The Chuck Berry Collectors Blog

I have completed the links to the amazon MP3 offers.
This means you can now listen to excerpts of

• all Chuck Berry recordings from Chess records between 1955 and 1966
• more than half of the Mercury recordings
• some of the later Chess tracks
• the 60th birthday concert
• the Atco recordings
• and various live recordings from Toronto, Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, Coventry, Wembley and Peterborough

99% of the 334 MP3 clips are offered by amazon U.S.A., a few are only available from amazon UK or amazon Germany. In those cases I added links to the corresponding files on these sites.
I think I have found all the Chuck Berry tracks offered by amazon. This turned out to be much more complicated than what you would expect. Here are some of the problems I ran into checking out the almost 1.000 MP3 clips listed by amazon's search function:

• amazon (or the suppliers) digitize albums, not songs. Therefore one and the same recording such as the Chess version of Maybellene is listed 12 times from various albums. And don't be confused that running times may vary several seconds.
• Especially the live versions such as from Toronto vary in length a lot, but we know this from the CDs already.
• Sometimes the same recording is listed under various titles.
• There's a huge mix of incorrect spellings both with song titles and artist names.
• Almost none of the live version contains any kind of information about recording date or place.

Due to this there may be errors. If you find one, let me know! Within a week there have been more than 1.000 accesses to the MP3 pages. Even though most of this were by search engines, it looks as if you find this addition to my site helpful. Tell me if I can make something even better. And no - there is no way to play the complete songs without paying for it.

This is a site about music. But it has been a site without music - until now.
In contrast to other music sites I had not included any sound clips or complete songs within this site. There was a good reason: If you use music for any commercial or non-commercial purpose, you have to pay the musician and the composer. Since I do not earn any money from this site, I cannot afford to license music for inclusion here. I know that other webmasters think and act differently and simply use music they cut from records or copied from somewhere. However, such is not only unlawful, in my opinion it is highly unfair against the creator of the music. How can you expect someone to create music if nobody is willing to pay them for it? It is really poor if like some weeks ago someone (himself a musician) asks me questions about some Berry tracks because he had a downloaded copy of a CD only - and not the commercial one with a great booklet answering his questions. Sigh!
OK, back to music. I recently found a legal way to provide you with excerpts from almost each and every Chuck Berry recording. Yes!
I started with Berry's original Chess era and added sound to every recording listed therein. That means you can now check out each and every recording Berry made between 1955 and 1966, including alternate takes and more. Isn't that great?
So if you see me mentioning as song such as

Maybellene

simply click on the loudspeaker symbol behind the song name. Try it!
Your browser will open a new tab or window where you should see one or in this case multiple Amazon MP3 Widgets. If it does not, this is because the widget needs both JavaScript enabled and a recent Adobe Flash Player installed. I'm sorry for that as this site nowhere else requires additional software other than a W3C-compatible Webbrowser (which I am proud of), but I decided that in this case the benefits overweight.
In the case of Maybellene there will be one widget for the original Chess version, one for the Mercury re-recording and several widgets for different live versions. If there are alternate takes, those will be displayed as well. Click on a widget to listen to this specific version. The widget displays controls for volume, pause and more.
This service is provided free by amazon.com. But of course you will not be able to listen to the complete track. There is a thirty seconds excerpt of each variant. That is all that is provided for free. If you are located in the U.S.A., you can use the widget's Buy MP3 button to purchase a DRM-free MP3 file of the complete track. Unfortunately amazon.com does not sell these MP3s to other countries and to make matters worse, other amazon stores do not stock all of the songs you find at amazon.com. That's a pity, but I cannot change it. Maybe I will add links to non-U.S. shops in the future like I did with the CD offers, but that's many days of work.
Please enjoy the new addition to this site and let me know what you think of it.

Angie, webmistress of fumbleontheweb.com, was so kind to tell us about a nice concert report written by Des Henly of the Fumbles:

Just some information plus a question: I am (besides being a great fan of Chuck Berry's music) a friend of the 1970s band Fumble who had many of Chuck's songs in their repertoire and also recorded some Chuck Berry songs like 'No Money Down' or 'Let It Rock'. In their new blog 'Des Henly's Rock Years', Des Henly talks about Fumble's experiences when they backed Chuck Berry at a festival in Frankfurt in June 1973. Great story, and perhaps you find it interesting to read.

Yes, Angie, I found it interesting to read. So will the other readers of this site. Look here: http://www.fumbleontheweb.com/archive/memories/blog_chuckberry.htm
Angie's question is:

Do you know if there is any video material of that event existing? Because I have heard rumours that there is...

I have not seen any video material from the Radstadion Frankfurt concert of July 22nd, 1973. I know there is an audience tape of this Chuck Berry performance in front of 20.000 people. Also there are various photos from this event used both in magazines (e.g. Posterpress) and on record covers. Here's a cut-out from Bellaphon BL15107 "Original Oldies Vol. 3" from 1974 (Click it for a larger version). If any reader knows more about this concert, let us know.

Update [2010-03-01]: According to several other photos of this Berry performance it seems to be sure that the photos used on the Bellaphon cover have been taken by famous German photographer Barbara Klemm.

In December 2008 the long-awaited film about Chess Records premiered in the U.S.
Just four months later the movie Cadillac Records was released on DVD. While the movie itself did not make it to this part of the world yet (the announced starting day for Germany is April 23rd), at least it is possible to watch it on DVD here - kind of ...
So I went to amazon and ordered the DVD when it became available two weeks ago. Click here for the corresponding amazon pages.
Of course the DVD did not play in my DVD player as the DVD is region coded fot the U.S. and Canada. I really, really do not understand what line of reasoning is behind limiting audience and market of a DVD and movie, but Sony will know.
To watch the U.S. DVD you need to have a region-free DVD player. I use a computer for such.
As you will have read otherwise, Cadillac Records tells the story of the Chess record label in Chicago. Of course, a movie has to concentrate on excerpts from a 15 year story. So the producers took some liberties in removing characters and in highlighting others. The main characters in the movie are Leonard Chess, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry, and Etta James. Bo Diddley is not noted at all, and even Phil Chess is never mentioned by name, if I watched carefully. The DVD has a deleted scene in which Phil at least is introduced.
If you are not familiar with the Chess story, chances are low you will want to watch the movie. But if you are interested in Chuck Berry's music, the Chess story is an important part thereof. So I recommend you have a look on the movie. But I recommend much more that you read the books on Chess Records, especially the one by Nadine Cohodas Spinning Blues into Gold.
Unfortunately the writers of the movie did not use Cohodas' book but went more for Rich Cohen's Machers and Rockers. As I write in this site's chapter on Berry-related books, Cohen's book concentrates on the two characters of Leonard Chess and Muddy Waters and is full of errors and omissions. And likewise Cadillac Records concentrates on the characters of Leonard Chess and Muddy Waters and is full of errors and omissions. Sigh!
What interests us the most is Chuck Berry's role in the movie. Berry is played by Mos Def, or Dante Terrell Smith, musician and actor. I have never thought of Mos Def as a Rock'n'Roller, so his performance as Berry is surprising - and surprisingly good! There are three or four acting scenes and a number of on-stage performances mainly to show that Chess and Berry took down the barriers between C&W and Blues, between Black and White.
Mos Def plays Berry as a musician and comedian, which may come close to the truth in the 1950s. There's a funny scene where Berry and Chess visit Alan Freed, and there's a scene in which Berry is refused to perform because the promoter thinks of Berry as a white Country artist. This story is also told by Berry himself in his Autobiography, so it may have happened. But if it did, it definitely happened after Berry got national attention with his first Chess hits. In the movie this scene takes place before Berry joins Chess. One of many factual errors. The errors continue in the selection of Berry titles in the movie.
The writers have known that Maybellene was Berry's first Chess hit. So Mos Def plays it, and quite good. But all the other songs Mos Def performs before Berry's first imprisonment are completely wrong: No Particular Place to Go, Promised Land, and Nadine (of which only the intro is heard) have all been recorded five to ten years later than when they appear in the film. That's poor.
It's interesting to note that the Deluxe version of the soundtrack album (see here) also contains Mos Def's cover of Come On which did not make it into the movie. You can use the amazon MP3 widget below to hear excerpts of Mos Def's cover versions.
If you buy the DVD, don't forget to watch the extra features. I found the film about costumes and design most interesting. All the sets are very well made to show the 1950s, so that's reason enough to watch the movie - and to see Mos Def play Chuck Berry.

    

I haven't had time to report here on Chuck Berry-related eBay offers, so you may have missed some true bargains sold lately.
Probably the most interesting item which went for a much too low price was

• CHESS EP 5119 Rock And Roll Music with picture sleeve which sold for - hold your breath - less than $8!!!

OK, you may have missed it because this offer wasn't visible on eBay US. But what about last week's sale of

• CHESS EP 5118 and CHESS EP 5121 which sold for $16? Together! Though without sleeves.
• or the very rare NBC Radio Special from 1980, which contains Berry interviews never published anywhere else? It was offered for $20 and did not find a buyer!

They often sell very interesting items on eBay at low prices, simply because only very few are interested in them. But the contrary is happening on eBay as well. This one is rare, but I had not expected such a high price:

• the Japanese CD version of Concerto in B. Goode sold for $66!

Compare this to the best Chuck Berry CD set ever, which you could have got for less:

• the mega-rare and Must-Have Charly CD set Poet of Rock'n'Roll went for as low as $56!

You don't want to miss such, do you? Due to this I compiled a list of items currently on sale at eBay. You can click on the items to go directly to the corresponding eBay page. In case you bid: Good Luck!

Some true rarities:

• the bootleg variant of CHESS 1700, that is the one having County Line on the flip side, is on sale for multiple weeks and obviously not found.
• judging from the item photo, this copy of Berry's very first 78rpm record is simply beautiful!
• this Funckler EP is very seldom seen. But at $100 asking price, Brandnew Berry Blockbusters is not really a bargain.
• the asking price for this may be high, but Beautiful Delilah on London is not seen very often
• here's the rare cassette version of Bio with its unique cover, and still sealed.
• don't trust them when they shout MEGA-RARE - but this here is it! The Japanese-only, promotional-only single containing two songs from the Tokyo Sessions album. $100 is cheap for this!

Some more promotional records:

• Chess 1709 - the record the company could not spell.
• Chess 1683 Sweet Little Sixteen - cheap but damaged
• a PR copy of the Bio album
• From St. Louie to Frisco to Memphis, a Mercury promo
• this Chess sampler is from 1970 and contains Tulane

Some beautiful picture sleeves (PS):

• You don't want to pay $50 for My Ding-A-Ling? But look at this cover!
• again My Ding-A-Ling, cheaper and with its Dutch PS
• and while we're at it, here's the German PS which can be found often
• the picture sleeve for Club Nitty Gritty is much harder to find
• the French Chess series has nice concert photos, here's Nadine
• and you will really like this Italian PS!

Some more picture sleeves, from the Dutch Funckler series:

• the prettiest Roll Over Beethoven, but beware of the sticker
• here's Fraulein, available only in Europe
• Song series #10: No Particular Place to Go
• this is Let It Rock
• finally Little Marie on Dutch Chess

Some foreign country albums:

• an Argentina-only album
• this French-only 6-LP set was sold in supermarkets for little money. Today it's hard to find.
• here's a Japanese-only LP
• again Japan-only, this Rolling Stones LP is very Berry-related
• the Japanese version of on CHESS/Victor
• or the same album on red vinyl on Oriental

Some collectibles:

• a concert programme on Berry's first performance in France on Feb. 7th, 1965
• Chuck Berry is King - well, at least on this French playing card
• another, less interesting board game card
• here's the famous RCF amplifier Chuck B.

Some autographed guitars (which I do not count as bargains):

• here's one for as little as $1500
• this Stratocaster goes for $1800
• and this Gibson costs only $2700