Why, it seems like only yesterday [cue harp and wavy, out-of-focus visuals] when you could pore over an album's liner notes and not have to squint to garner an embarrassment of riches and a treasure trove of tidbits...
“Dance! says Chuck Berry, reel and rock, around and around! ‘Move on up and try for further.’ This rock ‘n’ roll that’s blowing fuses around the world would set Beethoven spinning in his grave and ‘deliver us from the days of old.’”
The duck walk may not be quite as smooth these days, but having just celebrated his 80th birthday, Chuck Berry is still a smooth “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man.”
Chess Record’s The Great Twenty-Eight double-album from 1982 is not only a fantastic best-of collection in quantity and quality of tracks, it also matches that excellence in its liner notes. Straightforwardly no-nonsense yet poetically celebratory — reflecting Berry's songs' musical accessibility in rhythm and rhyme-scheme — the insightful commentary fulfills the commemorative need for a matter-of-fact overview combined with an expressive tribute befitting rock ‘n’ roll royalty.
The all-embracing yet cohesive notes by Michael Lydon start out simply enough: “Charles Edward Anderson Berry grew up a bright kid in black St. Louis, Missouri.” Lydon then briefly sketches out Berry’s influences in Louis Jordan and Nat “King” Cole, and his introduction by an impressed Muddy Waters to Leonard Chess. Hearing a dub of “Maybellene,” Chess signs up Berry for his label and guides him to the themes of “the big beat, cars, and young love.”
Lydon, as much as anyone can convey a sonic sensation, deftly encapsulates the appeal and the immediacy of a Chuck Berry song:
- Ah, the triumph of Chuck’s Ford catching Maybellene at the top of the hill! The poor coup de ville left behind like a ton of lead! The fast lane tempo, the clanging chorded guitar with its howling break, the wild piano, slamming drums and bass — ‘the highway sound’ — urged on the listener a mood flamboyantly dramatic, rebellious, and free.
Onstage, Berry was a bit rebellious and free himself, as Lydon describes this charismatic marvel - good looks, duck walk and all. And though Berry "had no kick against modern jazz," he quickly proved to be a prolific songwriter and record maker of catchy and clever rock 'n' roll gems, able to capture the “teen feel” again and again in such smashes as “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Rock and Roll Music,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Johnny B. Goode,” “Carol,” “Memphis,” “Back in the USA”…
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
great job gordon. you know, i'm not much for greatest hits packages but i do have this one...and it's pretty much perfect.
2 - DJRadiohead
I own the Anthology, which expands this set by a few numbers. I bought it because this one is out of print. When I saw Great 28 in a used CD store, I bought it anyway. Some of the best rock and roll ever.
And... according to a story about Chuck's 80th, I read next year an album of new material is going to be released. That is going to be seriously great. I am predicting big things for it.
3 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Thanks Mark: This was pretty much one of the exceptions for me in greatest hits albums, too. Still sounds great.
4 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Thanks DJ. I hope that album of new material comes out, but I also hope it's not along the lines of "My Ding-a-Ling." (Oh no, now I got that song going through my head...)
5 - Mark Saleski
not too long ago, i picked up "Blue", which is a fine record too. i'd also like to get "Rockit".
his non-collection stuff is hard to find in stores.
6 - gonzo marx
Chuck Berry > Elvis...
nuff said;
Excelsior?
7 - DJRadiohead
It really is tough to find any of the actual "albums." A remastered version of St. Louis to Liverpool was released and I have it. I also have After School Session. Still, there are so many of his actual records with songs that aren't so famous I would love to hear.
8 - Mark Saleski
yep. when i saw "Blues" in the bin, i snatched that sucker up!
9 - Bliffle
Chuck Berry is still alive!? Great scott, and now he's only 10 years older than me!
About 30 years ago I had the pleasure of conversing with Berry for several minutes, wherein he claimed that he really invented Rock 'n Roll (not Big Joe Turner or later impostors like Elvis or Bill Haley) because he traveled without a band and taught young musicians across the land to play R&R riffs as his backup groups. Thus, they learned.
He always sounds great and he's very witty.
10 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
That's great, Bliffle, that you met and had a chance to talk to a legend. I've heard the same thing--that he kind of wings it for his tours. Gets a band together at the last minute and gets the show on the road.
11 - gonzo marx
Bliffle in #9...
the Way he tells it is the Way i've heard it from olde timers when i was young, so fucking long ago...
hence the Equation in #6
i'm way envious that Bliffle got to talk with such an Artist... a real american Original
Excelsior?
12 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
gonzo--I agree that CB > EP, and I think the proper expression is "ye olde timers."
13 - gonzo marx
heh...
hoist by me own petard, ye might say...
Excelsior?
14 - tink
Good going, Gordon!
15 - gonzo marx
:::blinks twice:::
"tink" ?
you don't know Nym Nadal by any chance?
nah, couldn't be...
/end hijack
Excelsior?
16 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Thanks tink--'twas a labor o' reelin' and rockin'.
17 - tink and nym
TINK of nym and tink here...