“The greatest”: the singer Chuck Berry said completely outshined him
When The Beatles changed the world in the 1960s and catapulted a new brand of popular music into the social consciousness, many heralded the band as the outright inventors of modern rock and roll. But in doing so, they forgot the crucial foundations that this revolution was built upon, forged by the greats of 1950s rock and roll.
“If you had to give rock ‘n’ roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry,” John Lennon once said, waxing lyrical about the man who helped inspire the band that went on to define the later stages of said rock ‘n’ roll.
His songwriting companion later backed him up, saying, “To us, he was a magician making music that was exotic, yet normal, at the same time,” McCartney added. “We learnt so many things from him which led us into a dream world of rock and roll music.”
Along with Elvis Presley, Berry helped pass the baton from blues rock’s humble roots to the glittering stages of the late 1950s, with an expansive performance style that introduced the idea of a modern rockstar.
But while The Beatles were able to cut through the social prejudice, and rightly regard Berry as a pioneer of showmanship, let’s not forget that the American musician was operating in 1950s America. Midway through a century that was still experiencing growing pains from a plagued history of slavery and prejudice, its modern socio-political outlook hadn’t progressed anywhere near as fast as it should have, and so discrimination ran rife.
So when a young Presley came on the scene, performing a catalogue of blues rock covers originally written by black musicians and becoming so intensely rich off the back of it, the dark roots of America’s artistic prejudice were once again thrust under the spotlight.
“Black people have been going out, shaking their behinds for centuries,” Ray Charles once declared in 1994, remembering ‘The King’s sharp rise to fame, which left the likes of Berry reeling in the dust. “That’s all Elvis was doing, was copying that.”
Now Berry himself was of a slightly different standpoint, unwilling to label Presley as a plagiarist and instead calling him “the greatest who ever was, is or ever will be”. However, Charles’ wider point was one he wholeheartedly agreed with, having had to fight tooth and nail for experience a modicum of Presley’s exposure, despite writing and owning his own chart-topping material.
“I knew why,” Berry answered when asked about the difference in media exposure between the pair. “Television stations were owned by whites. Besides, I never saw we were rivals.”
Berry had justified frustrations with the wider make-up of the music industry, but never funnelled them through Elvis. In fact, he had an admiration for the artist and his ability to help popularise black music to a global audience, claiming, “He delivered what he obtained beautifully.”
But those, like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and countless others, who know the industry for its inner workings know Berry’s influence on the music industry is subtly on par with Presley’s. He may not have garnered the globetrotting fame of ‘The King’, but he gained something much more important in the long run, artistic credibility.
