Bernard Weintraub has a great series in the NY Times, "The Music They Made," profiling the "Legends of Rock Country and Soul." Today's story is on the inimitable Chuck Berry, the second greatest of the pre-Beatles rockers (after Elvis, of course). Chuck is still rocking at 76:

Chuck Berry is seated backstage listening to the crowd gather at Blueberry Hill, a music club and bar in the Loop area on this city's west side. Once a month, Mr. Berry, known universally as the father of rock 'n' roll, performs downstairs in the cramped Duck Room, named for the famous duck walk he has performed around the world for nearly 50 years.

....Mr. Berry remains as suspicious, defiant and guarded offstage as he is mesmerizing on. In a life overshadowed by three prison terms, his own inner demons and the humiliations of racism, he now carefully avoids any public hint of the anger and resentment that seem to lurk just beneath the surface.

....The high point of his career, from the mid-50's through the 60's, was distinguished by about 40 songs, many of them early rock 'n' roll classics.

He became famous with "Maybellene" in 1955. It was followed by "Roll Over Beethoven," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," "Johnny B. Goode," "School Days," "Nadine" and "Rock and Roll Music."

Although Little Richard and Fats Domino may have been the earliest black stars to sell rock to white audiences, Mr. Berry was the first to break down racial barriers, not only with his electric guitar but also with wordplay and imagery. As Paul Friedlander writes in his book "Rock and Roll: A Social History," Mr. Berry "created the most literate, stylistically innovative and original music of the era." If the formulaic lyrics of early rockers were narrowly focused on boy meets girl, Mr. Berry's songs went beyond this to appeal to the concerns of white adolescents dealing with issues like parents, dancing, cars, lust and new tastes in music, along with teenage romance.

....He also forged the style for rock 'n' roll guitar that's still current. "For him, the guitar was more than an accompanying prop hanging off his shoulders," Joe Stuessy and Scott Lipscomb write in "Rock and Roll: Its History and Stylistic Development." In Mr. Berry's hands, they observed, the guitar "was a frontline instrument, often on a par with the lead vocal. The statement-and-answer technique in which the guitar mimics the just-completed vocal line is related to the two-bar or four-bar 'tradeoffs' found in jazz. It is as if Berry and his guitar are doing a duet."

When Mr. Berry recorded "Maybellene" for the Chicago-based Chess Records, he was inspired, he said, by a country-western song, "Ida Red." Leonard Chess, one of the owners, told him he didn't like the title.

As Johnnie Johnson, the piano player and Mr. Berry's longtime collaborator, recalled, Mr. Chess suggested "Maybellene" after noticing a Maybelline cosmetics box on a window sill beside a secretary's desk.

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