Chuck Berry

Charles Edward Anderson (Chuck) Berry was born on October 18, 1926, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Henry and Martha Berry, and after performing "Confessin' the Blues" to a standing ovation at a 1941 school program at Sumner High School, he spent his life entertaining audiences around the world. Dubbed the "Father of Rock and Roll," he gave the genre its distinct sound through innovations such as his scorching staccato, double-string guitar solo style, heard in songs including "Maybellene," "Roll Over Beethoven," "Rock and Roll Music," and "Johnny B. Goode." After signing with Chess Records, "Maybellene" quickly reached the Top Ten charts, while "Johnny B. Goode" rose to the top of the charts and broke through the mass market. His emotional word play, power imagery, and electric guitar work helped erase racial barriers, and his innovations influenced other musicians, transformed culture, brought about social change, and changed music and the music industry forever. In the 1960s, backed by the Steve Miller Band, he recorded the bluesy album Live at the Fillmore, and as rock and roll's ambassador to the world, he took his music to audiences across Europe, Asia, and South America and played for presidents and royalty. In the 1970s, The London Chuck Berry Sessions became a gold record and his best-selling album, including "My Ding-a-Ling," his only number one song on the charts, while a recording of "Johnny B. Goode" traveled into space on Voyager I, and he appeared as himself in the film American Hot Wax. In the 1980s, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1984 Grammy Awards, became the first person inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, was honored at two sixtieth birthday concerts at St. Louis' Fox Theatre, was the subject of the documentary film Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll, published Chuck Berry; The Autobiography, and became the first star of the St. Louis Walk of Fame in The Loop. In the 1990s, he performed at the dedication of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and became the first of Rolling Stone Magazine's top five artists of all time to perform 100 concerts at one venue, Blueberry Hill in St. Louis. Into the twenty-first century, he was regarded as one of America's greatest twentieth-century poets, received PEN New England's inaugural award for Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence with Leonard Cohen, and was honored with an eight-foot-tall statue by Harry Weber.

University City, Missouri · United States