JOHHNY B. POLLED: chuck berry's great twenty-eight

yeah I was hating on "Havana Moon" upthread because when I put on this record like during a workout (TMI I know) this song is a serious energy level dropper. But otherwise it's just good goofy fun.

hey man, why don't you cut out your tiresome and disingenuous irl/personal shit on like half the threads i post substantively on and go get me some legislative history because that's what you're "for," lol (see what being a dick looks like?)

havana moon is a good song but not much of a 'chuck berry song'

go get me some legislative history

need a client matter # as well as a public law number first, thx.

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20070819/voyagerrecord540_270x270.jpg

"Send more Chuck Berry"

Hahaha, thought that was a gold record at first! Had to right-click to properly identify it.

Another good thing about "Havana Moon": it inspired Richard Berry to write "Louie Louie".

aliens otm

unless you are the most obtuse dude on the planet

QED

no offense gabs I just couldn't resist

It also brings up the important and perhaps hithertoo never asked question:

Is Chuck Berry twee?

Memphis, possibly?

That is the one I voted for btw.

my density has brought me to you, j0hn

I always thought he said "Marlowe's Venus," as in Philip or Christopher.

Of which song there's a great version of on the Million Dollar Quartet record, where they sing a verse, stop for a second, remember another one and start right back up again.

"She fought and won herself"

Que OTM on "Beautiful Delilah." One of my fave intros in the history of music.

And even more xpost, "I Wanna Be Your Driver" was cut in 1965 Liverpool.

Or London, right?

I voted for Sweet Little Sixteen, sums up that whole rock-and-roll-it's-the-brand-new-craze thing. And that piano trill on "oh mommy mommmy, I beg of you" slays me.

It occurred to me listening to it last night that the thing that makes "Memphis" so great is that he doesn't try to make the twist really play like a twist. Compare to the similar ending of "Save All Your Kisses For Me" by Brotherhood of Man, where it's all winking and grinning... Chuck understands that the story is more sad, not less for the fact that Marie is only six years old - she probably really misses this guy and doesn't understand why he can't come home. Actually, we can be pretty sure that's the case - we know she's trying to get in touch with Chuck, 'cause his uncle (what a great detail) took her message.

Also love how he begins as professionally as he can on the phone with the operator ("Help me find the party that tried to get in touch with me") but gradually reveals the still-raw emotions of the situation ("We were pulled apart because her mom did not agree / tore apart our happy home in Memphis, Tennessee.").

finally bought The Definitive Collection yesterday (these + a few more) and listened to it twice - much as I love all the rest, it's still CAMPAIGN SHOUTIN' LIKE A SOUTHERN DIPLOMAT

Are there any good covers of "Nadine"?

I always assumed the line about the 'Southern Diplomat' was a way of avoiding saying 'Southern Democrat' = just like 'country boy' as opposed to 'colored boy'- amirite? or is there a better explanation? because why would the south need diplomats? and why would diplomats shout?

I always loved the Southern Diplomat, but in the last couple years I've totally come around to the same reading as you, sonofstan - it's VERY easy to make it be Southern Demmycrat, and it works a lot better. Not sure why he would have bothered with the substitution - even in the 50s, surely it would have been pretty innocuous to associate southern politicians with "campaign shoutin'"?

it just reads like a more evocative version of politician to me (that fits in with the meter/rhyme/whatever it's called, I don't know poetry or lyrics from my ass)

Or he deliberately messes up the expression to sound more like the usual CB protagonist - regular, hard working, put upon guy - would sound in the heat of the chase? stumbling over big words, mangling cliches?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Memphis" is a fantastic song, even though his recording of it isn't terribly spectacular. So, not that one...

-- Myonga Vön Bontee, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 14:37 (2 days ago) Link

Explain, please. I love the recording -- slow, soft, steady blues, no Johnny B. guitar solos necessary. Also, Doctor Casino OTM.

"Memphis" inspired a lot of really great covers, and a lot of them are completely different, but they're all inspired by that odd feeling that only THAT SONG gives you. It's the mode of the tune, I think, what is it? Chuck's version has an odd sort of rhythm, and a straighter beat fits best, I think.

Buck Owens' version is the classic pop version, IMO. Like Chuck's, but more rhythmic drive, and the harmonies really make it. The Faces' sloppy, fun rock'n'roll version is nice. Hasil Adkins wtf, can't beat that for what it is. Sandy Bull's version, though, is a really grand achievement. Turns it into something new, otherworldly, amazing. Uses the strange mode as a platform for junked out, droning guitar hero bliss, both rock+roll and fringe experi-mentalism. But there's like 1000000000 versions, and I've never heard a bad one.

sandy bull's "memphis" really is great. a little commentary (from here):

"Memphis was influenced by Lonnie Mack's version of the song, and the jazz records I was listening to, particularly Bag's Groove," Bull explains. "I'd been messing around with a little tape recorder in the summer of '64, playing electric bass. I was listening to a lot of Chuck Berry and the Supremes, and I couldn't find any rhythm guitars players who were steady enough for my liking. So I put my own rhythm guitar on tape and played to that. Memphis was one of the tunes I liked for that; it was really meditative, and had interesting changes, almost blues but not quite. I was already into the oud by then, and Indian-style music on the guitar, along with standard guitar licks. It just all fell together."

But there's like 1000000000 versions, and I've never heard a bad one.

Um - if you ask me, Johnny Rivers's #2 hit version is absolutely atrocious - totally stripped of any pathos, mood, or personality save jovial honky exclamation.

Like, the guy sings it like he's warming up for "Secret Agent Man."

Doubling back to "Almost Grown" - Chuck's best solo maybe? It just shimmers.

The great thing about this poll/album/career is that any time I try to do a more thorough rundown of songs I'm not that crazy about, I remember some part of them that's just unstoppably good. Like, "Sweet Little Sixteen" I could take or leave...but then I remember the way the drums come thundering back into the chorus after the "...and back in class again" bit.

Wait, now I think the shimmering solo might be on "Sweet Little Rock n Roller" - gotta check when I get home.

I forgot about the Lonnie Mack version! Sandy Bull's comment "almost blues but not quite" is almost too vague to say anything but it's actually perfectly descriptive.

I have not heard Johnny Rivers sing it and hope I won't.

It was inescapable in my youth listening to "Fox 97," at the time a 60s pop-rock oldies station - consider yourself lucky.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I don't like Chuck Berry because he bastardized the blues.

Just kidding. I would've gone for the disquieting "Let It Rock" if the metaphor didn't overwhelm the narrative, e.g. why on earth did they build a teepee right on the tracks? So I chose "Roll Over Beethoven" because you can really hear rock & roll animate the world. Or rather, one very vocal portion thereof.

'cause his uncle (what a great detail) took her message

Gawd yes! How redolent. With just one word, he gives the song a vivid socioeconomic setting.

I saw Chuck Berry play last month. He did a short version of Memphis, lasting only a minute or so.

Blonde hair, good lookin'
tryin' to get me hooked
want me to marry get a home settle down
- write a BOOK!

Beautiful Delilah
bathin' in the suuun
Audience of seventeen
and noticed not a one
Lo!cal Casanova
who wouldn't be outdonne
Let her steal his heart away
and break it just for fun!

Seriously, like 3/4 of these songs, after you get done listening to them, you go "Shit, I should've voted for THAT!"

none for Around and Around.... shame

I love the way he spits out "Twelve o CLOCK!" in the verse about the police busting in. Great drumming on that one, too.

none for Around and Around.... shame

yep and!

15. Carol 0
19. Little Queenie 0
22. Let It Rock 0

:(

"Memphis" is a fantastic song, even though his recording of it isn't terribly spectacular. So, not that one...

-- Myonga Vön Bontee, Tuesday, 5 August 2008 14:37 (2 days ago) Link

Explain, please. I love the recording -- slow, soft, steady blues, no Johnny B. guitar solos necessary. Also, Doctor Casino OTM.

― Jake Brown, Wednesday, August 6, 2008 8:17 PM

I've reevaluated, and you're right, I take it back! It was the cardboard-box drums that made the thing sound like a demo (plus a lingering fondness for Jan & Dean's cover, first version of the song I'd known). I've since come to love those drums for their own ramshackle sake.

(Is there a statute of limitations wrt replying to years-old direct questions that you completely missed first time around?)

No! This is the great thing about ILX.

Her home is on the south side,
High up on a ridge
Just a half a mile from the Mississippi Bridge....

Songs where it's fun to say HOOS in place of the actual lyrics

chuck playing 'johnny b. goode' on the mike douglas show with john and (on tambourine?) yoko. it's adorable how thrilled john looks to be there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYTqzcc-WNk&feature=related

awwwwwwwwwwwwwww that is pretty great for exactly that reason. Makes me think of that thing of how - and maybe this is just me misremembering Hail! Hail! Rock n Roll, but wasn't Chuck's cost-cutting touring practice, for ages and ages, to just pull into town and scoop up whatever local musicians were available, on the grounds that any musician with a pulse could play his entire catalogue by heart? There must be thousands of people out there who made an okay living playing whatever gigs and teaching guitar lessons and tending bar on the side, and whatever else happened in their life they can still tell the story that they backed up Chuck Berry once. Hard to imagine Lennon not thinking of it as a life highlight.

god damn though - dude STILL plays one show a month at that club in st. louis. Thirty-five dollars a head. Any ilxors ever gone? I'm starting to feel like I should coordinate some kind of big cross-country road trip soon just to say I saw the guy once.

holy shit I didn't know he gigged regularly like that in STL. I live pretty close by American standards, maybe I'll arrange a trip to see him. still shocks me that he's alive & all those other rockers afterward are long dead; same with Little Richard. like these giants are still in our midst & we care about such trivialities by comparison.

It's like when I was last in NY, I walked past a gig board that had "Les Paul, Live" and I was like "Wow, he still goin?", and yeah about 3 months later he died.

Not that long ago, I saw a LPaul live gig on SkyArts, a celeb guest version of what I would have seen, doubtless, and I enjoyed it but the kids would have, um, been refused entry actually. But yeah. or something.