The singer that made Chuck Berry want to leave rock and roll: “I’d have been ecstatic”
Anyone who has ever tried to play rock and roller properly is always going to be following in the footsteps of Chuck Berry.
While he may not have seen as any residuals for his work as legends like The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, everyone from the British invasion would have happily admitted that they learned practically every note they played by listening to what Berry did. But while a lot of people learned ‘Johnny B Goode’ secondhand either Keith Richards, George Harrison, or Marty McFly, Berry would have gladly stopped his pioneering career if it meant jamming with the right person.
Then again, it’s hard to imagine Berry fitting anywhere else other than rock and roll. A lot of what he did may have come from playing the blues, but not even the greatest guitarists of his generation could put as much energy into what they did. He wanted to make sure that he left all of that energy out onstage whenever he played, and that signature duckwalk made some of his most impressive licks look like the easiest thing in the world.
But Berry was far from a one-trick pony whenever he performed. There were bound to be a few signature licks that he always went back to, but the vocabulary that he was pulling from didn’t always have to be the same pentatonic box. He knew his fair share of chords from jazz as well, and while they didn’t always show themselves on his massive hits, he could definitely hold his own when sitting next to the greatest guitarists of his generation.
Because while the blues may have been able to get someone a decent gig, no one could go wrong with throwing some easy listening into the mix as well. The next generation definitely took what Berry started and ran with it, but his personal taste in music always gravitated towards the era of Big Band music long before rock and roll started. And while Frank Sinatra may have been the single coolest singer in pop at the time, Berry was transfixed by listening to Nat King Cole for the first time.
There’s no right or wrong way to sing in popular music, but Cole is the ultimate example of what vocal perfection sounds like. ‘Unforgettable’ is still one of the finest vocal performances of all time, and when listening to him singing other standards like ‘Nature Boy’, there’s hardly anyone who could have brought the same sense of emotional gravitas to every single line he sang.
And while it would be considered sacrilege by many people, Berry said that he would have gladly walked away from his status as a rock pioneer if it meant jamming with Cole a few times, saying, “The Big Band Era is my era. People say, where did you get your style from. I did the Big Band Era on guitar. That’s the best way I could explain it. Rock had more passion to (kids in the ‘50s) because (they) were in school. I was in school when the big bands (were popular), so it had passion for me. I’d have been ecstatic [singing like Nat King Cole]. I never would have touched rock ‘n’ roll. I’m sorry.”
Granted, is anyone really blaming Berry here? This was the soundtrack to his youth, and in the same way that Lennon and McCartney would have gladly played rock and roll for the rest of their lives, so too would Berry have tried his hand at donning a suit and making the kind of tunes that made people’s hearts flutter every single time they heard their tunes on the radio. It did have the same edge rock did, but half the reason why Berry is still being talked about is because of what he brought to the genre.
No band is going to be able to walk in the exact footsteps of their heroes, but every original move they make is usually another step forward for them. It might not have been what they intended, but sometimes shooting for your inspirations and missing makes for the greatest tunes in the rock canon.
