Chuck Berry PDF Download

Author: Stephanie Bennett
Publisher: Vireo Book, A
ISBN: 9781947856905
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Thirty years ago, Chuck Berry starred in the seminal music documentaryChuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'N' Roll, which profiled the legend during a star-studded concert celebrating his sixtieth birthday. Now, on the heels of Berry's death, comes the complete story behind one of America's most enduring and embattled icons. Compiled as an oral history by the film's producer, Stephanie Bennett,Johnny B. Bad combines interviews from the film's participants, including its music director-- Keith Richards. These unique interviews and accounts paint a vivid and multifaceted picture of the artist. Berry was at once a witty, articulate genius, now widely considered the godfather of rock and roll; a shrewd businessman, who had no trouble endlessly renegotiating contracts and refusing to perform until additional cash was gathered up; and also a convicted criminal, who in addition to serving time inprison for transporting a minor across state lines for "immoral purposes" had also been accused of sexual assault and sued in civil court for installing cameras in the restroom of the Southern Air, a restaurant he owned in Wentzville, Missouri.

Author: John Collis
Publisher: White Lion Publishing
ISBN: 9781854109651
Category : Rock musicians
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
It’s no exaggeration to say that, with songs likeRock 'n’ Roll Music, Roll Over Beethoven,andJohnny B. Goode,Chuck Berry invented rock 'n’ roll. However, his career has been overshadowed, and often stalled, by tax evasion, liaisons with an underage prostitute, and jail sentences. Now, John Collis interviews those who have worked with Berry and uncovers the truth about his life back in St. Louis. The result is a clear-eyed portrait of a musical genius who, even in his seventies, is still up on stage singingSweet Little Sixteen.

Author: Bruce Pegg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135356912
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry draws on dozens of interviews done by the author himself and voluminous public records to paint a complete picture of this complicated figure. This biography uncovers the real Berry and provides us with a stirring, unvarnished portrait of both the man and the artist. Berry has long been one of pop music's most enigmatic personalities. Growing up in a middle-class, black neighborhood in St. Louis, his first major hit song, "Maybellene," was an adaptation of a white country song, wedded to a black-influenced beat. Thereafter came a string of brilliant songs celebrating teenage life in the '50s, including "School Day," "Johnny B. Goode," and "Sweet Little Sixteen." Berry's career rise was meteoric; but his fall came equally quickly, when his relations with an underage girl led to his conviction. It was not his first (nor his last) run in with the law. He scored his biggest hit in the early '70s with the comical (and some would say decidedly lightweight) song "My Ding-a-Ling." The following decades brought hundreds of nights of tours, with little attention from the recording industry. Bruce Pegg offers the definitive, though not always pretty, portrait of one of the greatest stars of rock and roll, a story that will appeal to all fans of American popular music.

Author: Wayne L. Wilson
Publisher: Righteous Rockers
ISBN: 9781624694080
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
Early in his career, Chuck Berry performed a country song at a blues nightclub. He heard patrons whisper, "Who's that black hillbilly?" They laughed a few times, but soon requested more of that "hillbilly stuff." Before long, millions of people were dancing to Berry's music. He uniquely mixed blues, rockabilly, rhythm and blues, and jazz. People couldn't get enough of his pop stew. With his innovative guitar riffs and dynamic showmanship Chuck Berry produced groundbreaking songs such as "Maybellene," "Johnny B. Goode," "Rock and Roll Music," and "Roll Over, Beethoven." This hall of fame singer, songwriter, and guitarist spoke about fast cars, romance, dancing, and good times. The songs became anthems to American youth and popular culture. Berry laid the groundwork for the sound and posture of rock music. He influenced generations of musicians and was called the "Father of Rock and Roll." Book jacket.

Author: James (Jimmy) Marsala
Publisher: FriesenPress
ISBN: 1525516310
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
This book is the author's desire to share with Chuck's fans, some of the experiences he had on the road that his fans may want to hear about. Unless you were there, you missed some very interesting shows. This book also tries to show the loyalty and generosity Chuck had for his friends and family. The book tries to set the record straight about some of the claims that Chuck was a hard man to deal with. The book also shows the humor and quit wit that Chuck possessed. It also shows what a treasure this man was to the music industry. His music will live long after we are all gone. What a ride the 41 years has been.

Author: Charles River Editors
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781544894515
Category : Large type books
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes Berry's quotes about his life and career *Includes footnotes and a bibliography for further reading "I grew up thinking art was pictures until I got into music and found I was an artist and didn't paint." - Chuck Berry "If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry.'" - John Lennon The origins of rock music claim several founding fathers, with each perspective holding merit and directly contributing to the golden age to follow in rock music. While Elvis Presley remains perhaps the most high profile figure of early rock, he was not truly a member of the first generation, and if anything, he was a product of a slightly older wave of ground-breaking artists. Appearing immediately before Presley's rise was Texan Buddy Holly, whose borrowings from driving black rhythms blended with white lyrics to make him one of the first successful cross-over artists. However, perhaps the first and ultimately the most successful of this category - those artistic explorers who most effectively blurred racial and political lines through their music - was Chuck Berry, an African-American blues, country singer/guitarist songwriter who perfectly blended the prevailing forms of his generation to attract both black and white audiences with a virtuosity and originality that set the bar for the next half century. Unlike Presley, and more in the manner of Holly, Chuck Berry wrote his own classics, and he thrived as both a composer and lyricist based on his early love of poetry and hard blues, jump blues jazzy ballads, boogie-woogie, and hillbilly music. As a double-threat musician and imaginative literary figure, Berry trained his musical focus on American "teen life...consumerism and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music." Indeed, Chuck Berry was the first artist to reach the charts who was both a virtuoso guitarist and songwriter. As with the gyrations of Elvis and the moonwalk of Michael Jackson, Berry had his trademark stage gesture, the "duck walk," a maneuver in which the right foot is kicked across the stage and leaves the left dragging along behind. It is suggested by some that this signature gesture was not actually planned for anything other than to camouflage a wrinkled rayon suit in a mid-'50s performance in New York, but either way, only a small part of Berry's success came from the visual. Berry also "crafted many of rock 'n' roll's greatest riffs" for guitar, and he became the standard for brilliance on the instrument. In addition to pioneering the sound of rock, Berry's performances set the bar for rock bands across the world. In particular, his specific brand of showmanship served as a template for front men, and all the while, the complete package included iconic guitar riffs that showed blinding tactile skill, energetic boogie-based hits, and depictions of village life and love for both blacks and whites. Put together, Berry's work made the careers of subsequent stars and superstars of the genre possible. As the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame put it, "While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Chuck Berry comes the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together. It was his particular genius to graft country & western guitar licks onto a rhythm & blues chassis in his very first single, 'Maybellene.'" American Legends: The Life of Chuck Berry looks at the life and career of one of America's most influential rock stars. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Chuck Berry like never before, in no time at all.

Author:
Publisher: PediaPress
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Author: Jack Hamilton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674416597
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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By the time Jimi Hendrix died in 1970, the idea of a black man playing lead guitar in a rock band seemed exotic. Yet a mere ten years earlier, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley had stood among the most influential rock and roll performers. Why did rock and roll become “white”? Just around Midnight reveals the interplay of popular music and racial thought that was responsible for this shift within the music industry and in the minds of fans. Rooted in rhythm-and-blues pioneered by black musicians, 1950s rock and roll was racially inclusive and attracted listeners and performers across the color line. In the 1960s, however, rock and roll gave way to rock: a new musical ideal regarded as more serious, more artistic—and the province of white musicians. Decoding the racial discourses that have distorted standard histories of rock music, Jack Hamilton underscores how ideas of “authenticity” have blinded us to rock’s inextricably interracial artistic enterprise. According to the standard storyline, the authentic white musician was guided by an individual creative vision, whereas black musicians were deemed authentic only when they stayed true to black tradition. Serious rock became white because only white musicians could be original without being accused of betraying their race. Juxtaposing Sam Cooke and Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones, and many others, Hamilton challenges the racial categories that oversimplified the sixties revolution and provides a deeper appreciation of the twists and turns that kept the music alive.

Author: RJ Smith
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 0306921618
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
The definitive biography of Chuck Berry, legendary performer and inventor of rock and roll Best known as the groundbreaking artist behind classics like “Johnny B. Goode,” “Maybellene,” “You Never Can Tell” and “Roll Over Beethoven,” Chuck Berry was a man of wild contradictions, whose motives and motivations were often shrouded in mystery. After all, how did a teenage delinquent come to write so many songs that transformed American culture? And, once he achieved fame and recognition, why did he put his career in danger with a lifetime’s worth of reckless personal behavior? Throughout his life, Berry refused to shed light on either the mastery or the missteps, leaving the complexity that encapsulated his life and underscored his music largely unexplored—until now. In Chuck Berry, biographer RJ Smith crafts a comprehensive portrait of one of the great American entertainers, guitarists, and lyricists of the 20th century, bringing Chuck Berry to life in vivid detail. Based on interviews, archival research, legal documents, and a deep understanding of Berry’s St. Louis (his birthplace, and the place where he died in March 2017), Smith sheds new light on a man few have ever really understood. By placing his life within the context of the American culture he made and eventually withdrew from, we understand how Berry became such a groundbreaking figure in music, erasing racial boundaries, crafting subtle political commentary, and paying a great price for his success. While celebrating his accomplishments, the book also does not shy away from troubling aspects of his public and private life, asking profound questions about how and why we separate the art from the artist. Berry declined to call himself an artist, shrugging that he was good at what he did. But the man's achievement was the rarest kind, the kind that had social and political resonance, the kind that made America want to get up and dance. At long last, Chuck Berry brings the man and the music together.

Author: Robert Christgau
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674443181
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 524

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Book Description
Two generations of American music lovers have grown up listening with Robert Christgau, attuned to his inimitable blend of judgment, acuity, passion, erudition, wit, and caveat emptor. His writings, collected here, constitute a virtual encyclopedia of popular music over the past fifty years. Whether honoring the originators of rock and roll, celebrating established artists, or spreading the word about newer ones, the book is pure enjoyment, a pleasure that takes its cues from the sounds it chronicles. A critical compendium of points of interest in American popular music and its far-flung diaspora, this book ranges from the 1950s singer-songwriter tradition through hip-hop, alternative, and beyond. With unfailing style and grace, Christgau negotiates the straits of great music and thorny politics, as in the cases of Public Enemy, blackface artist Emmett Miller, KRS-One, the Beastie Boys, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. He illuminates legends from pop music and the beginnings of rock and roll—George Gershwin, Nat King Cole, B. B. King, Chuck Berry, and Elvis Presley—and looks at the subtle transition to just plain “rock” in the music of Janis Joplin, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and others. He praises the endless vitality of Al Green, George Clinton, and Neil Young. And from the Rolling Stones to Sonic Youth to Nirvana, from Bette Midler to Michael Jackson to DJ Shadow, he shows how money calls the tune in careers that aren’t necessarily compromised by their intercourse with commerce. Rock and punk and hip-hop, pop and world beat: this is the music of the second half of the twentieth century, skillfully framed in the work of a writer whose reach, insight, and perfect pitch make him one of the major cultural critics of our time.