Photo: Montfort/Camera Press/Retna

Born October 18th, 1926 Key Tracks "Johnny B. Goode," "Promised Land" "No Particular Place to Go" Influenced The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen

"You're great, you sing country and rock & roll," Jerry Lee Lewis' mother once told him. "But Chuck is the king." Chuck Berry approached the great rock & roll divide from the opposite side of Elvis Presley, synthesizing the singing styles of blues and country musicians. "When I played hillbilly songs, I stressed my diction so that it was harder and whiter," said Berry. The result was that every rock singer of the Sixties — from Liverpool, London, L.A. or Long Island — sang with a mid-American accent, trying to sound like St. Louis' own Chuck Berry. His mischievous, lilting voice, slaloming through his tricky banks of syllables, erased the distinction between white and black and made it simply rock. "If you tried to give rock & roll another name," said John Lennon, "you might call it 'Chuck Berry.' "

1. Johnny B. Goode
2. Promised Land
3. No Particular Place to Go
4. Brown Eyed Handsome Man
5. Around and Around
6. Maybellene
7. Memphis, Tennessee
8. Back in the U.S.A.
9. Sweet Little Sixteen
10. You Can't Catch Me

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