Chuck Berry - Johnny B Goode - His Complete '50s Chess Recordings. 4CD box-set. Hip-O Select / Geffen Records B0009473-02

As most Chuck Berry fans will know by now, this box-set is available direct from the Hip-O Select website (USA) and from Amazon and other web outlets (worldwide). I am very proud to have been involved in this project which chronicles all of Chuck's 1950's recordings from 'Maybellene' to 'Let Me Sleep Woman' - 103 tracks in all. From start to finish it has been over two years since Andy McKaie at Universal records contacted me to ask if I would help compile the set and write the liner notes and discography. Did he need to ask! For any Berry fan it was a dream come true. Every other week or so I'd get a neat brown UPS package from the promised land containing who knows what musical gems on CD from the Chess archives. The very first I got contained just two tracks but, wow, what tracks they were! Two unissued cuts of 'Almost Grown' complete with studio discussion that literally jumped out of the speakers with the joy and energy of the moment. Fan-tas-tic!!! Check them out for yourself on disc 4. Over the months the disc kept coming and after hours and hours of very careful listening and sorting, the very best from the fifties is included in the box-set.

Originally the plan was to compile a 14 CD box-set of all Chuck's Chess and Mercury recordings from the mid-fifties until he finally left Chess in 1974. However, after compiling a list of recordings the project was vetoed by the men in suits at Universal but the every resourceful Mr McKaie came up with the current concept of all Chuck's '50's output. This is a limited edition set of 5000 and if it sells well the plan is to do a similar box-set of '60s recordings up to Chuck's departure from Chess to Mercury in 1966.

One disappointment was that there wasn't much unissued material found in the Chess archives before the 'Sweet Little Sixteen' recordings in late '57. In all, however, the box-set contains 15 previously unissued recordings ( two more if you count the previously unissued in the USA category) plus lots of rarities - all in pristine sound and without the dreaded fake audience which marred some of the tracks. I can't believe it won't sell so look out for Chuck's sixties recordings with even more rare and unissued stuff. I can't wait!

Fred Rothwell