CHuck Berry
This song was a hit in the 1950s but reached the next generation when Michael J Fox, as Marty McFly, played it at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance in Back to the Future. Click HERE to see the clip!
Then in 2016, Michael, along with Coldplay, introduced it to a whole new audience. Click HERE! |
Pareles, Jon. "Chuck Berry, Rock ’N’ Roll Pioneer, Dies At 90". Nytimes.com. 18 Mar. 2017. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
(edited by Mrs. G) Chuck Berry, who with his indelible guitar licks, brash self-confidence and memorable songs about cars, girls and wild dance parties did as much as anyone to define rock ’n’ roll’s potential and attitude in its early years, died on Saturday at his home near Wentzville, Mo. He was 90. While Elvis Presley was rock’s first pop star and teenage heartthrob, Mr. Berry was its master theorist and conceptual genius. With songs like “Johnny B. Goode” and “Roll Over Beethoven,” the songwriter who understood what the kids wanted before they knew it themselves. Inspired by T-Bone Walker, Mr. Berry picked up a technique of bending two strings at once that he would rough up and make his own, now called the Chuck Berry lick, which would in turn be emulated by the Rolling Stones and countless others. He also recognized the popularity of country music and added some hillbilly twang to his guitar lines. Just like Elivis, Mr. Berry’s hybrid music, along with his charisma and showmanship, drew white as well as black listeners; a major step in the civil rights movement. Teenagers didn't care; they heard a rocker who was ready to take on the world. In the early 1960s, Mr. Berry’s songs inspired both California rock and the British Invasion. The Beach Boys reworked his “Sweet Little Sixteen” into “Surfin’ U.S.A.” The Rolling Stones released a string of Berry songs, including their first single, “Come On,” and the Beatles remade “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Rock and Roll Music.” By the 1980s, Mr. Berry was recognized as a rock pioneer. The Recording Academy gave him a lifetime achievement award in 1984. He was in the first group of musicians inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. And Mr. Berry’s music has remained on tour extra-terrestrially. “Johnny B. Goode” is on golden records within the Voyager I and II spacecraft, launched in 1977 and awaiting discovery. |
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Click HERE to watch Mr. Berry rock out his dance move creation, the DUCK WALK!
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