2017, Term 1, Week 8: RIP Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan 

This week Chuck Berry died, aged 90.  He is considered to be one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century , and was one of the first rock and roll guitarists.  Many of the world's greatest rock and pop musicians have covered his songs, performed on stage with him, and acknowledged his influence on their own music style.

Chuck Berry and Tina Turner

Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley 

Chuck Berry and Bruce Springsteen

Chuck Berry and Mick Jagger

He was born Charles Edward Anderson Berry on October 18, 1926, in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Both his parents were the grandchildren of slaves. His father was a carpenter and a deacon in his church, and his mother was one of the few black women of her generation to gain a college education. Berry grew up in a middle class black neighbourhood and had never seen a white person until he saw firemen putting out a fire when he was three. He thought they had turned white with fear of the flames.

Berry learnt to play guitar as a teenager and performed first at his high school. He was involved in an attempted armed robbery and spent some time in a reform school, then worked for his father and for General Motors as a janitor. He also studied hairdressing and cosmetology at night school and became a beautician. In the 1950s he joined a band and had his first Top 10 hit with Maybelline, followed by several others, including Sweet Little Sixteen,  Roll Over Beethoven, and Johnny B Goode which is in the top ten rock songs of all time and is considered to be one of the most recognisable rock songs of all time. It was the first hit song to be written about rock and roll music, and is loosely auto-biographical. 
                                   
Chuck Berry is also famous for his duck walk. Although other guitarists may have done it before him, he popularised it and is credited as the inventor.  Berry said that he used to do it as a child to entertain his family, and that when he performed it on stage in 1956, the audience loved it so much he included it in his routine from then on.

Johnny B Goode played by Michael J Fox also appears in Back to the Future.  Note that one of the characters rings his cousin Chuck Berry to say he's found the new sound Chuck had been looking for . . . 

Add bar lines to make five bars of four beats in each bar. 

Ukulele: 
Yellow Bird (C,  F, G 7) 
Rock 'n' Roll medley   (C,  F, G7) Rockin' Robin, Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog 
Coconut song (C7)
Banana Boat Song (F, C7)
La Bamba (C, F, G)
You are my sunshine (C, F, G) Fast forward to 35 seconds in.
The Lion sleeps tonight (C, F ,G)
Roll over Beethoven - play along with Chuck Berry in C Major

Advanced 
I'm Yours   Introducing G and A minor.  

"Johnny B. Goode"

Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans,
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood,
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well,
But he could play a guitar just like a ringing a bell.

[Chorus:]
Go Go
Go, Johnny, go, go
Go, Johnny, go, go
Go, Johnny, go, go
Go, Johnny, go, go
Johnny B. Goode

He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack
Or sit beneath the tree by the railroad track.
Oh, the engineers would see him sitting in the shade,
Strumming with the rhythm that the drivers made.
The people passing by, they would stop and say,
"Oh, my, but that little country boy could play!"

[Chorus]

His mother told him, "Someday you will be a man,
And you will be the leader of a big old band.
Many people coming from miles around
To hear you play your music when the sun go down.
Maybe someday your name will be in lights
Saying 'Johnny B. Goode tonight'."

[Chorus]