Monday 2 April 2012

Featured Artist: Chuck Berry

Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry
(born October 18, 1926)
Born into a middle class family in St. Louis, Missouri, Berry had an interest in music from an early age and gave his first public performance at Summer High School.
While still a high school student he served a prison sentence for armed robbery between 1944 and 1947. On his release, Berry settled into married life and worked at an automobile assembly plant.
By early 1953, influenced by the guitar riffs and showmanship techniques of blues player T-Bone Walker, he was performing in the evenings with the Johnnie Johnson Trio His break came when he traveled to Chicago in May 1955, and met Muddy Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess of Chess Records. With Chess he recorded "Maybellene"—Berry's adaptation of the country song “Ida Red” —which sold over a million copies, reaching #1 on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues chart.
By the end of the 1950s, Berry was an established star with several hit records and film appearances to his name as well as a lucrative touring career.
Berry was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on its opening in 1986, with the comment that he "laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance." Berry is included in several Rolling Stone "Greatest of All Time" lists, including being ranked fifth on their 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time

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