The Chuck Berry Collectors Blog

Monday, January 22. 2024

CBID - The Never Ending Story - pt. 2

CBID is the Chuck Berry International Directory, a 2.200 page pile of Chuck Berry records information published in four volumes between 2008 and 2013. For details see the bibliography section of this site.

CBID is never complete as new records and CDs appear and some old rarities are discovered. This section presents interesting additions and corrections to CBID.

Today: We continue with our list of new cover versions which came to our attention recently. Again a few a digital-only, but worth to be listed here.

BELAIRES (USA)

Blues-rock trio from Columbia, Missouri, formed in 1981. David Pruitt, Dick Pruitt and Michael Cherry.

Nadine ( : ) 1991

CD: Dangerous Curves [Borrowed Records BORO CD-01] ● USA, 1991

I’ve seen a You Tube clip of the band performing this Berry classic, clocking in at (4:19).

MIKE BLOCK (USA)

Singer, songwriter, cellist from Boston, Massachusetts. Grammy-Award winning musician. It’s the first cellist entry we have here in this Berry Cover survey. Hail! Hail!

Johnny B. Goode (2:53) 2018

Digital: Final Night At Camp [Bright Shiny Things BSTD-0125] ● USA, 2018

Recorded al Dimension Sound Studios in Jamaica Plain, MA. Released June 2018. You can listen and watch the performance at Bandcamp. The album above is a deluxe edition with three bonus tracks.

Roll Over Beethoven (5:14) 2019

Digital: Walls Of Time [Self released] ● USA, 2019

Recorded at Dimension Sound Studios, Jamaica Plain, MA. Released November 2019. When a guy plays a cello and records “Roll Over Beethoven” for over 5 minutes, you are guaranteed a place in this survey. Really excellent performance. Listen to this at Bandcamp !!!

CHAR-MAN (USA)

Punk band (quartet) from Ojai, California, formed 2003.

Roll Over Beethoven (2:53) 2005

CD: Char-Man [self released] ● USA, 2005

Released October 2005.

LP: Char-Man [Music Sucks Records MSR-001] ● USA, 2016

STEPHEN R. CHENEY (Australia)

Country and folk singer, guitarist.

Johnny B. Goode (1:56) 2012

CD: Hound Doggin’ [self released CDGSL-30009] ● USA, 2012

20 rock’n’roll covers, several from Elvis. As I have said before, when you record a popular song that’s over 30 seconds shorter than the original, something is missing along the way.

CHRISTOFF (Belgium)

Christoff de Bolle. He’s regarded as a pop/schlager singer. Born 1976 in Ninove. Has released a lot of singles and albums since the early ‘90s.

You Never Can Tell (C’est La Vie) (2:50) 2013 feat. Robby Longo

CD: Christoff & Vrienden 2 [ARS 06 0253 74060 6 7] Belgium, 2013

The first and last verse are sung in Dutch and the rest in English (!)

Tuesday, January 16. 2024

The Chuck Berry Vinyl Bootlegs, Vol. 3: America's Hottest Wax

A note on bootleg records first: A bootleg record is a factory-produced vinyl record released and sold without authorization by the artist or owner of the recording. Bootleg records may contain known recordings, but most often bootleg records either contain studio outtakes or live performances. The first bootleg records were seen at the end of the 1960's. During the 1970's and 1980's lots of different bootleg records were produced. In the early 1990's bootleggers changed to use CDs instead of vinyl records. I do not encourage the production and sale of bootleg records as I find that artists, composers, producers, and the rest of the recording industry deserve a financial compensation of their work.

This series of articles is going to describe the Chuck Berry vinyl bootlegs released in the 1970's and 1980's. For any record collector these items are important to know of, even though you don't necessarily need to have them. Omitted from all the usual discographies, information about these records is next to void. Given the secret nature of the bootlegger business there are no exact dates, numbers, or origins. I have tried to collect this information from various sources and mostly from my own collection of records. If you can add anything of worth to the information given here, I'd be glad to know!

This is the third part of this series and it covers another typical kind of bootleg record: a record containing studio outtakes.

Chuck Berry - America's Hottest Wax - Reelin' 001

[This blog post appeared here first in September 2015. Due to the 2023 release of Daniel Nooger's book "Belly of the Beast - Chess Records, the All Platinum Years" we have to add some details which also answer some of the questions the original text left open.]

Besides live concert recordings, the most interesting bootlegs are those which contain studio material not to be found on legal releases. Typically these are outtakes or versions of songs not good enough to be officially published by the record companies. You may wonder how bootleggers can get access to such unreleased material. There are many ways. Sometimes the artists themselves give tapes out of hand, sometimes the housekeeper finds some tape in a paper bin. In this case we know when, how and by whom the previously unreleased tracks were found and combined. We don't know, though, how they got into the hands of bootleggers.

Anyway, this record contains ten Chuck Berry recordings from the 1950's and early 1960's which had not been released before. There were two additional recordings which had been released before but only with fake audience noise. And there were two recordings released by the vocal group The Ecuadors on which Berry's contribution hadn't been known before.

During the mid to end 1970s Dan Nooger worked for All Platinum Records who had bought the Chess archives in August 1975. Dan's job was to search through the old tapes to find, combine, and release new records under the Chess name. He created some interesting releases containing known and unknown recordings from the Blues and Jazz masters Chess had stored.

All Platinum went bankrupt in 1979. The same owners, Sylvia and Joe Robinson, immediately formed a new label, Sugar Hill Records, taking over the Chess archives until they got in a legal dispute with their distributor MCA and lost the rights to the Chess catalogue during the mid 1980s.

The only Chuck Berry record which came out of All Platinum/Sugar Hill was The Great Twenty-Eight (CH-8201, 1982), which contained just the well-known hits. But Dan Nooger had found unreleased Chuck Berry material within the archived master and session tapes.

In his book, Dan tells:

In the course of preparing some future releases, I went through the master book and session tapes looking for unissued tracks by Chuck. There weren’t too many, but as an example, on the December 1955 session which produced “You Can’t Catch Me”” and “No Money Down” I found on the master reel a slow blues, “I’ve Changed”, which was recorded between them. It lay forgotten, with no master number assigned and never pulled out as a filler for one of Chuck’s albums, but it was one of his finest blues performances. More good alternate takes surfaced from some of the later sessions. Berry’s first take performance of “Reelin’ & Rockin’’’ (with some different lyrics from the final version) which was on an undated session reel just labeled “C.B”, inspired Leonard to call out, “This is good just the way it is!” Chuck, ever cool, just responded, “Oh, yeah?”. There were a brace of tracks which were original versions of sides eventually released on the fake “live” album “Chuck Berry on Stage” (minus the dubbed audience noise), and even a master tape by a group called the Equadors, whose “Let Me Sleep Woman” / “Say You’ll Be Mine” featured Chuck on guitar (and although credited to “R. Butler” on the original Argo single, the songs were published by “Chuck Berry Music”). Another session tape just labeled “C.B. – 21” yielded a whole session rundown of an unissued song originally slated as “Vacation Time”; after 10 or so takes the arrangement was changed from straight up rock to a blues format. I labeled them “21” and “21 Blues”. Eventually I pulled together an album’s worth of material.

This master tape Dan collected is obviously the origin of the bootleg we talk about here. It was prepared for an All Platinum release, though never produced.

Three variants of this bootleg exist. One of these is not a bootleg at all.

The first variant had a blank white cover onto which the record name America's Hottest Wax as well as the label name and number Reelin' 001 were rubberstamped by hand.

The labels are completely blank and have a light pink color. The master number as etched into the dead wax reads CE 70/1.
My copy didn't have any other information with it. Morten Reff was so kind and sent me a copy of a sheet of paper which came with his record.

The sheet contains nothing more than the track listing and a few details about each song.
The tracks on this record are as follows (spelling as on the sheet):
Side 1

ROCK & ROLL MUSIC (unr. demo version)
CHILDHOOD SWEETHEART (unr. alt. take)
21 (Vacation Time) (unr.)
LET ME SLEEP WOMAN (Ecuadors)
DO YOU LOVE ME (unr. alt. take)
21 BLUES (Vacation Time) (unr.)
ONE O'CLOCK JUMP (unr.)

Side 2

REELIN' AND ROCKIN' (unr. demo version)
SWEET LITTLE SIXTEEN (unr. alt. take)
BROWN-EYED HANDSOME MAN (without dubbed audience)
SAY YOU'LL BE MINE (Ecuadors)
I'VE CHANGED (unr.)
13 QUESTION METHOD (unr. alt.take)
HOW HIGH THE MOON (without dubbed audience)

Morten Reff dates this bootleg at appr. 1979 and variant 2 (below) at 1980. To me variant 1 looks at least some years older. Label and cover look more like an early 1970's bootleg. However, since Nooger's other Chess releases came out in 1976 onwards, 1977 to 1979 probably is the correct timeframe.

Variant 2 has a fully printed cover, a printed label and liner notes. And it shows more than a dozen previously unreleased photos (also from the Chess archives?).
The front cover tells artist and record name. Also it says "rare and unreleased tracks 1955-1963". The label name is now written as reelin' with a lower-case R.

Next to the photos and track listing the back cover contains a quote from an interview with Keith Richards, printed in the January 1979 issue of Rock&Folk magazine in which the interviewer claims to have listened to a cassette tape containing some of the recordings included.

The cassette tape mentioned originates from Dan Nooger, as he tells in his book:

I copied the material onto a cassette. After I landed at Atlantic Records, I ran off a copy for one of our publicity guys, Art Collins, who was assigned to go out on the road with the Rolling Stones’ 1978 “Some Girls” tour. One day I got a frantic call from Art; he had played the tape for the Stones and he was flying back to New York next day and I was to have maybe seven copies run off for him to bring back for the Stones touring party. He flew in, handed me a “Some Girls” press kit cover autographed by all of the Stones plus Ian Stewart and Ian McLagan (which immediately went straight into a frame and up on my living room wall), and off he went. Art eventually got kicked upstairs as a vice president with Rolling Stones Records. Several months later, I was reading an interview with Keith in Rock & Folk, a French music magazine; the tail end of the story had Keith pulling the cassette from his travel bag and excitedly playing it for the interviewer (“Wait! I want to play you some Chuck Berry, I have unreleased tapes that you’ll love”). What I’d like to know is if Keith ever played it for Chuck during the production of the Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n Roll film, and what Chuck may have thought of it. Keith, if you’re reading this, get in touch…

The January 1979 quote places the publication date of variant 2 to 1979 or later. This is a complete new record from a new master disk. The etching on the dead wax now reads 001-A/B.
It is interesting to note that the printed track listing on the back cover differs in some details from the insert sheet of variant 1. And even more interestingly variant 1 contains the more correct information. Among the errors on variant 2 are the spelling of the Ecuadors and suppressing the previous release of the dubbed tracks.

The same errors were repeated character by character when in 1983 CHESS (UK), at that time a label of PRT Ltd., released CHESS CXMP 2011. Probably due to the huge success of the bootleg, CHESS (UK) decided to release the exact same contents on an official album.
The cover does not tell so. It calls the record just "Chuck Berry" as part of PRT's "CHESS masters" series. However, when you look at the record labels, you'll see the name "America's Hottest Wax" printed.

One has to note that while the official CHESS (UK) release contains the exact same sequence of the tracks, they do not always sound exactly alike. Sometimes the songs on the official release fade later than on the bootleg. This might point to the fact that PRT indeed used the original CHESS tapes for mastering this album. All Platinum/Sugar Hill had good contacts with UK record companies. Phonogram had co-financed the Chess archives purchase, Charly got all their Chuck Berry material from All Platinum, PRT was the new name for Pye Records who originally released Chuck Berry in the UK. Maybe PRT had access to Nooger's original master tape while the two bootlegs result from the cassette copy - we'll never know.

To read the other parts of this series on Chuck Berry vinyl bootlegs, click here:

Posted by Dietmar Rudolph in Chuck Berry Rarities at 15:29 | Add Comment | Contact Webmaster

Friday, January 12. 2024

Chuck Berry in Fake Stereo

As you know from the long article “Chuck Berry in Stereo” on this blog, all of Berry‘s great hits from the 1950s were recorded and released as pure Mono. No multi-track studio tapes exist nor any two-track stereo releases.
In the second half of the 1960s, with the popularity of Stereo albums and FM radio, Mono records sounded outdated and dull. Record companies trying to re-sell 1950s hits therefore used a trick to create fake stereo versions of recordings originally made and only available in Mono.
The old recordings were “electronically reprocessed for stereo”. Technically the original mono signal was copied to both stereo channels. On one channel the higher tones were enhanced, on the other the lower tones. One channel was delayed a tiny fraction of a second and artificial echo and reverb were used to mask this delay. Unfortunately this distorts the original recording to an amount which makes them sound ugly when compared to the original mono mix.
During the 1970s many re-issues of Berry material contained such fake stereo which is why record collectors omit them to the most part. At least some of the fake stereo releases came with a tiny warning as shown in these cover segments.

Cover details of 1970s fake stereo releases

If you were following the hype around the Beatles’ “new” recording “Now and Then”, you learned that nowadays computers are able to separate John Lennon’s piano playing from his singing based on a source tape where these two blend into each other. The trick is to find notes and frequencies which are typical to a male singer and to find notes and frequencies which are typical to a piano. A human listener can do so easily and tell exactly what is singing and what is piano playing. Computers are not that good.
However, new computer techniques approximate the identification of a song’s parts. The trick is to have a computer analyze thousands or millions of piano recordings and to find patterns which are typical to piano playing. This is pure statistics, technically called machine learning, or for the marketing folks “artificial intelligence”. Given enough training data, you can teach the software to identify piano playing, male or female vocals, drums, guitar, saxes, and so on.
There is free and commercial software available which does a pretty good job at identifying and separating instruments from a recording mix. However, such a result is never perfect. Even a human listener might get fooled, when a talented vocalist mimics a saxophone solo. Certain sounds can be created using different instruments alike such as a bass line played on the lower strings of a guitar. Especially pianos are difficult to identify as they have a very wide range of tones which can sound like a guitar or even like some drum set segments. And of course it is very hard to separate two guitars or two pianos.
If you separate the musical instruments used during the original recording, you can re-use the extracted tracks to combine them with other recordings just like they did with the Beatles song. Or you can re-mix the individual elements at varying intensities and delays to two separate tracks which build the left and right channel of a stereo release.
Hit Parade Records of Canada for some time already uses this re-stereofication method to create fake stereo versions of 1950s hits. A first fake stereo version of a Berry hit (“Sweet Little Sixteen”) appeared in 2020.
In 2023 Hit Parade Records released the CD album “Chuck Berry Stereo: 27 Original Hits” containing 22 of such fake stereo versions. The other five songs are stereo versions originally released on the 1960s Chess albums. “Route 66” is fake stereo, even though a true stereo recording of an alternative take exists.

The CD cover does not mention the artificial nature of the versions. This “fake” aspect is hidden on the last page of the booklet.
So now we can listen to songs such as “Maybellene” or “Johnny B. Goode” in stereo. And just like in the 1970s, these fake stereo versions are much worse than the original releases. For the most part we hear the lead guitar at one end of the stereo range and the cymbals from the drum set at the opposite end. Everything else is more or less in the center with the vocals quite low in the mix. The marketing material shouts that “now you can hear guitar notes come to life that were previously buried in the mono mixes” but this goes with the consequence of other elements now getting buried instead.
As said, given the original mixed material a separation cannot be perfect. Here we hear notes from the same guitar sometimes from the left, sometimes from the center, sometimes even from the complete other side of the room which sounds as if there were more guitars present in the studio as there really were. On the other hand it sounds as if there were only cymbals on the drum kit but no drums at all, a woolly sound on the drums altogether. And especially problematic is the piano, which sounds as if it were moved around the studio during a song’s recording take. In general there is too much echo just like it were with the 1970s fake stereo releases. One positive note, though: What they did really good was the separation of Berry’s lead vocal and the chorus on “Almost Grown”. This sounds as if the vocal group is standing to the side as it probably was originally.
All in all these versions are nothing a collector would want. On the contrary: just as in the 1970s, where the original mono recordings were replaced by the fake “electronic stereo” variants, the same also applies here. As soon as streaming services or re-issuers learn of the existence of these so-called “true” stereo versions, how long will it be before the original mono versions are replaced?
Morten Reff adds: “Just to compare a little. I also bought the new “Chirping Crickets” (the first LP by Buddy Holly And The Crickets from 1958) on Rollercoaster Records in “stereo”, and they did a much better job of it. Clearer and better sound and better stereo effect. Although I must admit that I still go for the original mono versions.”

Posted by Dietmar Rudolph in Chuck Berry Recordings at 12:35 | Add Comment | Contact Webmaster

Thursday, January 11. 2024

CBID - The Never Ending Story

CBID is never complete as new records and CDs appear and some old rarities are discovered. This section presents interesting additions and corrections to CBID.

Today: Just three months ago we were confident to have documented all cover versions of Berry songs except for the ones newly recorded. Then came Bjørn Knudsen, a friend who’s been helping Morten a lot with Berry covers through the years, with a new list of hundreds of cover versions to include. Many of these are digital only and thus don't qualify for our list of records and CDs, but others require us to open the list again. Thank you, Bjørn! Here's a first batch.

Let’s go back to page 1837 (+ page 761) and Lenny & The Thundertones (USA) with their “Big Berry (Boss Man Guitar)” 1964. It has come to my attention that the song was actually released in 1963 by Big Daddy G (Lenny Drake).
So the correct name for the tribute should read as follows:

BIG DADDY G (USA)
Big Berry (Boss Man Guitar) (1:43) (L. Drake-J. Stokes) 1963
45: Hyland A-3009 ● USA, 1963

The reason for this mix-up is the Lenny & The Thundertones CD I bought in ’95 (page 1837) containing this Berry tribute. Nothing was mentioned in the liner-notes that it was actually recorded as Big Daddy G. But we are still talking about the same artist, Lenny Drake, who also co-wrote the song.

If you search Secondhandsongs and the title “Thirty Days” by Chuck Berry you get several versions and one by Jim Stringer & The Austin Music Band. However, It is actually the song written by Winfield Scott and recorded by Clyde McPhatter in 1957, SO it’s not Berry’s.

The same goes for Mitch Ryder and his “It Wasn’t Me” on the album “Live At The Logo Hamburg” (1996), which is stated by Secondhandsongs as written by Chuck Berry, but is NOT. It’s an original song from Ryder. I hate it when they do this, as the big problem for me is the fact that if I can’t find the song online to listen to I will probably include it in the survey.

AND even one more. Secondhandsongs says that “Reelin’ And Rockin’” by John Littlejohn on the album “John Littlejohn’s Chicago Blues Stars” from 1968 was written by Chuck Berry, but it’s NOT. It was written by John Wesley Funchess.

CHRISTIAN ANDERS (Austria)

Antonio Augusto Schinzel-Tenicolo, born 1945 in Bruck an der Mur. His first record came in 1965, and he’s had many since. The latest I found was from 2006.

Johnny B. Goode (1:54) 1973

2-LP: Der Untergang von Taro Torsay - Aufstieg Und Fall Eines Pop Stars [Chranders 1C 188 30 185 186] ● Austria, 1973

This is way too short but it seems that the album is from some kind of musical with introduction by Anders and various speeches between songs.

HASSE ANDERSSON (Sweden)

Hans Olle Lennart Andersson. Country singer, songwriter born 1948 in Malmö. He’s released many albums since 1983. He usually sings in Swedish, but the album below is in English.

Johnny B. Goode (2:54) 2010

CD: Hasse’s Jukebox [SlowFox FOXCD-10015] ● Sweden, 2010

“With the songs we remember”. 14 tracks.

RICHIE ARNDT (Germany)

Blues and rock singer, guitar player.

Memphis, Tennesee (2:23) 2016

3-CD: Mississippi Songs Along The Road [Fuego Records 2606 2] ● Germany, 2016

1 CD containing songs and 2 CDs as audio-book.

ATOMIC LEOPARDS (Spain)

See Volume 3, page 1051, for biographical info.

Beautiful Delilah (2:34) 2005

CD: In Technicolor [Foot Tapping Records FT-048] ● UK, 2006

This is already in Vol.3, however, wrong recording year and I didn’t have the timing for the song. And it’s a UK label and not Spain.

Promised Land (2:46) 2009

CD: Rockin’ Fix [Raucous Records RAUCD-247] ● UK, 2010

STERLING BALL, JOHN FERRARO, JIM COX (USA)

Musicians from California. Sterling Ball (bass, various guitars, bongos), Jim Cox (keyboards), John Ferraro (drums, percussion).

Memphis, Tennessee (3:11) 2018 (instr)

CD: The Mutual Admiration Society [Favored Nations Entertainment FNM-75432] ● Netherlands, 2018

Here they have help from an ac.bass player called Brad Hayman. They have sadly covered (like so many others) the Lonnie Mack/Johnny Rivers arrangements. Although I must admit they do a very good and solid job.

BAMBI KINO (USA)

Group was formed 2009 in New York. They wanted to play music of the early ‘60s to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the first Beatles’ concerts in Hamburg. (Well, well.) They also debuted in Hamburg during 2010 (see below).

I’m Talking About You (1:58) 2010 (live)

CD: Bambi Kino [Tapete Records TR-202 (mono)] ● USA, 2011

Recorded live at The Indra Club, Hamburg, 19 August 2010.

BAND OF HOPE JUG BAND (New Zealand)

Folk, country, bluegrass, jug music played by a sextet. They were active in the late ‘60s.

Memphis, Tennessee (2:40) 1968

LP: The Band Of Hope Jug Band [Kiwi SLC-61] ● New Zealand, 1968

JIMMY BARNES (Australia)

James Dixon Swan, singer, songwriter, guitarist. Born 1956 in Glasgow, Scotland, but the family moved to Australia when he was 4 years. He’s had 14 Top 40 albums as the lead singer of the rock band Cold Chisel and 12 charting albums as a solo act which gives Barnes the highest number of hit albums of any Australian artist. Not bad!

Run Rudolph Run (3:21) 2022

CD: Blue Christmas [Bloodlines BLOOD-111] ● Australia, 2022

Standard rock version with piano, guitar and a horn section.

BAS EDIT (Sweden)

Folk and country trio, Bengt Sandblom (vocals, guitar), Torbjörn Sörensen (banjo, mandolin, slide guitar, vocals), Tony Rudberg (ac.bass, vocals), but they are expanded on the record below by fiddle, accordion and drums.

Johnny B. Goode (2:16) 1999
You Never Can Tell (2:38) 1999

CD: Vol. 3 [Hönö Records HRCD-08] ● Sweden, 1999

These guys were quite good.

CAMILE BAUDOIN (USA)

Singer, guitarist, from New Orleans, who is in the Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame. He played guitar for over 40 years in the New Orleans Radiators who by the way have released several albums.

You Never Can Tell (3:37) 2021

CD: This Old House [Indipendent release ] ● USA, 2021

Recorded May 2021 at Rhythm Shack Studio, New Orleans. Pretty good mid tempo version with guitar (Camile) and piano (Josh Paxton), plus Jake Eckert (rhythm guitar), Reggie Scanian (bass) and Frank Bua Jr. (drums).

CLIFF BEACH (USA)

Black singer, songwriter and keyboardist. He’s been playing live in Los Angeles and Southern California for over 15 years. It is said that his style is a cross between soul, trad R&B, funk and neo-soul = Nu-funk as he calls it himself.

Run Rudolph Run (3:03) 2021

Digital: Merry Christmas, Happy New Year [California Soul Music 01 9640 03543 8 3] ● USA, 2021

As you can see this is digital but I wanted to include it because it’s a very good soulful version and he has a good voice. Go Rudolph Go.

VINNY BELL (USA)

Vincent Edward Gambella, session guitar player, also a master on electric sitar, based in New York. Born 1932, died in 2019. Also known as Vinnie Bell.

Memphis, Tennessee [as “Memphis”] (2:19) 1964 (instr)

LP: Whistle Stop [Verve Records V6-8574] ● USA, 1964

BIG BILL (Belgium)

Armand Hombroeckx also known as Big Bill Krakkebaas. Born 1950 in Leuven. Blues singer and guitarist.

No Particular Place To Go [as “Ene Me Hesp” (2:21) 1975

LP: Big Bill [Parsifal KLE-4000 231] ● Belgium, 1975

GARRY BLACKMORE BAND (UK)

Country singer. The band: Terry Clifford (guitars), Robbie Hawks (bass, vocals), Frog Goddard (drums), with the help of Dave Hayward (steel guitar, keyboards, harmony vocals).

Memphis, Tennessee (3:57) 2005

CD: Remembering [self released GB-15CD] ● UK, 2005

Covers from the likes of Bill Anderson, Don Gibson, Marty Robbins, Rick Nelson, Kris Kristofferson etc.

BLUEJAYS (UK)

This group is already on this blog with three entries.

Johnny B. Goode ( : ) 2016
No Particular Place To Go ( : ) 2016

CD: Rockin’ And Rollin’ With The Bluejays [Bluejays JAY-5005] ● UK, 2016

Maybellene ( : ) 2021 (live)

CD: Rock And Roll Revolution – Live Tonight [Bluejays ] ● UK, 2021

Run Rudolph Run (2:55) 2021 (live)

CD: The Christmas Show – Live [Bluejays ] ● UK, 2021

Recorded 18 December 2021 at Pound Arts Centre, Corsham. It seems like this is only available online.

Johnny B. Goode (4:18) 2022 (live)

CD: Rave On – The Rise Of Rock’n’Roll [Bluejays BP-2201] ● UK, 2022

BO GUMBOS (Japan)

A rock quartet who got their name from Bo (Diddley).

Johnny B. Goode ( : ) 1993 (live)

CD: King Of Rock’n’Roll [Bo Records BO-001 D] ● Japan, 1994

Recorded live at On Air, Shibuya (Tokyo), 2 December 1993.

JONNY BOMBASTIC (Germany)

Marco Majewski, born 1984. He’s looking like Johnny Restivo (if you remember him). A wrestler with muscles and a voice so and so.

Johnny B. Goode [as “Johnny Be Good”] (2:39) 2011

45: 3rd Floor Music 42 6020 60423 3 4 ● Germany, 2011

This might be a song for downloading only (?)

RAY BROWN Jr. (USA)

Raymond Matthews Brown Jr., blues and jazz singer, pianist, drummer. He’s the adopted son of Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Brown. He was born 1949 in New York City to Fitzgerald’s half sister Frances. He’s lived in California and Oregon but now resides in Hawaii.

Memphis, Tennessee [as “Memphis”] (3:37) 2008

CD: Friends And Family [SRI Jazz SRI-311252] ● USA, 2008

With Dr. John and featuring Dr. Lonnie Smith. You probably have never heard the song performed like this. Very bluesy and jazzy. And again it’s interesting to notice the 16 songs on the album which are mostly jazz tunes and popular songs: “A-Tisket, A-Tasket”, “Lullabye Of Birdland”, “Laughter In The Rain”, “On The Sunny Side Of The Street” …and a Berry classic.

EDDIE BUSH (USA)

Born 1965 in Princeton, Indiana. Country-rock singer, songwriter, guitarplayer who has lived in Charleston, South Carolina since the early ‘70s. He has several albums for downloading on Bandcamp.

Run Rudolph Run (3:03) 2011 as Eddie & The Icicles

CD: Holiday Harmonies [Eddie Bush self-released ] ● USA, 2011

Real rockin’ version, maybe a little noisy but I still like it.

BUSHMEN (Italy)

Beat quintet.

Memphis, Tennessee (2:09) 1965

45: SunStar SPS-214 ● Italy, 1965
CD: The Bushmen [On Sale Music 52 OSM 025] ● Italy 1997

The arrangement here is closer to Berry’s original than most others from the ‘60s. Although it’s different.

CALYPSONUTS (USA)

Steel drum duo from Navarre, Florida.

Johnny B. Goode (4:39) 2012

CD: Down To The Wire [Red Cedar Devil CD-35409 5] ● USA, 2013

They have followed the Peter Tosh version.

CANDLEWICK GREEN (UK)

A 1970s five piece group from Liverpool. Had several 45s released during the ‘70s but the single "Who Do You Think You Are" was their only UK top 30 hit, peaking at #21 in 1974.

Roll Over Beethoven ( : ) 1980

LP: Making It [Candlewick Green SRTX/80/CUS-519] ● UK, 1980

Recorded at Amazon Studios, Kirby, Liverpool. No writing credits given on the sleeve or label. Just Copyright Control. This was a self-released item sold at gigs. However, regarding the cat.no series see also HOJO.

TIM CAPPELLO (USA)

Timmy Cappello, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and actor. Born 1955 in Harrison, New York. He’s known for his saxophone work with Tina Turner in the mid ‘80s and the ‘90s. He’s also played with Carly Simon, Peter Gabriel, Ringo Starr, Garland Jeffries and more.

Maybellene (3:44) 2018

CD: Blood On The Reed [self released ] ● USA, 2018

Very funky version with lots of harmonica playing.

HOJO (UK)

Rock trio, Howard (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, bass), John (lead and rhythm guitars, backing vocals) & Sue (keyboards, backing vocals), plus Dave Morell (drums). Strange but there are no credits regarding the composers for any songs, neither on the sleeve or label.

Roll Over Beethoven ( : ) 1979

LP: It’s The Music That Counts [SRT Productions STRY/79/CUS-497] ● UK, 1979

Recorded and mixed at Fairview Recording Studio. Special thanks to The Electric Light Orchestra who helped to inspire this album. Regarding the cat.no series see also CANDLEWICK GREEN.

HOGSLOP STRING BAND (USA)

Old-time string band music with a hint of country. Group based in Nashville. Gabriel Kelley (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Kevin Martin (vocals, fiddle), Daniel Binkley (vocals, banjo), Pickle (vocals, washtube bass, acoustic bass).

Roll Over Beethoven (4:33) 2012 (live)

CD: Hogslop String Band 2.5 [self-released] ● USA, 2012

Seven self written songs plus the Berry classic. Interesting! Now this is a pretty different version. Have I heard a string band version before? I don’t remember. Check them out on You Tube.

MICHAEL CARPENTER (Australia)

Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist. Label (Big Radio Records) and studio (Love HZ Studios) owner from Sidney, NSW.

Sweet Little Sixteen (3:31) 2011

CD: Soop #3 – Songs Of Other People [Big Radio Records no cat no] ● Australia, 2011

On the front cover there’s a collage of pictures of various album covers including “One Dozen Berrys”.
From 2001–2016 he released 6 albums with cover songs of other people, Soop #1 - #6.

ROGER CERESI’S ALLSTARZ (USA)

According to the album cover they are 8 people all together. There’s a lot about them on You Tube.

Back To Memphis (4:13) 2011
You Never Can Tell (C’est La Vie) (4:21) 2011

CD: On The Right Track [Self released 08 8450 14701 4 8] ● USA, 2011

“Back To Memphis” is pretty solid and bluesy. The other Berry cover is performed good but unfortunately a little dull.

EUGENE CHADBOURNE (USA)

Eugene Alexander Chadbourne, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, born 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. He’s mostly into free (avant-gard) and improvised jazz but also likes to jazz-up a country song or three. Also into avant-rock. He’s been playing in a lot of groups and has released many albums.

Roll Over Beethoven [as “Roll Over Berlosconi”] (3:02) 2010

LP: Roll Over Berlosconi [Interbang Records IBR-001] ● USA, 2010

Here Chadbourne has written mostly his own lyrics, I guess it’s not a tribute. Roll over Berlosconi tell Mussolini the news.
There are also a couple of self-released albums by Chadbourne featuring live recordings of this particular song.

LALO CHEETA (France)

Rock singer, guitarist from Paris. The songs below you’ll find on the Bandcamp site.

I’ve Changed [as “I Have Changed”] (6:13) 2018 (live)
Thirteen Question Method (4:15) 2018 (live)
Vacation Time (2:14) 2018 (live)

Digital album: Live [Lalo Cheeta ] ● France 2018

Recorded live in France March 2018. The album was released 12 October 2018. Lalo Cheeta (vocals, guitar), Lucas Ltiė (guitar, vocals), Myrto Stathatou (keyboards), Stephen Cat (saxophone), Yacine Baroudi (saxophone), Holy Dan (bass, vocals), Pietro Loconte (drums, vocals)
Two Berry numbers that are rarely covered and one that has not been covered (so far). I didn’t know about this man before and certainly not the album above. “I’ve Changed” is an obscure Berry blues track from December 1955 that was first released in the UK in April 1983 on the LP “Chess Masters” Chess CXMP-2011, and in the US on “The Chess Box” Chess (MCA) CH6-80.001 in November 1988.
“I’ve Changed” sounds a little messy in the arrangement, unfortunately. “Vacation Time” has a different melody(!) than Berry’s and it takes a little while before you recognize the song. “Thirteen Question Method” has a long intro (1:20 minutes) and at first you think they are going to do “Memphis” until he starts singing. Cheeta’s English is not the best but I don’t think it mattered much to the French audience.

Havana Moon (4:26) 2016

Digital track: Super Bombetas [Lalo Cheeta ] ● France 2018

Recorded January 2016 at RDC Studio, Les Lilas. Released 11 October 2018. Lalo Cheeta (vocals, guitar, bass), Yacine Baroudi (saxophone), El Manicero (trumpet), Dukeul (maracas).
This is arranged a little different from most others much because of the saxophone and trumpet fills that comes in after one and half minute and makes the song more complete in this arrangement. Especially the trumpet fills are interesting.

CHER (USA)

Cherilyn Sarkisian La Pierre, known to everyone just as Cher. Born 1946 in El Centro, California. Singer, actor. She started back in the mid ‘60s together with Sonny Bono (they married in 1967, divorced 1975) as Sonny & Cher and had many hits. And she has managed to stay at the top ever since. She has sold over 100 million albums and have won many Awards.

Run Rudolph Run (2:53) 2023

LP: Christmas [Warner Records 093624851189] USA, 2023

Nice to finally have Cher on this survey. A good rockin’ version it is too, and she still has a strong voice.

ALEKSEY FETISOV Rock & Roll Tribute Band (Russia)

Rock & roll singer, bassplayer from Moscow, who really has a knack for the old stuff. Rock’n’roll classics from Russia with love (!) They are a trio but is augmented by a keyboardplayer, plus backing vocalists.

Brown Eyed Handsome Man (2:41) 2016 as Aleksey Fetisov’ Rock & Roll Trio

Digital album: Rocks [AF Recording Service] ● Russia, 2017

Released January 2017. This sounds like the Buddy Holly version.

The Little Girl From Central (2:41) 2019

Digital album: Aleksey Fetisov Rock & Roll Tribute Band Vol. 1 [AF Recording Service] ● Russia, 2020

Released January 2020. Now I just had to include this guy since we are actually talking about a NEW Berry song to be covered. He follows the Berry original. A little background: This obscure Berry track was first available to Berry fans through the UK LP “You Never Can Tell” PYE Int. NPL-28039 in late 1964, in mono. Later it was made available in stereo on the UK Marble Arch LP MALS-702 in 1967. It was not issued in the US until 1990 on the album “Missing Berries – Rarities Volume 3” Chess (MCA) CH-9318.

Carol (3:02) 2021
Nadine (3:16) 2021
Sweet Little Rock And Roller (2:41) 2021

Digital album: Aleksey Fetisov Rock & Roll Tribute Band Vol. 2 [AF Recording Service] ● Russia, 2021

Released April 2021. Again they are very similar to the original Berry arrangements.

Posted by Morten Reff in CBID Updates at 12:23 | Add Comment | Contact Webmaster

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