Tell" & "Promised Land." &, oh yeah, his only #1 hit.

* * *

Collectively, these 10 anthologies collective feature over 75 different Chuck Berry songs. I polled them all & found that of these, there are 32 songs that appear on 4 anthologies or more. These I consider to be the Chuck Berry canon.

1. Maybellene
2. Thirty Days
3. You Can't Catch Me
4. Too Much Monkey Business
5. Brown-Eyed Handsome Man
6. Roll Over Beethoven
7. Havana Moon
8. School Days
9. Rock & Roll Music
10. Oh Baby Doll
11. Reelin' & Rockin'
12. Sweet Little Sixteen
13. Johnny B. Goode
14. Around & Around
15. Beautiful Delilah
16. Carol
17. Memphis
18. Sweet Little Rock & Roller
19. Little Queenie
20. Almost Grown
21. Back In The U.S.A.
22. Let It Rock
23. Too Pooped To Pop
24. Bye Bye Johnny
25. I'm Talking About You
26. Come On
27. Nadine
28. You Never Can Tell
29. Promised Land
30. No Particular Place To Go
31. I Want To Be Your Driver
32. My Ding-A-Ling [Live]

These 32 songs run exactly 82 minutes, so if you're making a playlist, you're fine, but if you're burning a single disc, you need to kick one or two off. My vote would be for "Too Pooped To Pop," in part because it's really, really dumb, but more expressly, it is the only song on the list not written by Chuck Berry. For all that has been said about Chuck Berry's pioneer sound & guitar playing, it is easy to forget that he was rock's first great singer-songwriter, a feat that would go unrivaled until Bob Dylan came along in the 1960s. But, of course, if you want to keep it in Berry's "Golden Decade" of 1955-1965 & boot off "My Ding-A-Ling," I wouldn't hold it against you. In fact, I might even encourage it.

So for those keeping score, 6 songs appear on all 10 collections: "Maybellene," Roll Over Beethoven," "School Days," Rock & Roll Music," "Sweet Little Sixteen," & "Johnny B. Goode." These are the core of the Chuck Berry Canon & should be considered essential rock & roll listening alongside the likes of Sgt. Pepper, Highway 61 Revisited, & Exile On Main Street--or more tellingly, Elvis's Sun & early RCA sides, Jerry Lee Lewis's early Sun sides, & Little Richard's records for Specialty.

Long live rock & roll.

The Top 10 Greatest Chuck Berry Songs.

A week ago today, the great Chuck Berry passed away. He was one of the most influential icons of the music, as well as its first great singer-songwriter.

Of the scores of classics that would flow from his pen & guitar, these are the ten greatest.



10. "Too Much Monkey Business," Single A-Side, 1956; #4 R&B.

If rock & roll long has been the outlet of "awkward teenage blues," it was Chuck Berry who first made it that way. Although he was a married man in his early 30s by the time he was a major star, he could think like a teenager, & turn the woes of adolescence into poetry. "Too Much Monkey Business" was his breakthrough in doing so, articulating the every day trials of going to school, the monotony of low-paying jobs, the annoyances of billings & payments, the frustrations in pursuit of romance. He also filled the allegedly simple music with more words than anyone could cram into a verse until a Bob Dylan plugged in nearly a decade later. Before Dylan turned to folk, you know the young teenage rocker from Duluth was studying songs like this one.

9. "You Never Can Tell," Single A-Side, 1964; #14 Pop / #14 R&B / #23 UK.

The Lost Generation for the Rock & Roll Generation, as a couple of ex-pat Americans get married in France, swapping New Orleans for Orleans. The details of teenage life were still intact--the hi-fi phono, the coolerator with TV dinners & ginger ale--but this was also a signal of a changing of the guards, finding the young characters growing up & getting married; appropriately, it was released the year The Beatles invaded America, as rock was transitioning from its first to second generation. It also had a structure closer to a folk song than Berry's usual blues-based fare. Perhaps this is why it sounded as fresh in 1964 as it did in the famous twist contest scene in Pulp Fiction some 30 years later--its sheer timelessness.

8. "Sweet Little Sixteen," Single A-Side, 1958; #2 Pop / #1 R&B / #16 UK.

Three years before James Brown hopped onboard the "Night Train," Chuck Berry was using rock music to unite the country by calling out cities until they became one big dance party, all centered around a sweet little sixteen-year-old rock and roll super fan. The idea was too irresistible not to lift, & so Brian Wilson used it as the template of surf rock's national anthem, "Surfin' U.S.A.," replacing the cities with beaches & adding six-part harmony. Never one to miss a trick, Berry sued him over it & currently holds a songwriting co-credit. Yet Wilson is not one to hold a grudge--after Berry's death this week, he said that it was Berry who taught him how to write a rock & roll song.

7. "School Days," Single A-Side, 1957; #3 Pop / #1 R&B / #24 UK.

If "Too Much Monkey Business" found Chuck Berry first articulating the language of youth, "School Days" found him perfecting it. Built upon a now-classic call-&-response blues structure (which Berry would use for another major hit in the following decade, "No Particular Place To Go"), "School Days" was two songs in one: A lament of life in the classroom, followed by the freedom of the after-school juke joint. The escape to freedom was reinforced with lines like "As soon as three o'clock rolls around/You finally lay your burden down," shrewdly borrowing a phrase from the old spiritual "Down By The Riverside." But the finest lines come at the end, & they rank among the most iconic in all of rock phraseology: "Hail, hail rock & roll/Deliver me from the days of old!" With "School Days," these words were a self-fulfilling prophecy.

6. "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," Single B-Side, 1956.

The party line is that rock didn't get political until the mid-'60s, when Bob Dylan brought the consciousness of folk into the music. But "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" shoots this narrative down. In the midst of the Civil Rights struggle, Berry wrote one of rock's slyest protest songs, & pulling off the rare feat of making it both funny & sexy. While the deeper layer of social commentary might have missed many of his white listeners, his African-American fans knew the song was code for a brown-skinned handsome man. Why else would the central character get "arrested on charges of unemployment"? Best of all was the final verse, which seemingly paid tribute to Jackie Robinson, winning the game like the brown-eyed handsome American hero he was.

5. "Promised Land," Single A-Side, 1964; #41 Pop / #41 R&B / #26 UK.

"This is the map, as 'The Poor Boy' sets out from Norfolk, Virginia, to discover the country: a journey that moves from poverty to wealth, from a bus to a plane setting down at LAX. All pop music that takes America as a subject—whether winding toward tragedy or toward an even sweeter harmony—runs off this mountain. Written when Berry was in prison; he needed an atlas to get the geography right, and when he requested one from the prison library, word went out that he was plotting an escape—which, of course, he was." -- Greil Marcus, "Promised Land: Thirty Records About America," Rolling Stone, May 28, 1998.

I got nothing to add, except, perhaps, I love his evocation of the old slave spiritual "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" at the end.

4. "Rock & Roll Music," Single A-Side, 1957; #8 Pop / #6 R&B.

The first great rock and roll song about rock and roll songs. In just two-and-a-half minutes, Berry characteristically covers A LOT of ground: He disses symphonies, clarifies his stance on modern jazz, and overlooks tangos; he praises the backbeat of the drums, the wailing saxophone, & the rocking piano; he goes across the tracks, way down South, a spiritual jubilee, & a honky-tonk jamboree; he dances, he gets shook up, he drinks home-brew from a wooden cup with a bunch of hillbillies. It all adds up to a sound that, like the sax player mentioned in the song, blows like a hurricane. No wonder The Beatles loved this song--& eventually turned it into one of their finest classic rock covers.

3. "Roll Over Beethoven," Single A-Side, 1956; #29 Pop / #2 R&B.

A changing of the guards. As a record, it was pioneering rock & roll, but as a message, it was pure punk rock. For centuries, great music meant Bach, Mozart, & Beethoven, but with everything else in the post-WWII era, music demanded to get bigger, louder, & more modern. More than any other song, "Roll Over Beethoven" extended the new generation's middle finger to the old generation's aesthetics, righteously declaring their own new music would unseat the old. & most astonishingly, it did--at least, as much as a new music can. Rock has taken over classical--&/or all other refined musics--as the mainstream default for listeners of all ages & generations. It was Chuck Berry who was more than just a leader of the new sound, but a modern arts visionary. Tell Tchaikovsky the news, indeed. 

2. "Maybellene," Single A-Side, 1955; #5 Pop / #1 R&B.

"Maybellene" is one of those records that simply changed everything. While Elvis gets credit for being the "hillbilly cat" who stepped into the blues with "That's All Right" in 1954, his song was a regional hit that never made it to the national charts, & is much better-known today. However, Berry's first record, "Maybellene," was one of the biggest hits of his career, & found that it was just as revolutionary for an African-American man to discover country. Built around the one-two country stomp of "Ida Red," Berry appears to have taken the refrain of a love song & wed it to the verse of a car-race song. While it shouldn't work--is Maybellene a car? A girl in his car? A girl in the other car? Someone else entirely?--it does, & all but single-handedly establishes the subject-matter of the car & the sound of the guitar as central to rock & roll music. When "Maybellene" came out, the piano & saxophone were still rivaling the guitar as its signature instrument. After "Maybellene," & the future Chuck Berry hits it enabled, the guitar was enshrined at rock & roll's core.

1. "Johnny B. Goode," Single A-Side, 1958; #8 Pop / #2 R&B.

"The gateway from freedom, I was led to understand, was somewhere 'close to New Orleans' where most Africans were sorted through and sold," Berry wrote in his 1987 autobiography. "I'd been told my great grandfather lived 'way back up in the woods among the evergreens' in a log cabin. I revived the era with a story about a 'colored boy name [sic] Johnny B. Goode.' My first thought was to make his life follow as my own had come along, but I thought it would seem biased to white fans to say 'colored boy' and changed it to 'country boy.' As it turned out, my name was in lights and it is a fact that 'Johnny B. Goode' is most instrumental in causing it to B."

Chuck Berry's signature triumph is a recasting of The American Dream as a rock & roll fantasy, going to the deepest origin of American slavery and using a guitar as the gateway to the sweetest freedom. It is also, not coincidentally, his finest guitar playing; though countless Chuck Berry songs begin with a guitar intro, none drive it home like this one, such that the double (!) guitar solo in the middle feels like a homecoming followed by a victory lap. & while many of his original recordings sound almost loose & sluggish to modern ears raised on the tightness of The Beatles & Rolling Stones covers that helped to familiarize these songs for the last 50 years, "Johnny B. Goode" is an exception--it is a tight, rocking performance that never gets old, often covered but never improved upon.

It is not only Chuck Berry's greatest song, but the greatest rock & roll record of them all.

The Top 10 Greatest Chuck Berry Covers.

As I wrote in my Last Thoughts On Chuck Berry, Chuck Berry's songbook is the rock & roll songbook. Only Bob Dylan is more covered than he is, but with 10 years on him, Chuck Berry's covers have the wider scope.

While I'm now listening to a lot of Chuck Berry, & a greatest list of his own best recordings is to come, I thought there was no finer tribute to his life & influence than the ways in which others have breathed life into his art. Hence this list, which attempts to fight through the countless Chuck Berry covers out there to make a definitive Top 10 list.

I tried to go by the quality of the recording (or in the case of The Sex Pistols, lack thereof), not who was doing it. I was very tempted by Bob Dylan's version of "Nadine," David Bowie's version of "Round & Round," & Jerry Lee Lewis's "Little Queenie," but ultimately left them all off because it would have been more about including those artists on the list, as opposed to their versions of Chuck Berry's songs.

Some of these songs were major career-defining hits, others were shelved outtakes or rough demos; some appeared at the dawn of an artist's career, others in the twilight. What they all have in common is a love for Chuck Berry--which is to say, a love for rock & roll itself.

10. The Sex Pistols: "Johnny B. Goode," Demo, c. 1975.

By the time The Sex Pistols emerged in the mid-'70s, the once-raw genre of rock & roll that Chuck Berry helped usher into the world had become lifeless & bloated. The Pistols helped to rebuild the genre by tearing it down to its studs, & here in a classic early demo later released on The Great Rock & Roll Swindle soundtrack, they take on Rock Version 1.0, wherein they attempt to play "Johnny B. Goode," the greatest rock song of all. SPOILER: THEY CAN'T. But if they sound like a bunch of no-talent snotty kids banging around in the garage that's the point. & even though they had yet to release their first single, singer Johnny Rotten's venom is already fully-intact, bluffing his way through the words like they were caustic nails. It was this same hellfire that helped to reignite rock for the next 35 years & counting.

9. The Band: "Back To Memphis," Studio Outtake, 1973.

As if anyone needed evidence of the range of Chuck Berry's appeal, look no further to one of the least-talented rock bands (above), followed by one of the most-talented ones here. Initially recorded for their 1973 album of classic rock covers, Moondog Matinee, this Berry super deep-cut was shelved in favor of a solid-but-unremarkable version "Promised Land." By the late 1980s, however, the reissue powers-that-be were reissuing this song on Band compilations everywhere, after dubbing in fake crowd fanfare to pass it off as a live performance. Here is the undoubted original studio recording, which shows why no one questioned the authenticity of the fanfare--it's the rare Band studio recordings that capture their contagious onstage energy.

8. Johnny Rivers: "Memphis," At The Whiskey A Go Go, 1964; #2 US.

This could be a sequel to "Back To Memphis" if it wasn't recorded nearly a decade earlier. It is also probably the most classic Chuck Berry song that no one realized was originally a Chuck Berry song. A down-home country ballad of a man pleading with a long-distance operator, it was remade into a minor rock classic with Johnny Rivers' live version here (it also interestingly inverts The Band's recording above in that instead of featuring a fake crowd on a studio recording, this is a real live recording that sounds like a fake one). & for those wondering how Johnny Rivers made a list with greater rock idols, perhaps he is a secret weapon of rock covers--when pressed for his favorite cover of one of his songs, Bob Dylan famously said Johnny Rivers version of "Positively 4th Street." So maybe his presence here isn't so strange after all.

7. The Beatles: "Roll Over Beethoven," With The Beatles, 1963; #68 US.

To modern ears, Chuck Berry's original versions can sometimes drag a bit, even when the singing & playing are top-notch ("Johnny B. Goode," of course, is an exception to this). Often, when you name a classic like "Roll Over Beethoven," people are actually thinking of The Beatles cover of it, not because it is necessarily better, but simply tighter, faster, & more modern. In one of George Harrison's earliest vocals, he tries his hand at this classic & announces the arrival of a second generation of rock & rollers. Within a few years, albums like Revolver & Sgt. Pepper would be hailed as artistic achievements that actually would rival Beethoven in a very real way. But here, they're still having fun in a track that was strong enough to kick off their second American album & even be a minor hit on this side of the pond.

WARNING: THIS IS NOT THE ORIGINAL STUDIO VERSION OF THE SONG, BUT THE LIVE BBC VERSION. IT IS VERY CLOSE TO THE ORIGINAL, BUT THE ORIGINAL VERSION SHOULD BE SOUGHT OUT. IT IS BEST HEARD ON WITH THE BEATLES OR ON THE OLD 1970s DOUBLE-LP BEATLES COMPILATION ROCK & ROLL MUSIC.

6. The Rolling Stones: "Bye Bye Johnny," The Rolling Stones [EP], 1964.

It's not easy picking an early Rolling Stones cover of a Chuck Berry song; there were simply so many. "Carol" was strong enough to be released as a Top 10 hit in France, while "Around & Around" was a fine tribute recorded at Berry's own Chess Records. But their cover of Berry's little-known sequel record to "Johnny B. Goode" is the best to my ears, released on their first EP in 1963. It documents The Stones as raw & hungry, at once near-amateurish compared to the production values of their rival Beatles, yet able to provide a dense onslaught of sound that already full of toughness & swagger. Plus, lead guitarist Keith Richards already establishes himself as Berry's spiritual eager kid brother. They would record bigger & more popular Berry covers in the years to come, but the sheer sound of this one leaves the others in the dust.


5. The Yardbirds: "Too Much Monkey Business," Five Live Yardbirds, 1964.

Long before the likes of Cream, Derek & The Dominoes, & a sprawling solo career, Eric Clapton was a scrawny guitar hero in The Yardbirds. He was nicknamed "Slowhand" because he played his guitar so fast that he'd break strings & have to change them to the sound of a slow handclap; within months, "Clapton is God" graffiti began appearing in the London subway halls (much to Clapton's embarrassment). Before he left The Yardbirds for more greener (or rather, blues-ier) pastures, he left this searing document, taken from their sets at the Marquee Club. This song was their opener & they all but blow the roof off the top of it in the performance. While everything revolves around Clapton, I'm always most tickled by Keith Relf's vocals, solidly singing the words in verse, shouting them in another, & then dutifully reciting them in a detached sense of boredom that cuts to the teenage blues at the heart of the song. Before getting obliterated once again by those guitar solos.


4. The Million Dollar Quartet: "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," Studio Jam, 1956.

Long before the likes of Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry was rock & roll's premiere wordsmith. Compared to contemporaries like Elvis or Fats Domino, Berry's songs were epics where the others' were merely three-stanza poems. Berry was a man who truly loved words & putting them together in memorable ways. One realizes this when listening to the famous Million Dollar Quartet jam session where Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, & Johnny Cash turned to Berry's "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man." For several takes, you can hear them collectively honing in on the song, different people remembering different parts of different verses, until it all comes together here. If one needs any further evidence of strongly Berry was on the rock founders' minds, look no further than the fact that aside from "Don't Be Cruel," this is the only rock song sung by The Million Dollar Quartet for the nearly 80-minute session.

3. Buddy Holly: "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," Reminiscing, c. 1956; #113 US, #3 UK.

An opposite take on "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" by no less of a founding rock god. Precise where The Million Dollar Quartet was loose, & rocking where they were almost folksy, Buddy Holly's version of the song reshapes it into a driving rockabilly masterpiece (with a seeming tip of the hat to The Champs' "Tequila," although Berry himself loved a good Latin groove as well). & when the snare drum hits to emulate the high-fly being hit into the stands, it is a subtle use of sound effects that presages songs like "Penny Lane" by a decade. Although not originally released during Holly's lifetime, it saw the light of day just before The Beatles invaded America, even making the Top 5 in the Holly-loving UK.


2. Elvis Presley: "Promised Land," Promised Land, 1974; #14 US.

Elvis's last truly classic recording was also his first great cover of a Chuck Berry song. He had tried in overeager readings of "Maybellene" at the Louisiana Hayride & later in listless recitations of "Johnny B. Goode" in Las Vegas, but only his mid-'60s country take on "Too Much Monkey Business" was close to interesting, & only then because it was the only Elvis recording to feature the word "Vietnam." But in 1974, Elvis showed he still had something left to prove when he attacked Berry's "Promised Land." Perhaps it was because the song contained an idea as big as Elvis--THE Promised Land--that he was up for the challenge, but its rock star travelogue version of The American Dream never sounded better than in Elvis's telling. Cut at Stax Records, it provided Elvis with the last Top 15 pop hit of his lifetime, although it deserved to go all the way to #1.


1. The Beatles: "Rock & Roll Music," The Beatles For Sale, 1964.

The Beatles' cover of Chuck Berry's "Rock & Roll Music" is easily the greatest Berry cover of all time. It encompasses all of the key elements that can be found in the other songs listed above--a sense of rawness, of quality, of reinvention, of tightness, of fun, & of simple, irreverent joy. Like they already had with "Roll Over Beethoven" the year before, The Beatles took Chuck Berry's original & tightened it up, locking it together in a way that the original version merely suggested. The words were never the problem in Berry's original--it was that the music never matched their promise. The Beatles fixed all of that. With Lennon shouting his finest vocal this side of "Twist & Shout," the group shows that even in the wistful, post-A Hard Day's Night period of late 1964, they could still rock out with the best of them.

& in doing so, more than hold their own against none other than their idol, Chuck Berry.

WARNING: THIS IS NOT THE ORIGINAL STUDIO VERSION OF THE SONG BUT A CRAPPY LIVE VERSION. (THANKS, BEATLE LAWYERS!) THE ORIGINAL VERSION MUST BE SOUGHT OUT. IT IS BEST HEARD ON THE ORIGINAL BEATLES FOR SALE LP OR THE OLD 1970s DOUBLE-LP BEATLES COMPILATION ROCK & ROLL MUSIC THAT BARES ITS NAME.