Non-Berries

My hometown of Essen, Germany is in the center of a densely populated area with more than five million people. There's all kind of cultural activities here, which is expressed by the town's election to be Europe's Culture Capital 2010.
However, while there is lots of music, true Rock and Roll is not found very often. And I don't count yesterday's concert of ZZ Top as true Rock and Roll
Things changed on Thursday, when "Buddy" the probably well-known musical about Buddy Holly premiered at the Colosseum Theater. I had the opportunity to see the show and join the after-show party. So here's my biased review:
Alan Janes wrote this musical about Buddy's life in the late 1980's. It premiered in London in 1989. Since then multiple versions have been touring world-wide. The German version is best known from it's multiple year stay in Hamburg where a special musical hall was built right in the center of the Hamburg harbor. The updated new version will be played in Essen for the next months.
The piece is not really a musical. It is in fact a tribute concert presenting a sequence of Holly's greatest hits. A large part of the first half and the complete second half are more a concert than anything else. There are just a few spoken scenes in the whole second half. All the rest is pure music. However, a Buddy-Holly-Revival concert can easily go wrong if the artists cannot sound the way we all know from the original records. But here it did not go wrong!
The whole cast has to be both actor and musician as all songs are played live on stage. There is no band behind in the wings. When the "Crickets" perform, they really do. Best of all was Matthias Bollwerk acting as the title role. Matthias is a local singer, just 22 years old, and was intended to be the backup for Buddy Holly. But as Dominik Hees hurt his knee two weeks ago, Matthias became the number one act. And he took his chance. He looks like the young Buddy Holly, acts funny and realistic, plays his guitar quite well, and he performs both the fast songs and the slow ones excellently. I liked best the scene when just he and Maria Elena (Yara Hassan) sat on the empty stage with Matthias singing "True Love Ways" accompanied just by his acoustic guitar. Great!
They even included Chuck Berry music: In the first part, the Crickets perform "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" quite well. They even got most of the lyrics right. The second part ends with the stage getting dark and a radio voice announcing the death of the three stars. When the lights go on again, we see most of the cast walking slowly across the stage like at a burial. Then a female singer starts singing a slow blues, just two lines: "Deep down in Lousiana ...". Another singer picks up the bluesy rhythm with the next two lines of text. And so every member of the cast gets his segment of "Johnny B. Goode" which accelerates a bit with every other singer. When Ritchie Valens (Vinicius Gomes) and JP Richardson (Patrick Stanke) enter the stage, the songs almost reached the original speed. Then Buddy Holly comes through the audience, unpacks his guitar and performs the whole song again. To me this was one of the finest versions of this Chuck Berry song I ever heard. I have to admit, that the audience did not get it. During the bluesy phase, nobody near me even moved or recognized the song. And I admit that the Buddy Holly fans I later talked with had preferred the use of a Holly composition here.
Talking about fans, very little were there. Stage Entertainment had invited more than 1,000 people to the premiere and after-show party, but I doubt more than twenty of them were true Rock and Roll fans. So while the majority enjoyed U.S.-style food, meeting lower-class celebrities, or dancing to recent pop music (not a single Buddy Holly record was played all night long), I had great talks with Klaus Kettner (Germany's number one Bill Haley expert), Heinz-Günther Hartig (Germany's most knowing Buddy Holly fan), and Dieter Moll (the walking encyclopedia on Rock and Roll music).
In any case I had a great evening listening to a very good Buddy Holly cover band, meeting with friends and learning about one of the best versions of "Johnny B. Goode" I ever listened to.

[Disclosure: Stage Entertainment provided me with a free ticket and access to the after-show party.]

[Addition, Jan 21st, 2010]
In the meantime there is a live recording available which includes both Chuck Berry covers, though sung by Dominik Hees. Also included is a nice bonus track called Buddy to Buddy which is a duet version of True Love Ways sung by both Buddys, Dominik and Matthias. Recommended listening. Click here to listen to excerpts of the songs or to purchase the CD.

I rarely use the word, but I HATE spammers. They are the true 21st century pest.
Whoever praises 21st century social networks, the Web 2.0, or whatever you call it, they totally mask out those who abuse all the interesting things.
Indeed it is an interesting opportunity when readers can comment articles or add useful information thereto. This weblog was my testbed for an interactive webpage, a place where you could add opinions to what I write.
However I had to learn what does not work:

• Trackbacks
  Trackbacks are an automated way to link related information over many weblogs. So if I link to some text on a different blog such as Tulane's, the other blog will receive an automatic notification and can then link back to my page. Vice versa if someone links to a blog entry here, you should see a trackback URL next to the article. Useful, but abused. I had to shut down this feature within the very first weeks as all trackbacks I received were from spammers pointing to totally unrelated sites.
• Unrestricted comments
  You are free to comment on the articles here and I welcome you to do so. But the very first comments placed here had nothing to do with the topics but were instead automated spam messages. So I added a captcha (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart). This is the image you have to read before placing your comment. Only humans can read the characters in the image, so spam bots are locked out.
• Unmoderated comments
  OK, I never allowed unmoderated comments because I know that readers tend to put unrelated questions into comments, rude language or private data. So every comment you post is read by me first then then published here.

So you think this should be sufficient to exclude all the spammers? Wrong. Here's an excerpt from a comment just posted to the article "Rare 1970's Vinyl Boots on ebay":

You might think for a pair of practical and fashion boots to pass this winter. Now I will introduce this brand to you.

Get it? Someone wrote a comment on boots = shoes to my article on bootlegs! And the comment of course included lots of links to the super cheap boot store.
How can this happen? Someone broke the captcha system and had a computer post the comment? No, worse:
To post such kind of spam into weblogs and other kinds of social networks, spammers employ poor people in Africa or China who spend the whole day reading the Internet locating keywords. And when they find an article about "boots" they manually post the spam message. Isn't that horrible? you see why I hate spammers?

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

    

I got a comment on my page on Chuck Berry cover versions last week. John Barber wrote:

I was in a 60s band called "The Scorpions". We recorded two singles at Abbey Road. The second single was a cover of Chuck Berry's "Rockin' At The Phil" (Rock At The Philharmonic). Recently a colleague suggested that our recording might be the first UK cover of a Chuck Berry number. We recorded a demo in December 1960, the EMI release was in May 1961 on Parlophone R4768 Rockin' At The Phil b/w Scorpio. Do you have any info that might confirm whether we were the first band to cover a Chuck Berry tune?

Interesting question, John. I don't have information about all the cover versions of Berry songs, but I know someone who does. So here's Morten Reff's reply to my question:

What a nice surprise. This cover version from the UK Scorpions in 1961 is just fantastic, also because it's very different from Berry's original, very fast and very rockin'. A US group called "The Legends" recorded a very similar version in 1961 but it was not released at the time. However, The Scorpions did a much better job technically! And by the way, there are no other covers of this Berry tune, as far as I know. Unfortunately, there were some Berry covers from the UK before the Scorpions. However, they were at least the very first group ever to cover this Berry instrumental and get it released on record, if that helps.

If you want to read more about the 1960s Scorpions (not the German band of Wind of Change fame), look at the band's website here.

This morning my radio clock woke me up with one of the more or less ubiquitous christmas songs. I did not listen until the song faded out with the singer reading from his wishlist:

Now let's see, I want:
a new Rickenbacker guitar
two Fender bassmans
a Chuck Berry songbook, ...

Hey, that guy is one of us, I thought. So I queried the radio stations website to find out singer and title. It's "Christmas All Over Again" written and sung by Tom Petty. Next I checked Morten Reff's new Chuck Berry International Directory, Volume 2: Chapter 13 lists Songs with lyrics that mention Chuck Berry. Unfortunately Petty is not listed there, probably because this is some kind of rare song. As far as a quick search turned out, the song has only been published on a charity album called "A Very Special Christmas 2" in 1992.

Did you recently go to the movies? I usually don't. But by accident this week I got to watch Walk Hard – The Dewey Cox Story.
This 2007 movie is a complete biography of a Rock'n'Roll star – yet a fictional one. Dewey Cox as a kid learns to play the Blues, plays in a Highschool band, steps in for a famous singer and becomes a star on its own. Sex, drugs and Rock'n'Roll now guide him through his life – to prison, rehab, and comeback. The funny thing is that this biography combines everything you ever read about the rock stars' life.
Dewey meets a karate Elvis. He visits the Maharishi with the Beatles. And of course he works for Jewish brothers running a record company. There's an episode on a Sonny&Cher-like TV show. His band breaks up during a many-months-long work on a new song with full orchestra (including a goat) with Dewey looking like Brian Wilson. And there's a Dylan-style folk protest concert.
You have to know the common rock stars and their biographies to get most of the jokes, but if you do, this is really funny. And you may learn that Punk was invented in the late 1950s. Highly recommended!

A few weeks ago I wrote about Peter Guralnick's books on Elvis Presley. During this I said that the huge Elvis biography lacks detailed information about Elvis's recording sessions. But, I said, there are other books which fill this gap.
Several readers then wanted to know which books I had in mind and what would be the best book on Elvis's recording sessions. The one I recommend is Elvis Presley - A Life in Music, written by Ernst Jorgensen. Ernst started as a record collector and Presley fan trying to find out who played which instrument on which session and when. In later years he became Marketing Director for BMG which owns RCA Records. And finally he became the RCA man for re-releasing Elvis's recordings thus having access to all the session tapes and documents.
So if not Ernst, who else would be able and willing to fully document Presley's recording history? Elvis Presley - A Life in Music is the ultimate book describing each and every recording session between 1953 and 1977. All the musicians are listed, all recorded songs whether released or not, original sources for the released versions, studio talk and much more. There is not much to add to this book and if you really want to find something to criticize, it would be that Ernst concentrates on the official RCA releases, leaving out bootlegs and such. But that's what you expect from an RCA executive.
If you are listening to Elvis music, you need to have this book!

Many of you will know that I regularly write for the German-language Rock'n'Roll Musik-Magazin. In October 2007 the magazine celebrated their 30th anniversary at the opening of the Bill Haley Museum in Munich, Germany. Even though I was invited, I could not participate due to business reasons. But when a business trip lead me to Munich last week, I took the opportunity and reserved some time to at least visit the museum.
So I entered a taxi (for Americans: a cab) and told the driver to take me to the Bill Haley Museum. 'To what?' he replied, 'I work as a sight-seeing guide here in Munich, but such a museum does not exist.'
Well, I had the street address (Schleissheimerstr. 321) and when we got there, the taxi driver was astonished to see a large sign guiding the way to the museum. He immediately made a note of this to take guests thereto in the future.
The museum opens in the afternoons only, but owner Klaus Kettner was so kind to let me in early and provided me with a private guided tour. The photo below (click to enlarge) shows Klaus Kettner (to the right) during the opening of his Bill Haley Museum, along with H.-Günther Hartig (Rock'n'Roll Musikmagazin), Bill Turner (ex Bill Haley's Comets), Mike Berry (Tribute to Buddy Holly), and Rainer Koschorz (Buddy, the musical).

Klaus is a full-time concert promoter (Rock It Concerts), record label owner (Hydra Records), and also runs the Hydra Records store in Munich. But most of all Klaus is a Rock'n'Roll fan and collector just like you and me.
Having collected Bill Haley material for decades, Klaus decided to present his collection to the public. The Bill Haley Museum is located right next to the Hydra Records store. It is a 1000 sqft room stuffed with memorabilia about Bill Haley and the Comets.
This indeed is a impressive collection, and all of it is professionally presented: As you would expect, there are all the original records, from the oldest 1940s releases or the most obscure Mexican albums. Among many other displays, there's a huge showcase dedicated to Rock Around the Clock alone, including records from all over the world, session details such as photos and contracts, handwritten notes, original advertising and more. You'll see tons of promotional material, autographs, songbooks, newspaper clippings, concert posters, film reels and so on - all original, of course.
But besides what you and me might have in our collections in some form or another, Klaus also owns and shows Haley's Golden Records, original instruments and stage clothing, union cards, handwritten letters, awards presented to Bill Haley and much more. Many of these items you have never seen before and never will. If you ever come to Munich, take your time to visit the Bill Haley Museum!
And while you are there, take a look at the Hydra Records store. I have never seen a more extensive offer of contemporary Rock'n'Roll CDs. Where other CD shops have two or five different Chuck Berry CDs in stock, Hydra Records stocks at least two dozens. These include some hard-to-find ones such as Chuck Berry meets Matchbox, His London Recordings, Deliver Me From the Days of Old, or the long out-of-stock CD version of Concerto in B. Goode. Highly recommended!

It's been a time since my last post here. There were two good reasons for my absence.
Basically I was busy. I have a business to run besides telling you about Chuck Berry's music. And this meant that while Berry was touring Europe and even performing in Germany, I was flying over the Atlantic heading the other direction multiple times doing business in the U.S. That left no time for writing articles here.
The second reason I didn't have time was related to this, but also completely unrelated. Heading multiple ten-hour flights, I went to my favorite book store to purchase some books to read during the long stays on board. And while browsing the Rock Music shelves, I came across two books I wanted to read since they first appeared in 1994 and 1999 but never found the time to do so. So I purchased Peter Guralnick's extensive biography on Elvis Presley. These are two very thick books so I needed more than just the flight times. And in fact I spent many hours afterwards finishing these. And this left no time to work on this blog as well.
I like Guralnick's writing since his 1971 "Feel Like Going Home" which among other things covered Chess Records in detail. This guy really knows what he is talking about. And this knowledge and detailed research can be seen on each and every page of this large two-volume work.
"Last Train to Memphis — The Rise of Elvis Presley" covers Elvis's life up until September 1958, while the second volume "Careless Love — The Unmaking of Elvis Presley" starts there and continues to Elvis's death in August 1977. You need to read both and you need to have time to do so. Together they have more than 1.400 pages, depending on which edition you get. I read the German translations which are even more voluminous. If you can find them, get the hardcover bindings as this number of pages is simply too much for a paperback.
What makes these two books outstanding is not their huge volume, it is their factualness. Whenever you read something about 1950's rock stars, and especially about Elvis, you are confronted with a huge pile of myths, covered by fandom. As said, Guralnick is different. Everything he writes is at least backed by facts and based on interviews with the people who were there. And where people's recollections do not match with each other or with published facts from newspapers or magazines, Guralnick tells you so. Not without reason, the books have thousands of footnotes with links to sources or additional comments.
However, while staying to the facts could make a reading boring, this here is not. Guralnick is really good at telling stories. Even though you already know the end of the story, you may not want to stop reading. Well, at least I didn't. Whether you learn about Elvis's way of recording, whether you read about him making films and concert tours, or whether you wonder about how his various girlfriends and the Memphis Mafia formed his closed world, this is not boring at all. The main aspects of the book are the people. Guralnick tries to find out and explain the personalities of Gladys, Vernon, Priscilla, Col. Parker, and all the other people who basically formed the man. And he tries to look behind the curtain to show the man himself, what he said, what he did, what he thought. While the end result of such could be questionable, with Guralnick's in-depth research it is not — or at least it sounds as if not.
Even such a voluminous work needs to omit things when it covers a complete lifetime of little more than 40 years. What I miss the most, especially in comparison to the contents of this site here, is the musical facts. While Guralnick writes about the recording sessions and about record releases, these comments are of very low priority. So if you are interested in when Elvis recorded Berry's "Promised Land" and how this was released, this is not the book for you. Such facts are hidden in half a sentence somewhere in between these hundreds of pages. I wish Guralnick had added a short appendix listing Elvis's records and movies, just for reference. But there are other Elvis books which fill these gaps. Also some more photographs would have been desired, especially where Guralnick writes about a special photo.
In any case, this two-volume biography is one of the best books on Rock music I have ever seen! Highly recommended!