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Since terminating his work with Chess/GRT Records, Chuck Berry only twice went back to a studio to record new songs: In 1979 he cut a whole new album for Atlantic/ATCO Records called Rockit, and in 1994 he accompanied Shabba Ranks performing one song on his A Mi Shabba album for Epic/Sony. There have been additional Chuck Berry records since 1976, but all were recordings made during one of his many live shows. These live records differ a lot in quality and contents. Some have been official releases by large record companies, others come from more or less doubtful sources. Since everyone is able to burn their own CDs now, you also see more and more private recordings showing up as CDs. I did not include these private recordings here. This chapter presents you with Chuck Berry's recordings between 1976 and 1986 which have been available on commercially manufactured records and CDs.
Chuck Berry's Rock 'n' Roll
Party with The Flying Saucers (Driving Wheel C 7788 
) was recorded live in Hamburg/Germany in 1977.
The record contains the following songs: Roll Over Beethoven,
School Days, Sweet Little Sixteen, Let it Rock, Maybellene,
Memphis, The Promised Land, Nadine, Too Much Monkey Business, No
Money Down, Little Queenie, Around and Around, You Never Can
Tell, Reelin' and Rockin' plus a song called the Hamburg
Berry Blues.
During
the same European Tour another recording was made in Holland. In
this show Chuck was backed by Matchbox. The CD Chuck Berry
meets Matchbox (Promised Land Records HRT 93003 ) features the following songs: Liverpool
Drive, Carol, Little Queenie, School Day, Sweet Little Sixteen,
Memphis, Let it Rock, Everyday I Have the Blues, Wee Wee Hours,
Bio, Promised Land, You Never Can Tell, My Ding-A-Ling, Johnny B.
Goode, and Reelin' and Rockin'/House Lights.
In
1978 Chuck had a guest appearance in the movies again. Part of American
Hot Wax was a live show similar to the original 1950s
performances at the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn. In the film
Alan Freed (Tim McIntire) presents Chuck Berry on stage
performing two songs: Reelin' and Rockin' and Roll
Over Beethoven. Both songs were recorded with a full Big
Band accompaniment and can be found on the soundtrack album American
Hot Wax (A&M Records AMLM 66500 ).
1979 saw a new
recording contract for Chuck Berry. His work with ATCO Records
resulted in a 45 rpm single California
b/w Oh What a Thrill (ATCO 7203) and a new album called Rockit
(ATCO SD 38-118). The album contains the two songs plus Move It, I Need You Baby, If I Were, House Lights, I Never Thought, and
Wuden't Me. In addition there is a new recording of his
classic Havana Moon and a spoken poem called Pass Away. Even though these new studio recordings once again
showed Chuck's genius and also the album cover was next to
perfect, the record suffered from Chuck's next imprisonment. Due
to this there were no other ATCO recordings. Rockit has
been re-released on CD by Magnum Force (CDMF 065 ) and WEA.
The
next live show recorded for release took place in 1981 in Tokyo,
Japan. The album Chuck Berry Tokyo Session was released
only in Japan (EMI / East World WTP-90072 , left image). It contains live
versions of the songs School Day, Roll Over Beethoven, Wee
Wee Hours, My Ding-A-Ling, Memphis, Sweet Little Sixteen, Rock
and Roll Music, Carol/Little Queenie, Bio, and Johnny B.
Goode.
This last song as well as Roll Over Beethoven can also be heard on a 45rpm single (East World PRT-1076, right image) only issued as a promotional sample for the album.
A
year later another show in Japan was recorded. Only two of the
songs were released on a sampler called The Day of R&B
(first published as LONDON L28N-1005, Oct. 1982, later
re-published as East World WTP-72403, April 1985): Bio and
Johnny B. Goode. Other artists featured in the recorded
performance were Sam Moore and his Sam&Dave Revue as well as
the famous Japanese R&B band RC Succession. [Editor's note:
There has been a very interesting Web site, in Japanese, containing a complete story about this album at http://www4.justnet.ne.jp/~youpin/day.html. Unfortunately the site is currently off-line and can only be read without images at waybackmachine.org. Please let me know where it went.] In 2005 this album was re-released on CD as Toshiba-EMI TOCT-11089 .
Also
in 1982 someone recorded a live show at the Ritz, New York. This
show appeared on the 2-LP set Let It Rock! (Vinyl Gang).
The interesting topic of this bootleg is the guest performer on
guitar: the guitarist is announced by Chuck Berry as "Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones". Also the album cover states so. However, within the Stones collectors community it is for sure that the guitarist was not Keith Richards, but Ron Wood! It's said that Chuck just confused the two. Three sides of the
album contain the complete show: Roll Over Beethoven, Sweet
Little Sixteen, School Day, Liverpool Drive, Memphis, Let it
Rock, Baby What You Want Me to Do, Mean Old World, Carol, Little
Queenie, Johnny B. Goode, Everyday I Have the Blues, Reelin' and
Rockin' and House Lights. The fourth side contains
live recordings of The Rolling Stones performing Chuck Berry
numbers. Johnny B. Goode and Everyday I Have the Blues are said to be also on a Keith Richards bootleg CD called Bloody Red Rooster, though I haven't seen one yet.
Finally in
1982 a Chuck Berry concert at the Roxy Theater in Los Angeles was
taped for TV broadcast. For many years this excellent show was
available only on video tape (Chuck Berry: Live at the Roxy ). However in 1999/2000 collectors
found that some songs from this show started to appear on budget
CDs as well. None of these CDs (like Chuck Berry,
Newsound PYCD 260 or Forever Classic, Mastertone 0301 ) however told about the origin of the
songs. They were simply included along with live versions from
the Toronto concert, or the BBC concert. In 2000 finally the
whole show was released on a CD just called Live
(Columbia River Entertainments VMK-1154 ). Interesting is Rock And Roll Music, which features Tina Turner on vocals. The remaining
songs are Roll Over Beethoven, School Day, Sweet Little Sixteen, Nadine, Let it Rock, Promised Land, Memphis, Johnny B. Goode, Brown Eyed Handsome Man, Too Much Monkey Business, Carol / Little Queenie, Reelin' and Rockin', and House Lights.
Chuck
Berry Live On Stage (Magnum Force CDMF 092, also by Columbia River Entertainment ) was recorded in 1983 in
Peterborough, England. This high quality CD contains live
versions of School Day, Sweet Little Sixteen, Roll Over Beethoven, Everyday I Have the Blues, Bio, Maybellene/Mountain Dew, Let it Rock, Carol/Little Queenie, Keys to the Highway, Got My Mojo Working, Reelin' and Rockin', and Johnny B. Goode.
In 1985 a concert at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, celebrated the 30th anniversary of Rock'n'Roll - well, at least the 30th anniversary of Bo Diddley's and Chuck Berry's first hits. Recorded for TV broadcast, the concert was shown on HBO in late 1985. In 1989 parts of the concert were published on video tape, less the Berry tracks, though. Since 1999 the show is available on DVD and since 2008 on an audio CD called Rock ´N´ Roll All Star Jam (Pepper Cake 2042-2, November 2008) . Berry "performs" My Ding-A-Ling, Bio (incorrectly titled Destination), and Rock And Roll Music, though on the last song Berry does not sing his own lyrics and refuses to touch his guitar.
In the mid 1980s, MCA Records bought the Chess archives and re-released many old records as well as some previously unreleased ones (see The Chess Era). They did not manage to get Chuck back into a recording studio, but at least in 1986 they celebrated Chuck Berry's 60th birthday by filming and recording a live show held in St. Louis, Missouri. This show is the topic of the next chapter.
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Last modified: 17.03.2011