The greatest rock guitarist of all time, according to Bruce Springsteen
Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, there were few radio stations that didn’t have the gravelly tone and heartland lyrics of Bruce Springsteen blaring out through the airwaves.
Not only was he a global behemoth, but the songwriter operated as the everyman of America. His ability to connect universally and personally all at once would set him apart from his rivals. However, it hasn’t always been plain sailing for the star. One of the finest songwriters of his generation, Bruce Springsteen, struggled to find the acclaim he deserved in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
‘The Boss’, as he is affectionately known, has now seen his star rise once again with a series of landmark performances and a Presidential seal of approval. As a society, it appears now that we are ready once more to accept Springsteen as a true rock and roll hero. It’s a shame that the singer struggled so much, especially considering he has always been sure to share his admiration for other performers.
A noted lover of all things music, Springsteen has never been shy about his love for groundbreaking artists such as Bob Dylan or The Beatles. But, arguably, there was one man he loved, even more, an artist who changed the fabric of pop culture as we know it. It was also the artist Springsteen claimed to be the greatest rock and roll guitarist of all time: Chuck Berry.
When speaking to Rolling Stone following Berry’s death, Springsteen lamented the loss and championed the icon: “Chuck Berry was rock’s greatest practitioner, guitarist, and the greatest pure rock ‘n’ roll writer who ever lived. This is a tremendous loss of a giant for the ages.”
Of course, Springsteen isn’t alone in his admiration for Berry. Often referred to as the ‘Grandaddy of Rock and Roll’, the duck-walking genius garnered love and attention from the entire swinging sixties set. John Lennon once famously remarked, “If you had to give rock and roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry.” But it’s quite possible that Springsteen can be regarded as an even bigger fan.
It was a dream come true when Springsteen performed with the legend during the E Street Band’s salad days. “About five minutes before the show was timed to start, the back door opens, and he comes up, and he’s got a guitar case, and that was it,” Springsteen told Rolling Stone of the life-changing experience. “He just pulled up in his own car and didn’t have anybody with him or a band. We said, ‘What songs are we going to do?’ He goes, ‘We’re going to do some Chuck Berry songs.’”
They were once again drafted when, in 1995, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame requested The Boss and the band to join Berry once more, though this time with a less-than-brilliant ending. “Somehow, a minute or two [in], he shifts the song in gears and a key without talking to us,” E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren told Ultimate Classic Rock.
“We are making these horrible sounds,” he continued, “collectively, in front of a stadium, sold out…At the height of it, when no one has any idea how to fix this, Chuck looks at us all and starts duckwalking off the stage, away from us. He leaves the stage, leaves us all out there playing in six different keys with no band leader, gets in the car and drives away. I don’t think we have ever participated in something that godawful musically since we were probably 13 or 14.”
Despite that snafu, it’s clear that Bruce Springsteen adored Chuck Berry. The kind of love that one can only give their formative rock superstar. He has dominated the thoughts of so many of the now-revered icons of the genre that it is a wonder Berry’s importance hasn’t drifted into the new century, with the duck-walking guitarist largely forgotten by the 21st-century audience.
Part of what made Berry so important to Springsteen was the directness of his songwriting. Long before Springsteen was chronicling the dreams and disappointments of working-class America on albums like Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town, Berry had already mastered the art of turning everyday life into mythology. Songs about school, cars and teenage longing suddenly became cinematic in his hands, proving that rock and roll could tell stories just as effectively as any novel or film.
That influence can still be heard throughout Springsteen’s catalogue. The rolling rhythms of the E Street Band, the sense of restless movement in his lyrics and even the way he commands a live audience all trace back to Berry’s blueprint. Springsteen may have refined the formula into something more expansive and emotionally bruised, but the heartbeat of it remained pure Chuck Berry. For one rock icon to speak about another with such reverence says everything about the scale of Berry’s legacy.
Sure, there are better players than Berry. Performers who are more technically gifted or even ooze more style than the duck-walking maestro. But, just as those who kept banging the Bruce Springsteen drum through his more difficult years, for ‘The Boss’, there can be only one man defined as “the greatest”, and that’s Chuck Berry.
