Monday, February 6. 2017CBID - Chuck Berry at Walt Disney's Buena Vista Records?
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: A Chuck Berry single from Walt Disney's Buena Vista Records? TAIWAN (?) Little Queenie / Almost Grown (red vinyl) Buena Vista BV-1061 • late 1960s or early â70s Now this is an interesting mystery. It turned up in January 2017, and after almost 50 years of collecting Berry records I have never seen or heard about it before. Thatâs really something! Many thanks to reader John for alerting us about this release. Thursday, January 26. 2017Chuck Berry's Early Recording Locations
The current discography lists the early Chuck Berry recording sessions at the following locations:
The Chess Label website, http://campber.people.clemson.edu/chess2.html states: In 1953, the Chess brothers continued to make their sessions at Universal Recording in Chicago. But after moving from 4858 South Cottage Grove to 4750, Leonard and Phil Chess would open a small studio in the back of their new offices. Announced in a Billboard article on June 19, 1954, this was mostly used for demos. Any recordings made there and used for release had to be done on the sly. Every effort was made to insure that it wouldn't, but the makeshift studio did eventually come up on the radar screen at Local 208 of the Musicians Union. Leonard Chess had to appear before the Board 'to explain certain phases of his recording activity'. Chess stated that the office studio was only used for rehearsals and auditions, although he admitted 'several years ago this may have happened' because he was 'not in a position at all times to meet his financial obligations'.The writers of the site conclude: We may be reasonably sure that there was no more recording for release in the back room studio after February 1956, when Leonard Chess was threatened with the revocation of his recording license.The first three Berry sessions pre-date February 1956 but the songs cut at Chuck's first session for Chess, Maybellene and Wee Wee Hours, both have a matrix number beginning with 'U' as listed in 'The Chess Labels' compiled from Chess files by Michel Ruppli (but not included on the record labels). This was until recently considered to stand for recordings made at Universal Studios, 111 East Ontario Street, probably the best recording studio in Chicago at this time. However, as the 'U' designation also appears on matrices that we know were not cut at Universal the letter must signify something else. That said the aural quality of Chuck's first two recordings are such that they are most likely Universal recordings. The songs cut at Chuck's second and third Chess sessions which include Thirty Days, You Can't Catch Me and No Money Down were erroneously designated with a 'U' matrix in discographies but none of the matrix numbers on the labels of the singles or the info in Ruppli include the 'U'. However, the quality of these recordings which is much better than those cut at the rear of the offices at South Cottage Grove indicate that these too are Universal Studio recordings. In addition with Maybellene being Chess's first big cross-over hit it is unlikely that the brothers Chess would not record the vital follow-up of their hot new property at the best studio available. The question remains were any of the four sessions listed above as recorded at South Cottage Grove actually cut at the makeshift studio? The session cut in April 1956 was a monster gig in which Roll Over Beethoven, Too Much Monkey Business, Brown Eyed Handsome Man and Drifting Heart were waxed. All classics and all of high audio quality. The contract details for this session exist which state 'recording studio' for the the location and whilst this is not specific it does indicate a proper studio rather than the office studio at South Cottage Grove so it seems there is little doubt that this session was cut at Universal. The next session at which only Havana Moon was recorded presents more of a problem. Here the sound is so unusual compared to earlier recordings that this could well be a South Cottage Grove cut. However, it should be noted that blues-man Jimmy Rogers plays second guitar on Havana Moon and that on the very same day he cut his own single If It Ain't Me and Walking By Myself both of good audio quality indicating a Universal Studio location. Willie Dixon is also on both the Berry and Rogers' sessions so is it likely that they would record in two different locations on the same day? More strength to fact that the Rogers' session was cut in a recording studio rather than the Chess office at South Cottage Grove can be found in Rogers biography 'Blues All Day Long' written by Wayne Everett Goins. He recounts a first hand story from Jimmy Rogers about the harmonica player on the session Walter Horton, who was embarrassed by having to come to the recording studio in his plasterer's work clothes. So, on balance Universal is the most likely location for the Havana Moon recording. The next two sessions dated 15 December 1956 and 21 January 1957 form the biggest quandary. In December 1956 the demo version of Rock And Roll Music is said to have been recorded four months before the master (single) cut was made. It has recently been established by the very attuned ears of Arne Wolfswinkel that this demo recording in fact has no bass present and it's just Chuck, Johnnie and Fred Below on the cut. It's known that the South Cottage Grove set-up was used primarily for rehearsals and demo cutting and the frugal Chess brothers did not like to have their artists running up Universal Studio time bills on preliminary run-throughs. However, some South Cottage Grove recordings did get a contemporary release, a prime example being I'll Be Home, The Flamingos' first big hit. According to Robert Pruter, in his 'Doo Wop The Chicago Scene' book, two versions were cut, first at South Cottage Grove then later at a larger more professional studio (probably Universal). Chess liked the earlier, rougher version and this was unusually used for the single. This being noted, the demo version of Rock And Roll Music may well have been a South Cottage Grove recording. What is also puzzling is why such a great song was not completed at this time? The song is essentially complete, so why wait four months before cutting the master? Could it be that the Rock And Roll Music demo is, in fact, an early take recorded at the May 1957 session that produced the single? However, after much consideration and consultation with fellow Berry enthusiasts, it is the consensus that the Rock And Roll Music demo is most likely to have been cut at the 15 December 1956 session. With regards to the location of this session there is a tantalising titbit which has recently come to light from the 22 December 1956 edition of Cash Box (recently made available on the Internet) which states Chuck Berry into Universal for LP this past weekthereby confirming the location of the session. According to the notes and discography to the Missing Berries â Rarities Volume 3 CD the tune titled Untitled Instrumental was also cut in December 1956 but a question does remain over the songs supposedly recorded at the 21 January 1957 session. This session produced the 'A-sider' School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes The Bell) and three 'B' sides La Juanda, Deep Feeling and Blue Feeling plus the adulterated Low Feeling. The specific January date stems from the information provided in Chuck's autobiography whereas the Chess files as per Ruppli have the less specific December 1956 date. Again the consensus, based on all the available facts and careful listening to the aural evidence such as instrumentation, sound, and echo, is that these recordings were all made mid-December 1956 together with Rock And Roll Music demo and Untitled Instrumental either at one or more sessions. It should be noted also that Chess experimented with overdubbing on a Berry song for the very first time on La Juanda as can be heard on the two variants. What is certain (apart from my personal reservations about the Rock And Roll Music demo) is the songs were recorded at Universal Studios (most likely studio B from the recollections of engineer Malcolm Chisholm). The 21 January 1957 session might well have been the time at which Blue Feeling was slowed by 26% with the second guitar break omitted and miraculously became Low Feeling. The next session on the 6 or 15 May 1957 (or both dates?) produced two 'A' sides Rock And Roll Music and Oh Baby Doll together with three other cuts. Pinpointing the location of this session has proved difficult because it was just on the cusp of Chess's move from their South Cottage Grove site to the new office and studio at 2120 South Michigan Ave. Paul Petraitis has searched various contemporary business directories for the Chess locations and notes on The Real Chess Records Forum [no link given as access to this 'forum' is limited to customers of Facebook, Inc. which contradicts the idea of free information exchange as provided here]: Chess Company (and related) Chicago street addresses: Aristocrat (September 1948 Directory) 5249 Cottage Grove...the company kept the same address through the June 1949 and June 1950 directories (when the address also included the Aristocrat Distributing Company)...by the October 1951 Directory the company was renamed Chess Recording company and it had moved to 4858 South Cottage Grove and remained there until the June 1954 directory when it was doing business at 4750 S. Cottage Grove...it was also listed as 4750-52...in the June 1957 book the company was at 2120 S. Michigan Avenue (according to data in the Recorder's Book of Deeds they bought 2120 on October 24th, 1956)...Billboard advertisements indicate the offices moved into 2120 between May 6th and May 13th 1957...On April 7, 1966 Chess buys 320 East 21st Street and moves their operations out of 2120...in 1969 the company is bought by GRT.Another pointer to the date Chess occupied 2120 South Michigan Ave comes in the 18 May 1957 edition of Cashbox: 'We're finally moving' shouted Phil and Len Chess ... within the next two weeks, they hope, Chess will be in new quarters.So it would appear that 2120 was occupied by Chess at the earliest on the 6 May and would be operational by the end of the month. The recording sessions on the 6 or 15 May are therefore most likely to have taken place at Universal studios. The December 1957 session and subsequent Berry sessions were at 2120 South Michigan Ave. called The Sheldon Recording Studio until 1958 when it became the Ter-Mar Studio. In summary, the recording locations, recording dates and personnel noted above are revised to reflect the new information and all the sessions from May 1955 up to and including the May 1957 session were cut at Universal Studios following which Chess's own Sheldon Studio at 2120 became the main recording venue. The contents of our online Chuck Berry Database has been edited correspondingly. [Addendum January 29, 2017: It should be noted that during the time of the Chuck Berry sessions at Universal the studio itself changed locations. The exact date of the move is unknown, but an advertisement in the July 28, 1956 edition of Cash Box tells: "Universal Recording Corporation now located at our new studios 46 East Walton St., Chicago 11, Illinois". Thus we can safely assume that Chuck Berry's Universal sessions of October and December 1956 as well as of May 1957 were held at E. Walton Street.] Fred and Dietmar would like to thank Arne, Thierry and Morten as well as Michel Ruppli for the many hours and emails resulting in this article and the correction of the discographies.
Posted by Fred Rothwell
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Monday, January 16. 2017The Berry Pickin' Single - and what made it happen
Berry Pickin' is a Chuck Berry instrumental recorded in December 1955. Chess released it as a filler on the B side of Berry's first album After School Session and afterwards it was mainly forgotten. You won't find any discography which would list a 45rpm single containing Berry Pickin' ... except for our Chuck Berry Database!
This is because there indeed was a single which contains this instrumental even though only by error. Morten Reff has half a sentence about it in his "Chuck Berry International Directory, Volume 1", but you had to read the text very carefully. Morten owns a copy of the Berry Pickin' single, I have one, and maybe you do as well. Here's its story. It's the story of the Chess single released in March 1957 with the catalog number 1653. One side of the record contains the song School Day, the other side contains the instrumental Deep Feeling. To understand the story, we have to understand first how record production works. You'll probably know, but just in case here's a summary: Record production is a four-step process which starts in the recording studio and ends in the record pressing plant. Here the record is literally pressed by putting a blob of plastic (polyvinyl chloride PVC or short Vinyl, once also shellac) into a pressing machine which flattens it to a disk and presses the grooves into the two surfaces. During this also the labels are firmly attached to the record. To press the grooves into the disk, you need to have a negative for each side which has the grooves elevated. This negative is called a "stamper" and made from metal to allow the pressing of thousands of records. To create a stamper you have to have a positive model of the record to produce, typically one for each side of the final disk. This positive looks like an ordinary record having the grooves engraved. It can be played on a standard turntable e.g. for testing purposes. It is not made from vinyl, though. Instead this positive typically consists of a metal kernel coated with a soft material (wax, nitrocellulose lacquer, or in the 1930s cellulose acetate). These master disks are called lacquers or acetates. A turntable-like machine cuts the grooves containing the sound into a blank lacquer which then is used in an electroplating process to create the metal stamper. The record cutter gets the sound from a master tape (at least in the era we're talking about here) which contains the final recording along with all overdubs and mixes. If you need a lot of records (such as Chess in the 1950s) it made sense to add another, intermediate step between lacquer and stamper which allows you to create many stampers for pressing in multiple presses and pressing plants. To do so, the lacquer is first transferred into a negative "father" record using electroplating. Then this "father" record is used to create multiple positive "mother" records, also known as "matrix" records (plural "matrices"). These matrices were checked and then sent out to the pressing-plants to create the stampers. Let's go back to Chess 1653. After recording and whatever overdubs and fades were needed, the production process began with a magnetic tape containing the master recording. For identification purposes, each master tape was given a unique number. In this case, the final recording of Deep Feeling got the number 8378 and the final recording of School Day got 8379. Our database lists those where known. Using a record cutter both master tapes were transferred to at least two different lacquers. We know that there has been more than one lacquer as Chess 1653 was pressed both at 7-inch size to be played at 45rpm and at 10-inch size to be played at 78rpm. You needed different matrices for each obviously. The lacquer for the 7-inch 45rpm singles was electroplated into multiple mother disks or matrices. Again we know that there must have been more than one matrix, as original silver-top issues of Chess 1653 have been made from slightly different matrices. You can tell by looking at the writing in the inner "dead wax" area of the single. On some copies you find the numbers 45-8378 x and 45-8379 x engraved. This additional engraving was either hand-written on the lacquer after the grooves have been cut or - more probably - added to the mother disk after checking. The mother disk going to the Plastic Products Co. in Memphis had a different engraving which reads chess 45•8378 PP and chess 45•8379 PP so the Memphis people could easily see to which label the disk belonged. According to discogs other copies read 45-8378 Δ 15319 and 45-8379 x Δ 15318 which is the code for the Monarch Records pressing plant in Los Angeles. There are also silver-top copies where the etching reads CH-8378 and CH-8379, though these may be 1970s re-issues. Note that the variety of labels known from Chess 1653 has also to do with the multitude of records needed. Some pressing plants had printers on site who created labels, some got them for external sources. But while the layout was probably given by Chess, the letter size and placement was done at the individual print shops. We know of silver-top labels having "School Day" within quotation marks and others that don't. Also some labels had a sub-title of (Ring! Ring! Goes The Bell) below the song name, others didn't. After its original success Chess 1653 has been re-produced often. There are re-issues with every type of label the Chess company used during the late 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. Up to the mid-60s these re-issues seem to have been created from the original matrices having 45-8378 and 45-8379 engraved. Sometime around 1965, Chess once more needed re-issues of Berry's old hits. However, they decided not to re-use the old lacquers but to create new ones from the master tapes. One reason was that the fad of the time required stereo records. So Chess tried to refresh the old mono records. They altered the sound electronically to make it sound like stereo. Judging from today, this enhancement was probably the worst they could do with the old master tapes, but they did. This new re-issue had a light-blue label. The catalog number reads "1653" as on the original 1957 release and the correct instrumental Deep Feeling can be heard. You can tell that new lacquers have been made by looking at the engraving of this variant. Instead of 8379 for School Day the etching erroneously reads 8370 here. For whatever reason, only a few years later Chess once again decided to create new lacquers, probably around 1967 and with even inferior sound. Again we can tell that new lacquers were made because this next re-issue has another new etching in the "dead wax" (8379 TM5416 CH1653 SG where TM stands for Chess'es own Ter-Mar Pressing Plant and SG might stand for mastering engineer Geoff Sykes). The label to this re-issue is almost identical to the light-blue one shown above. You can recognize these new ones not only by the TM text in the wax, but also by its label print. The records of this second set have the same light-blue 1960s Chess label but - most importantly - list a catalog number of "CH 1653". This is the interesting variant! On the B side this second light-blue re-issue not only has a different dead wax, it also has different grooves for the song! By error someone at Ter-Mar Recording Studios took the wrong master tape to cut the new lacquer. On this B side is a Chuck Berry instrumental, but it's not Deep Feeling! Instead they took the tape of master U7953 which is Berry Pickin'. The faulty lacquers went into production unnoticed and records were pressed. This must have been a time at the Chess company when somebody got totally confused over which master tapes to use for re-issues. Besides the incorrect pressing of Chess CH-1653 there exist at least two other light-blue re-issues with incorrect contents. Bo Diddley expert George White told me that he owns a light-blue re-issue of Chess 1744 (Howlin' Wolf - The Natchez Burning b/w You Gonna Wreck My Life) where the A side plays I'm Going Away instead. And he knows of a light-blue re-issue of Checker 819 (Bo Diddley - Diddley Daddy b/w She's Fine, She's Mine) where the A side incorrectly plays The Great Grandfather. So whoever was in charge at Chess when the light-blue re-issues were mastered, he either couldn't read or hear. Many thanks to Morten Reff and Thierry Chanu for their tremendous help with this article!
Posted by Dietmar Rudolph
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Thursday, January 12. 2017CBID - a 1973 AFRTS-only record
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: Here's an addition to Chapter 5: Chuck Berry On The Radio. TRANSCRIPTION DISK Armed Forces Radio & Television Service RL 46-3 ( P-13933/13934) • USA, June 1973 LEE MICHAELS âLiveâ / CHUCK BERRYâS GOLDEN DECADE VOL. 2 Sweet Little Rock And Roller / Rock At The Philarmonic (instr) / You Never Can Tell / Little Queenie / Let It Rock / Jo Jo Gunne / Carol This turned up on ebay in November 2016. Never seen it before. The Berry tracks are of course compiled from the 2-LP set Chess [GRT] 2CH-60023 released in February 1973. Lee Michaels is a psychedelic rock keyboard player and the three tracks on his side are taken from the 2-LP set A&M SP-3518 "Live" from 1973. Wednesday, January 11. 2017CBID - 2016 cover versions
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: A couple of Berry covers released in 2016 plus a few older ones I have gathered lately, to be added to the chapter on Chuck Berry covers in Volume 3 DAVE BURGIN (USA) Out of the San Francisco blues scene, this blues harp player and singer recorded his first solo album back in 1981. But already in The â70s he had joined forces with Roy Rogers and they performed as Rogers & Burgin. During his long career he has toured and recorded with the likes of Jerry Garcia, Amos Garrett, Colin James, Maria Muldaur, k d lang and many more. No Money Down (5:39) 2016 CD: No Money Down [Burgin Music 295423076] • USA, 2016 "Thirty Days" is quite different than most other versions, a little jazzy, and "No Money Down" is long, solid and tough with a growly voice and hammond B3 which makes it a little unusual. Burginâs backed by people like Roy Rogers (slide guitar), Volker Strifler and Danny Caron (guitars), Jim Pugh (keyboards), Rob Sudduth (sax), Marvin McFadden (trumpet), Gene Houck (bass) and Kevin Hayes (drums). Not bad to have two Berry songs covered in 2016 by a blues artist and even naming the album after one!!! SAMMY KERSHAW (USA) See Volume 3, page 1287 for biographical info. No Money Down (3:55) 2015 CD: The Blues Got Me [Big Hit Records BHR-00161] • USA, 2016 Very good rendition of this Berry blues classic. It also has a guitar/piano break which I think Berryâs own misses. Think of the lyrics, I mean, Berry was way ahead of his time. And itâs interesting to see that a great country artist again picks a Berry song for an album, this time a blues album were most of the songs are written by him or in collaboration. EZRA LEE & THE HAVOC BAND (Australia) A younger rockânâroll and boogie woogie pianist, born in 1986 as Ezra Lee Matzeniik and now living in Melbourne. Heâs learned from the best, like Dr. John and Johnnie Johnson. Heâs played various rockabilly festivals and Ezra and his band also backed Wanda Jackson on her Spring 2013 Australian tour. So far heâs released 5 albums. Let It Rock (2:52) 2015 CD: Boomerang Boogie [Rhtyhm Bomb RBR-5823] • Australia, 2016 Rockinâ Jerry Lee style version. MEFISTO (Czechoslovakia) See Volume 3, page 1359 for biographical info. See also Soundalikes and Tributes. Roll Over Beethoven (3:15) 1965 CD: Greatest Hits [Supraphon 111629-2Â 311] • Czechoslovakia, 1993 I have not been able to find any original release for this cover. The album above also includes a version of "Johnny B. Goode" and the tribute/soundalike "I Like Chuck Berry". Just a little on the group name, the various artists LP I have (page 1359) calls the group Mefistos (not Mefisto) but it seems the correct name of the group was actually Mefisto. I Like Chuck Berry (2:58) (Petr Kaplan) 1966 (instr) CD: Greatest Hits [Supraphon 111629-2Â 311] • Czechoslovakia, 1993 A very goode instrumental in the Deep Feeling mode. Interesting to notice that they as early as the mid â60s paid tribute to Berry by this unusual instrumental not using the standard Johnny B. riff. I had never heard of this tribute before but thanks to Ari Niskanen in Finland who came across it in 2016(!) I have not been able to find the original release of this, but at least it is available on the above CD compilation. [Note: The one above is not a cover version. You should file it under TRIBUTES AND SOUNDALIKES.] STELLA PARTON (USA) Younger sister of you know who, born in 1949. She also has a long career, although not as spectacular as Dolly, far from it really. She was part of a family gospel album in 1967 but had her first country hit and solo album in 1975. As you may notice she is still active and has so far released over 20 albums. Johnny B. Goode (2:38) 2015 CD: Last Train To Memphis [Raptor RR-2022] • USA. 2015 Now this was a surprise. Good groove in the rhythm section and a strong guitar player with the Berry riffs intact. The album itself is actually a tribute to the old rockânâroll music, as most of the songs are covers of well-known classics.
CLIFF RICHARD (UK) See volume 3, page 1452 for biographical info. Johnny B. Goode (2:48) 2013 CD: The Fabulous RockâNâRoll Songbook [Rhino (Warner) 2564641187] • UK, 2013 Recorded at Blackbird Studio in Nashville, Tennessee. 14 classic rockânâroll songs and one original song. Some are very good and some sounds a little hasty. But overall a nice try from Mr. Richard. At the same time it was released a DVD and Blu-Ray with Cliff titled "Still Reelinâ And A-Rockinâ", recorded live at the Sydney Opera House (Australia) featuring 2 hours of rockânâroll hits. Among the many rockânâroll hits it includes two Berry covers, "Reelinâ And Rockinâ" and "Forty Days". Memphis, Tennessee (2:34) 2016 CD: Just⊠Fabulous RockâNâRoll [Sony Music 88985367742 ] • UK, 2016 More Nashville recordings. Produced by the same guy who was responsible for the first one, Steve Mandile. Again I was a little skeptical to this. How could Cliff improve anything on these classics, recorded so many times by so many people? BUT this time it really rocks, thanks to excellent musicians, some are the same as above. And he sings good too. Except for "Memphis" which is in the Johnny Rivers arrangement which I am not so fond of when covered by others, I became attached to the rockânâroll beat. I love to be surprised and I did. SHE & HIM (USA) Country/folk artist M. Ward and actress/singer/songwriter Zooey Deschanel from Portland, Oregon got together in 2008 and released their first album. The CD below is their second Christmas compilation. Run Rudolph Run (2:52) 2016 CD: Christmas Party [Columbia/Sony Music 8898 5380642] • USA, 2016 Slowed down acoustic version for about two minutes when it starts to rock. Unusual yes, but Wardâs voice is a little boring. ĂYSTEIN SUNDE (Norway) See Volume 3, page 1541 for biographical info. Johnny B. Goode [as âJohnny B. Goode PĂ„ Sjukehjemâ] (3:40) 2016 CD: Bestefar [Spinner SRXCD-2028] • Norway, 2016 Norwegian lyrics by Ăystein Sunde, title translated: Johnny B. Goode In Nursing-Home. This version has been a highlight of his concerts for several years, and now finally on record. It features guitarist Petter Baarli (from Backstreet Girls) and pianist Reidar Larsen. Larsen is in the Soundalikes section (Vol.4) and Baarli and Backstreet Girls are in both Vol. 3 and Vol. 4. Friday, November 4. 2016Chuck Berry and Rudolf Rock live 1991
Strange things happen ...
Right now I'm trying to sell some of Hans' Vinyl rarities through eBay (in case you're interested, click here). I'm also offering some Berry stuff which is only gathering dust here such as a concert poster from 1978. A second concert poster was sold within minutes. The poster was for a concert at the Grugahalle Essen, Germany in 1977. Artists in this case were Jerry Lee Lewis and a German band called Rudolf Rock und die Schocker. Those who weren't into the German Rock'n'Roll scene of the late 70s and early 80s have probably never heard of this band. But it's worth to know. Initially Rudolf Rock und die Schocker wasn't a band at all. In 1976 it was just a fun gathering of well-known and well-respected musicians playing in famous bands around the Hamburg area. And the band name was a joke as well, playing with the name of a famous opera singer called Rudolf Schock. The band was formed by bass player Uli Salm (member of Leinemann). Other members came from bands such as Atlantis, Dirty Dogs, Rattles, Truck Stop, Udo Lindenberg Band, Nena Band and so on. Rudolf Rock und die Schocker played German Rock'n'Roll. Half of the songs were cover versions of German artists from the 1950s such as Peter Kraus or Ted Herold. The other half were songs written by Salm, KrĂŒger and their friends which sounded like 1950s Rock'n'Roll at its best. Have a listen on the Internet (or buy the record) for instance of Schluckauf or Das war der Starclub. I really liked this band in the late 1970s and I think they and not The Killer were the original reason why I went to the show. I lost track over the years as they changed personnel constantly and my interests moved. Uli Salm continues this project even today. Here's a 2010 recording called Arschloch. You need to understand German to get the lyrics, though. All this came back into my mind when the poster shown was sold to ... Uli "Rudolf Rock" Salm! We exchanged some emails about the old times and about Chuck Berry. There was always a lot of Chuck Berry in Rudolf Rock, for instance in Herzilein, which was their greatest success and a Rock'n'Roll-style cover of a then famous Volksmusik hit. And, as Uli told me, indeed he once played with Berry. During a gig on December 6th, 1991 at the Hamburg concert hall, Chuck Berry was backed by Uli Salm on bass, Dicky Tarrach of the Rattles on drums, and Joja Wendt on piano. Uli sent me this photo for you all to see. Thanks, Uli! [By the way: Links in this article point to YouTube videos. I have always stayed away from linking to YouTube as German artists were excluded from royalties when their songs were played by Google/YouTube. However, last week YouTube and GEMA (that's the German BMI) finally agreed on royalties for German artists. I still recommend you buy CDs (or Vinyl) instead of listening to YouTube, though.]
Posted by Dietmar Rudolph
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Sunday, October 23. 2016Chuck Berry the highest-paid guitarist 2016 - notThere will always be someone that believe everything they read.said Morten Reff and of course he's right. The discussion came up when a German magazine claimed Berry to be listed as the highest-paid guitarist in 2016 by a magazine called "People With Money". The only fact herein is that the German magazine has fallen for one of the thousands of fake Internet "news". There are as many fake accounts for politicians as are for celebrities. And there are fake gossip magazines such as "People With Money" which do not exist further than on the parody website mediamass.net. Here's the fake cover which came with the "news" - courtesy of mediamass.net: mediamass.net publishes all kinds of parodies to gossip magazines. The article about Berry's earnings is here: http://en.mediamass.net/people/chuck-berry/highest-paid.html You may find this to be funny - or not. But you should never take it seriously. Especially not as a print magazine. More and more people seem to forget that what you read on the Internet is NOT reliable information. ANYONE can write ANYTHING on the Internet, whether true or not. Believe only those texts which come from sites YOU trust. And when in doubt, try to find the original source. In this case, try to find "People With Money" magazine - it doesn't exist! So to put things straight: Chuck Berry does not own the âFat Berry Burgerâ restaurants chain as it does not exist. Chuck Berry does not own the âSaint Louis Angelsâ football team as such does not exist. No, he does not have his own brand of Vodka (Pure Wonderberry), and both the top-selling perfume "With Love from Chuck" and the fashion line called "Chuck Berry Seduction" are fakes. Nobody knows his estimated net worth — maybe not even Berry himself. And to refer to other Mediamass parodies: No, he will not be Times' Person of the Year 2016, we don't expect a 2017 World Tour, he has not been dubbed "the Sexiest Guitarist Alive", and I really doubt he's expecting a baby - at 90 years old. But sometimes even parodies cannot be more absurd than real life: One of mediamass' parodies covered a new Chuck Berry album to be released in 2017: http://en.mediamass.net/people/chuck-berry/new-album.html. OK, that's a rumor which is repeated every second year since 1979. But last week Chuck Berry's family announced a new album to be released in 2017. I had to laugh as this blog post was next to finished when I saw the Rolling Stone article. Too funny if mediamass' parody should become true. And likewise too funny if Rolling Stone repeats a mediamass.net parody Oh, and by the way: D.J. Fontana will have a new album released in 2017 as well. Read here: http://en.mediamass.net/people/d-j-fontana/new-album.html Saturday, October 15. 2016Happy Birthday! Chuck Berry turns 90
As you know, this site is about the music of Chuck Berry. It is not about Chuck Berry as a person, his life, his family affairs or other gossip. So this blog entry is an exception. I have been asked by a German magazine to write a piece to honor Berry's 90th birthday and to cover his record releases in Germany. Courtesy of Rock'n'Roll Musikmagazin here's a translation of what I wrote.
On October 18, 2016, the first of the classic rock and rollers turns 90. This is amazing, because the music business is notoriously known not to be the healthiest living environment. But we can see from the example of Keith Richards (72) that some people survive almost any dose of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. But for Berry, the music business was just that: a business. This may be because unlike Richards and most other colleagues he had long grown up when his first recordings emerged. At that time Berry had already completed training as a beautician, worked a few years as a janitor and spent his first sentence behind bars. He arose from a musical black middle class family. After work he played with local bands in St. Louis to earn some extra money for himself, his wife and his little children. It was about money and therefore they played what the audience wanted to hear: sometimes Blues, sometimes Jazz, often dance music, but also many standards, country and ballads. What was important was the show, so Berry was not only a stand-up comedian, he also hopped with his guitar duck-walking across the stage, did the splits and other gymnastics. To increase his income, he thought records sales would be helpful. So he went to Chicago to audition for record companies, and ended up at Chess Records, where on 21 May 1955, the first single Maybellene (Chess 1604) originated. Leonard Chess, boss of the company and a tough businessman, managed to get Maybellene onto the radio and on the top spot of the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts. Now the money could flow. However, the money did not flow in Berry's hands. The majority of the royalties ended up at music publisher Arc Music, which belonged to Leonard Chess and the brothers Gene and Harry Goodman. From the author's portion Berry also got only one-third as Chess had registered two uninvolved business partners as co-authors, Russ Fratto and Alan Freed. And the check for record sales would not have been very high either, as Chess musicians were usually paid by the hour. But Leonard Chess knew how to make money. Therefore Berry stayed with the label. He quickly enforced better conditions for himself. Inspired by the success of the first records he became his own manager and learned to read and to formulate contracts properly. By the late '50s Berry had achieved a dozen hits on the Billboard charts and also got a better share of the revenue. But record sales were primarily a marketing tool. You earned the big money from performances, of which in excess of 200 were completed each year. Again Berry was quite a businessman. As early as 1956 he separated from his band-mates. On the one hand their alcohol escapades prevented him from retaining control. Secondly, the band had to be paid, and that amount was taken from his pay. So henceforth Berry went on tour alone. The guitar in hand luggage, the audio equipment provided by the organizers and any vagabond band as a rhythm machine. Payment to be made before the show in cash and off the stage after exactly 60 minutes. Encores? I'm not paid for encores. The scene in the "Rock'n'Roll All Star Jam" DVD featuring a TV concert from 1985 is characteristic. During the grand finale to Rock And Roll Music Ron Wood, guitar in hand, chases Berry, who persistently denies his participation. So no drugs, no sex, only rock'n'roll and only as a business? Not quite. The sex bit shook the well-planned business model over and over again. Many female fans were willing but not always discreet. In 1959 a disgruntled employee brought a criminal charge against him for sex with a minor and he went to prison for one and a half years found guilty of child abuse. In later times pornographic photos and videos, whether real or not, were leaked and published in exposĂ© type magazines. Even as late as in 1990, during a raid on Berry's house, the police found secretly recorded videotapes from the ladies room of his restaurant, which cost him a suspended sentence and a multi-million dollar out-of-court settlement with the victims. Not by chance Berry's biggest selling record is about how he plays around with his Ding-A-Ling. No wonder Queen Silvia of Sweden, an activist against child abuse, had no desire to hand over Berry the Polar Music Prize awarded to him in 2014 for his lifetime achievement. Berry's prison stay in the early '60s virtually destroyed his career. Meanwhile at exactly this time, with the help of his music, many new rock careers started. The Stones, The Beatles, The Beach Boys and thousands of other groups played the Chuck Berry song book from start to finish and sold his compositions by millions. Johnny B. Goode alone was not only played on stages, but also issued on records by nearly 600 artists. There are nearly 400 cover versions of Memphis, Tennessee, with just under 300 covers for both Roll Over Beethoven and Sweet Little Sixteen. Berry had a few hits himself such as Nadine and Promised Land during the mid-'60s, especially in England. But he quickly moved into playing oldies for the most part. This was true for both his concerts as well as his later records which often consisted of well known standards. Even his new songs, often not bad, were based on well-known melodies, supplemented by intelligent lyrics. The lyrics in particular contribute in a large part to Berry's later success. While the music of his records has always been a mix of the familiar, blues, country, jazz, ballads, the lyrics were always original. Berry could easily tell in the two minutes of a single a complete, amusing and catchy story. Nowadays, it's not without reason that Berry is mainly praised by his colleagues for his lyrical poetry. In the '50s with Leonard Chess, Berry had a business partner with whom he could work well for their mutual benefit. After the end of the beat wave he lost his business acumen. He had always given quick money preference over artistic performance in concerts and so a large check lured him in 1966 to Mercury Records. Five albums with poor sales and four unsuccessful singles later, the planned fifth single was sent only to DJs and Berry remorsefully rejoined Chess. However, Leonard Chess had died and the company had become part in a large business group. Although Berry now had professional musical partners, the Woolies and the Billy Peek Band, who accompanied him both on records as well as tours, there was only a short period in 1972 when he scored a few hits again. Live and on these records, he played his oldies. The latest Chess record appeared in 1975. A brief new start in 1979 at Atlantic was unsuccessful. As soon as the Atlantic album was finished, Berry spent another six months behind bars, this time for tax evasion. Until a few years ago from time to time Chuck Berry could be seen on a stage, assuming a Russian oligarch wagged enough cash. Since his 70th birthday and up to October 2014 he performed once a month at the Blueberry Hill in St. Louis together with his children. For Ingrid and Charles Jr. these appearances were likely to be considered as elder-care, for Chuck Sr. they were perhaps the only concerts he played for love rather than money. Unlike the US and many European countries, in Germany the number of Berry records published during the 1950s was pretty low. There have been just five, maybe even only four singles on Deutsche London. It is questionable whether You Can't Catch Me (DL-20085, 1957) was ever released; at least I don't know of anybody who ever saw this record. If you know better, contact me! Even Johnny B. Goode was unissued in this country. During the '60s you could only get Berry's music in Germany on import records, mostly from Funckler in Holland, where from 1963 to 1965 a total of 17 singles called the "Chuck Berry Song Series" were released. Likewise the Funckler LPs were available in this country only as import copies. In 1966 German Vogue tried the single Lonely School Days (DV-14547). There were hints that Vogue also wanted to release some English albums licensed from Pye Records and was probably hoping for additional new releases. However, due to Berry's change to Mercury it seems that this project was abandoned. On the other hand Mercury released no Berry singles onto the German market at all, just some of the LPs. It was only in 1972 that Mercury jumped on the oldies train and published some Berry oldies, though re-recordings from the late '60s. From 1970 on Berry's work was marketed in Germany through Bellaphon. The people from Frankfurt were very active, publishing all the new American albums, but also oldies and rarities. This included seven Chuck Berry singles that Bellaphon brought to the German market between 1972 and 1976, of which My Ding-A-Ling (Bellaphon BF-18138) even got into the lower ranks of the Musikmarkt single charts. Even in the GDR there was an album: Chuck Berry (Amiga 8.55.835, 1981) containing 16 Mercury recordings. Chuck Berry's musical oeuvre is pretty much fully documented. The 16-CD collection Rock And Roll Music - Any Old Way You Choose It (Bear Family BCD 17273 PL), published two years ago, contains virtually every note ever issued on album or single. If you like it even more detailed, HIP-O-Select as part of the Universal Music Group between 2008 and 2010 released three sets of 4 CDs each containing Berry's Chess material, including a lot of alternate takes and outtakes. For the true collector among Berry fans even this is not enough, though. While there are discount samplers almost monthly, in which the same material is released in ever new combinations, sometimes there are also interesting segments to discover. There might be a Oldies Collection enhanced with old interviews, or there is an unknown recording on a bootleg. Recently a CD gave us an old radio spot and a security announcement, which Berry had recorded for an airline. A workgroup of international Berry collectors at irregular intervals write on my website http://www.crlf.de/ChuckBerry about newly issued old recordings, new cover versions or new live CDs containing mostly acoustically or artistically uninspiring, but often historically interesting concert recordings. Collectors are primarily concerned with ancient rarities, such as Alan Freed's private publishing of a soundtrack LP or record covers never seen in stores. Of particular interest is the research about who played what on which Berry song. Here new information arises month after month. Even the two year old discography from the Bear Family Box is already outdated, because in the course of an old court case recording contracts with names and data became known. This case, of course, was also about money. Berry was sued by Johnnie Johnson, who died in 2005, for a share of the royalties because as a partner and pianist Johnson said he not only provided the piano accompaniment for many hits but also the melodies themselves. The case was decided and completed in 2002 in Berry's favor. Private documents submitted by the parties could be recently forensically evaluated. So now we know, for example, that Johnnie Johnson did indeed played the piano on Johnny B. Goode and that on Roll Over Beethoven there really is a trumpet to be heard. Chuck Berry's musical heritage remains exciting, even 90 years after his birth. In 1978 Berry was given a big Birthday cake on the stage of the DĂŒsseldorf Philipshalle, by a topless blonde. Today we do well to wish him health. Happy Birthday, Crazy Legs Berry! The author would like to thank Joe Edwards, the owner of Blueberry Hill Restaurant & Music Club, and his daughter Hope Edwards, photographer and designer, for kindly providing the images [to the original article].
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Wednesday, October 5. 2016A Collector's Dream: Chuck Berry Vinyl Rarities for sale
[UPDATE: All records listed here have found new homes at fellow collectors. Enjoy!]
Dear Chuck Berry collectors! A friend of mine and fellow collector asked me to offer a selection of his Chuck Berry Vinyl records to the readers of this site. He says that he ran out of space and decided to stick with digital copies of these. So here is a stack of records most of us had only dreamed of a couple of years ago. These are some of the most sought-after records in every Chuck Berry collection. And here is a unique chance to get those you are missing. All records below are very rare. They are in extremely nice condition, some even look unplayed. If you are interested in one or more of these, contact me at cbguide@crlf.de. The records are at my location, so I may be able to answer all your remaining questions. Shipping is from Germany to wherever you live. Records are sold for any reasonable amount as the seller asked me to find collectors by heart first before the remainder of the stack will show up on eBay during the upcoming months. If you need one of these, hurry up! Now here's the list of records for sale - a collector's dream:
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Monday, September 5. 2016NEW: The Chuck Berry Database
Starting today, the Chuck Berry Database is online. You'll find links to the database on top of all pages of the main text as well as in the menu to the right of this article. Or simply click HERE.
What is the 'Database'? The Chuck Berry Database contains the full and most accurate information about the musical works of Chuck Berry. This includes the full session data such as date, location or recording takes. It includes the full musicians listings for each song and recording. It has release information which tells you where to find a specific recording. And much more! The database is much more than a full listing. It not only gives a chronological overview. Concurrently it cross-references all the data which allows you to query for instance all the different recordings of Johnny B. Goode. Or to find out which recordings Willie Dixon played bass on. The database is an international joint work by Fred Rothwell, England, by Morten Reff, Norway, and by myself, located in Germany. Also collaborating were Thierry Chanu, France, Arne Wolfswinkel, the Netherlands, and Claude Schlouch, France, plus there was help from record collectors and readers of this page world-wide. It was a tremendous work to collect all the data in the database and to take it to a structure which allows you to get answers to almost any question regarding the music of Chuck Berry. The database project started in the late 1970s, early 1980s. I had a first access to computers and wrote a summary from all the session and recording data which I found on records and in books. By the end of the 1980s I had my own personal computer and database (dBase 2 running on CP/M). All the session data available then was put into the database with the goal to publish it as a book at some time. Over many years the project stalled as I was busy with family and work. Then I learned to know Fred and Morten. Both were working on similar projects, and both had much more data and knowledge than I had. From then on we exchanged letters, later emails and combined our research. In the end, Fred published his "Long Distance information - Chuck Berry's Recorded Legacy" which was much more than a sessionography with lots of well-written comments about each recording. Morten published his four-volume "The Chuck Berry International Directory". Again this was much more than just a discography. It was THE complete and commented discography about all of Chuck Berry's records published world-wide. And I created the "Collector's Guide to the Music of Chuck Berry" on the Internet with hundreds of pages, this blog and much more. Since the release of Fred's book, further recordings surfaced. When Fred wrote the sessionography for the huge 16-CD Bear Family box, readers learned about many additions over the previously published data. And when you look at the database now, you will find even more data and a lot of changes over those two print-versions. The Chuck Berry database contains what Fred, Morten and I believe is the most up to date and most accurate report of Chuck Berry's recorded legacy. Whenever new information comes up, such as a new record or some new recording details, we will integrate it into the database soon. Therefore this will be the ultimate Chuck Berry sessionography. If you have wishes for future extensions of the database or if you have reliable data that is missing or incorrect here, don't hesitate to contact us! Until then: Enjoy!
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Friday, July 8. 2016CBID - The FAST Singles From Belgium
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: Chuck Berry singles on FAST, which is from Belgium indeed. BELGIUM Refering to pages 393 & 400, plus 2089 & 2094, because when this Fast label first turned up in the late â90s, the labels of 1056 and 1068 proclaimed Made In Holland (thatâs why it was placed under Netherlands in Vol.1) which it turned out not to be. Information received after the publication of Vol.1 came from a guy in Belgium who said Fast was actually a Belgian label. As far as we know only 3 releases exists. Let It Rock / Too Pooped To Pop+ Fast 1056 • 1960 Black label with silver print. The A and B sides are switched here as Too Pooped To Pop was the A-side on the original Chess single, however, it really became a double-sider on the Billboard charts. Bye Bye Johnny / Worried Life Blues+ Fast 1068 • 1960 Black label with silver print. B-side credited to Chuck Berry Music, probably because the original Chess single didnât have any credit on this track. Almost Grown / Johnny B. Goode Fast International 1081 • 1960 This release has blue labels with silver print and has added International. Misspelling of Johnny as "Johny B. Goode". And this label donât have Made In Holland as printed on the other two. Monday, June 20. 2016Chuck Berry live in New York 1956Anthony Chanu asked me: Did you notice that the live version of Roll Over Beethoven on the first HIP-O-Select set is different from the version used on the early Radiola album? No, I didn't. But it reminded me that I always wanted to write something about this recording and its releases. Time to do so. Live recordings of early performances of the 1950's Rock'n'Rollers are extremely rare. Even though the artists played hundreds of gig each year, no audience tapes or concert recordings were made. In contrast to the 1970s and onwards, where visitors recorded and saved almost every concert, in the 1950s there was no portable personal audio recording equipment available. Even record companies had no intention to tape the raw public performance instead of using a clean and controlled studio environment. Too much effort, too bad quality. Due to this, the only surviving performance recordings from the 1950s stem from radio and TV broadcast as well as from movies. Movies and TV broadcast however usually had the artists lip-syncing to a playback of their hit records meaning these are not live performances even if some audience is heard. The only surviving true live performances by Chuck Berry recorded in the 1950s are from the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 and from New York, 1956. The Newport recordings were made because some of it was used for the movie "Jazz on a Summer's Day". The story behind the New York recordings is even more interesting: Between March 24 and September 25, 1956, Alan Freed hosted a series of 26 shows on CBS radio. Each show ran half an hour and was called âThe Camel Rock'n'Roll Dance Partyâ. Most of the shows were recorded in New York and produced by WCBS, CBS' New York radio station. The shows from May to mid-June were recorded in Hollywood and produced by KCBS instead because Alan Freed was filming in Hollywood then. Chuck Berry, who was in New York for filming his segment of Alan Freed's "Rock, Rock, Rock" movie, contributed to the twenty-second show which was broadcast on Tuesday, August 28, 1956. Along with him were The Flamingos and Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers. It is not clear when and where the show was recorded. It may have been broadcast âliveâ as most other 1950s radio shows were. Since there is a loud audience to be heard, the venue must have been a smaller theater. Most likely it was CBS-TV Studio 50, now the Ed Sullivan Theater, on Broadway or the theater in CBS' Studio Building at 52nd Street. Many of the original tapes from the Camel Rock'n'Roll Dance Party as used for broadcast have been made available to the public in 2015. You can listen to them at archive.org. In addition the AFRTS (United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service) created transcription records from the broadcasts. These transcription records were then sent out to AFN radio stations worldwide for broadcast to US military in foreign countries. (This image shows a sample AFRTS record label. If you have a label scan of this or any other Rock'n'Roll Dance Party transcription, please email it to the address given under Copyright to the right.) The AFRTS transcriptions were edited over the original broadcast. Most importantly all the advertising spots and the name of the show sponsor "Camel Cigarettes" were removed from the recording. This cut off almost five minutes from each show. In addition AFRTS added a different out cue to the show. The transcription records containing the edited shows were produced in small quantities for the AFN stations abroad. A few of them survived until the 1970s, even though their unusual format of 16-inch diameter required special turntables to play. The AFRTS versions of most of the shows are available from the Old Time Radio Catalog as Audio-CDs. Snippets of these shows taken from the AFRTS disks have found their way to commercial albums and CDs since the 1970s. The first record I know of was Radiola's Rock'n'Roll Radio (Radiola MR-1087) published in 1978. Roughly at the same time a series of five albums called Alan Freed's Rock n' Roll Dance Party (WINS 1010-1014) came out with the same and additional segments from the AFRTS records. The Flamingos' performance of the August 28 show was to be found only on the WINS release, while both Berry and the Teenagers were on both. A CD release containing 27 tracks was published by Magnum Force in 1991 as Rock And Roll Dance Party (Magnum Force CDMF 075). The August 28 show starts with Bern Bennett announcing Alan Freed. Freed then opens the show and introduces his house band led by Sam "The Man" Taylor which start a four-minute instrumental called Pretzel. Next follows a lengthy Camel spot introduced by Freed as "the Camel song". After the advertisement The Flamingos sing A Kiss From Your Lips and, as Freed proudly declares, their upcoming next release The Vow. After this another Camel spot explains in detail while one has to smoke only the sponsor's cigarettes. "And now back to our Camel Rock And Roll Dance Party. And here's the guy that is just the greatest: Chuck Berry and Maybellene!" In less than two minutes Berry runs really fast through his first record. Of the band only the drummer is heard with a short solo. "Wow!" sighs Freed and directly announces the next number: "Chuck Berry and his current bagel, right back to our Camel mike with Roll Over Beethoven!" Again we hear mostly Berry playing both lead and rhythm on his guitar. During the mid-song solo, the crowd hollers and shouts "Go! Go! Go!" indicating that we probably miss seeing Berry duck-walking across the stage. At the very end of the song, one of the sax players cannot step back any longer and adds some answering licks. With "Chuck Berry, just fabulous!" Freed ends Berry's performance. And the show returns to promoting Camel cigarettes. After that Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers perform I Promise To Remember and Why Do Fools Fall In Love followed by another spot featuring the Camel song. The show ends with Sam Taylor and the Big Band going crazy on another instrumental called Look Out! Alan Freed once again praises Camel and finishes the show. As said, the AFRTS edits of the show exclude all the Camel spots as well as all mentions of the sponsor in Freed's announcements. So here it goes "right back to our (cut) mike with Roll Over Beethoven." Maybellene is about 2:00 minutes long and Roll Over Beethoven clocks at 3:10 approximately. But on HIP-O Select's release of the 4-CD set Johnny B. Goode - His Complete '50s Chess Recordings (HIP-O-Select B0009473-02, 2008) this song only runs for 2:44 minutes. And if you listen closely, you will notice that after the solo almost a complete verse is missing and replaced with a segment from the beginning of the show. Why? I asked Fred Rothwell who helped compiling the CD sets. He told me that Andy McKaie of Universal Music had found one tape in the MCA archives containing both the two 1956 live songs and eight unusual Chess studio recordings with artificial audience dubbed. Even though the live songs we not Chess recordings they decided to include them on the set. And this edited version is as it was on the tape. At that time no-one noticed that this was a damaged or repaired track. Fred said that he later became aware of this and when he compiled the recordings for the Bear Family boxset Rock And Roll Music - Any Old Way You Choose It (Bear Family BCD 17273 PL, 2014) the correct and complete track from the AFRTS transcription record was used. Eight unusual Chess studio tracks with audience dubs and the two Camel show tracks on one tape? This made me remember one of the stranger LP albums I have in my collection: Alive And Rockin' (Stack-O-Hits Records AG9019, 1981). This album had the two 1956 live tracks plus eight rarities which at that time were otherwise only known from the American Hottest Wax bootleg (Reelin' 001): previously unreleased versions of Rock And Roll Music, 21 (here called Vacation Time), Reelin' And Rockin', Sweet Little Sixteen, and Childhood Sweetheart along with the undubbed version of How High The Moon plus the previously unknown songs I've Changed (here called just Changed) and One O'Clock Jump (here as Chuck's Jam). All eight tracks were "enhanced" with fake audience on the Stack-O-Hits release. Yes: How High The Moon which was released in 1963 with audience noise and finally came to light in its original form on the Reelin' bootleg, was re-destroyed with different audience noise. Fred confirmed that these are exactly the eight tracks from the mysterious tape in Universal's archive. And yes, the album also contains the edit of the Camel show live recording of Roll Over Beethoven. So this is not new, we only never recognized it. Does this mean that Chess had created another fake live album and released it on the Stack-O-Hits label? Certainly not. In 1981 the Chess archives were owned by All Platinum Records and all they did with it was a hit sampler called The Great Twenty-Eight. So who was Stack-O-Hits Records? Probably no-one at all. Stack-O-Hits was one of a dozen names used by a company called "Album Globe Distribution" (hence the AG catalog number). A.G. was known "notorious for its quasi-legitimate and downright illegal releases. Every record they issued used a different label name, but all have an AG prefix followed by a 4-digit number". (quote from discogs.com) While the album's liner notes praise Berry to have "directly and primarily influenced artists from The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Rod Steward, to Bob Seger, Led Zeppelin and so many more", they completely lie about the origins of the recordings contained: Stack-O-Hits is pleased to be able to bring you this fantastic live performance by Chuck Berry, recorded in his prime, performing not only a selection of his biggest hits, but a taste of gut bucket Chicago Blues and high-flyin' jazz as well. Don't let this get by -collectors take note- these performances are released for the first time here on Stack-O-Hits Records. The only "first time" here was that we didn't knew the modified recordings before. The eight studio tracks were stolen from the Reelin' bootleg and edited to sound "live". The two true live recordings were taken from the Radiola or WINS release. Or more probably they might stem from a broken tape copy of the AFRTS transcription record as this would explain why Roll Over Beethoven was edited (repaired?). How the master tape of Alive And Rockin' came into the MCA archives for Andy McKaie to find it there, stays a mystery. Does anybody know whether other Album Globe bootlegs were re-released by MCA or Universal? Thanks to Fred Rothwell for help with this article!
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Thursday, June 16. 2016CBID - a 2016 Chuck Berry single
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: two singles I have just got hold of. One is a new release from England and the other is something I have just bought on eBay. UK Too Much Monkey Business / Brown Eyed Handsome Man Mabelâs Record Co. 45-M 103 • 2016 Interesting to see a new vinyl release in 2016 of this classic 1956 Berry single. The only negative thing about this is the small centre hole as the use in jukeboxes will be minimal. The sound quality is goode. IRAN Too Much Monkey Business - Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders / (Sibony - Xavier Cuqat / La Paloma - Freddy / Tom Cat - The Rooftop Singers) Iranian Record Distr.Co. 1493/1494 • 1965 Record label out of Teheran. This is NOT a Chuck Berry record so you probably wonder why this is included here. The thing is that I bought it on eBay for believing it was actually Chuck Berry himself on there. But it turned out not to be. It was a cover version by Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders from 1964. All the four songs are really cover versions, so itâs not Xavier Cugat, Freddy or Rooftop Singers performing either. As you will see thereâs nothing on the label saying these are cover versions. The record did cost me around $22.00 so it was an expensive expierence. Wednesday, April 13. 2016CBID - cover versions keep coming
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: A new set of Berry covers I have gathered lately, to be added to the chapter on Chuck Berry covers in Volume 3. It never ends! DEBORAH ALLEN (USA) Singer, songwriter from Memphis, Tennessee, born in 1953. She figured on the country charts for the first time back in 1980, and although she hasnât had that many hits sheâs a prolific songwriter with songs recorded by Tammy Wynette, Rita Coolidge, Fleetwood Mac, Diana Ross, Tanya Tucker, Janie Fricke, Tracey Ullman to name but a few. Run Rudolph Run (2:54) 2013 CD: Rockinâ Little Christmas [Relativity Entertainment 9532] • USA, 2015 Deborah has a voice for rockinâ tunes and it fits perfectly on this Berry classic. This CD it seems was first released in 2013 on Weblast! Records but no more info available. ADOLPHUS BELL (USA) Born 1944 in Luverne, Alabama. A one-man-band who traveled around in the southern states for years playing his â59 Gibson, harmonica, bass drum and high hat, singing soul, blues and old time r&b/rockânâroll songs. He died in 2013. Johnny B. Goode (2:21) 2004 CD: Mississippi Rubberleg [Music Maker Relief Foundation MMCD-175] • USA, 2015 Very simple and honest version, a little unusual really. But the bass drum is a bit annoying in the long run. BLUE LINE (USA) no biographical info. Johnny B. Goode (2:47) 1974 45: Fanfare Studios FM-74062 • USA, 1974 Record label out of El Cajon, California. Record produced by Hal Trimble. T. GRAHAM BROWN (USA) Country artist born in Atlanta in 1954 and has a long career, going back to the 1980s when he had a lot of hits on the country charts, including 3 no.1âs and 8 top 10s. "I Tell It Like It Used To Be" from 1985, "Hell And High Water" 1986 and "Donât Go To Strangers" 1987 have all become classics. Run Rudolph Run (3:05) 2015 CD: Christmas With T. Graham Brown [Mansion Entertainment 5490] • USA, 2015 ROY CAGLE And SNUFF RIDGE (USA) See Volume 3, page 1110 for biographical info. Carol [Oh Caroll] (2:07) 1970s LP: Roy Cagle And Snuff Ridge [Chris Records SS-312] • USA, 1970s â70s country rock. Interesting to notice that out of 12 tracks 4 are Berryâs. The problem I see is that the songs are actually all too short. Why? EMMYLOU HARRIS & The Hot Band (USA) See Volume 3, page 1233 for biographical info. You Never Can Tell [Câest La Vie] (4:14) 1976 (live) CD: Hot Night In Roslyn (Iconography ICON-046] • USA, 2014 Recorded for live FM Radio Broadcast from My Fatherâs Place, Roslyn, New York, 14 September â76. Featuring Albert Lee (guitar), Rodney Crowell (guitar, vocals), Hank DeVito (pedal steel guitar), Glen D. Hardin (piano), Emery Godry Jr. (bass), John Ware (drums). Talking about a hot band !!! SHARI KANE & DAVE STEELE (USA) Wife and husband from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Acoustic blues with guitars, mandolin and National steel slide guitar. They both had their own career when they met in 1991, started performing together in 2010 which led to the recording of "Four Hand Blues", a well acclaimed album release in 2011. Thirteen Question Method (3:07) 2015 CD: Feels Like Home [Kane-Steele 22077] • USA, 2015 Nice to see they included an obscure Berry number as the opening number for their second CD, and it really swings with Dave handlings the lyrics. The album also contains songs from the likes of Robert Johnson, Lonnie Johnsen, Reverend Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt a.o. DINAH LEE (New Zealand) Born Diane Marie Jacobs in 1943. Regarded as the most famous and popular Australasian female singer of the â60s. She was frequently featured on TV back then and had several records released on the Viking label from New Zealand, the first in 1964. On her early singles she was backed by fellow New Zealanders, Max Merritt & His Meteors (see page 1361). She is still active in 2016. Johnny B. Goode (3:26) 2011 CD: Johnny B. Goode Tonight [TFM Productions] • Australia, 2011 Recorded at studio 301 in Sydney, Australia in late 2010. Actually a straight copy of the Peter Tosh version from 1983. Nothing more nothing less. But not bad to record such a song/version in 2011. And it seems to have been very popular. MIKE McDONALD (Canada) Canât find out anything about this artist at all, except that the album was released in Canada, so I would assume that heâs Canadian. Thereâs a clip on YouTube of him performing at an outdoor concert in Pender Harbour, British Columbia, Canada. Johnny B. Goode (4:39) 1983 LP: In The Heart Of Country [Sunshine SSLP-4030] • Canada, 1983 Would you believe, I have never heard this classic performed as a ballad. But it is exactly what it is, a ballad, even the refrain sounds very unusual in this particular arrangement. There is a plain echo on the voice which make it even more weird. No guitar riffs or guitar solo. Piano is the main instrument but just as an accompaniment. BUCK OWENS (USA) See Volume 3, page 1402 for biographical info. Johnny B. Goode (3:22) 1989 (live) 2-CD: Live In San Francisco 1989 [Rockbeat B00V4RGZPM] • 2015 This album was recorded in January â89 at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco, not long after he had been to the studio and finished his new album encouraged by Dwight Yoakam. Buck decided to try and do a little gigging again and this live album is a good proof that he had lost none of his qualities. He reassembled The Buckaroos consisting of Terry Christofferson (steel guitar), Jim Shaw (keyboards, vocals), Doyle Curtsinger (bass, vocals) and new member Jim McCarty (drums). Plus of course Buck himself on guitar and vocals. Had this album been released at the time it would have been a smash! SWING CREW (USA) Check out pages 1364 (Midwesterners) and 1602 (Richard Wiegel) in volume 3 and page 1852 (Midwesterners) in volume 4. Run Rudolph Run (2:59) 2002 CD: Seasonâs Greetings From The Swing Crew [The Swing Crew, no cat no.] • USA, 2003 Acoustic set with Richard Wiegel (The Midwesterners) on vocals and guitars and Dennis Relfsteck on TRIP DADDYS (USA) See volume 3, page 1574 for biographical info. Maybellene (2:02) 2003 CD: Doublewide [Trip Daddys 37126] • USA, 2003 Tuesday, April 12. 2016CBID - yet another Canadian Chess single
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: Another of these Canadian re-issues on Chess Golden Treasures: CANADA Nadine / OâRangutang (instr) Chess Golden Treasures [Quality] CHGT-323X • 1981 Here is another "new" single from Canada which we didnât have before. See pages 273 and 1993 for other records from this series.
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Main PageThis weblog is an addition to my Chuck Berry fansite called "A Collector's Guide to the Music of Chuck Berry" which describes all books and records of interest to everyone enjoying Chuck Berry's music. CategoriesWhat You MissedSome earlier but important entries:
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