The Chuck Berry Collectors Blog

Chuck Berry - 5 Classic Albums Plus Bonus Singles and Rare Tracks

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:27:00 +0100

I'm sorry for the long-winded heading of this blog post, but indeed this is the title of a new CD set I want to talk about today: Chuck Berry - 5 Classic Albums Plus Bonus Singles and Rare Tracks (Real Gone RGMCD011, 2011).
Real Gone Music is a series of CD boxes from Mischief Music Ltd. (Music Melon). Other issues contain eight classic albums each of Elvis, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, and more. The four CDs come in plastic multiboxes and look and feel like vinyl records.
As I said before, I usually do not discuss Greatest Hits albums or re-issues on this site as most of those are of very little interest to a collector. And in most cases I don't even spend any money on such so I don't have it and I do not talk about items here which I don't have.
However, when I recently found this CD set mentioned in a record catalog, I got me one. Four CDs, 87 tracks, at a price of five UK Pounds is an offer one can accept.
When I received the CDs today, I was astonished what I got. Albeit the song sequence is a bit strange, the CD offers everything the title promises, and more. Included are all the tracks from Chuck Berry's first five US albums. If you count the Chuck Berry Twist Greatest Hits album as well, it's even the six first original albums as released until 1962. In addition there are all recordings published during that period which made it only to singles instead of albums. Thus you get everything which was available from Berry during his most successful period.
But there's more. The "rare" tracks mentioned in the title are thirteen recordings originally released on the bootleg LP "America's Hottest Wax" (Reelin' 001, 1979) and later on Chess CXMP 2011 "Chess Masters" in March 1983. Only the 1961 version of Brown Eyed Handsome Man from this album is missing.
These rarities include the Ecuadors tracks published on Argo 5353 in 1959. And finally there are the two Joe Alexander tracks first published 1954 which are said to contain the first Chuck Berry recording.
So we get a fairly complete set of Berry releases at a very reasonable price. What we don't get is a booklet or any additional information besides a track listing and release data. Thus there are no recording details nor even composer credits. The song listing is full of spelling errors and, as said before, the song sequence is quite strange. Basically there are the five albums in chronological order with the tracks in the sequence originally used. The additional single tracks are included at their release date, and the rarities (released 1979) are included at their recording date.
Therefore you'll find the first 1955 recordings here: Maybellene on CD 3, track 3, as it's first album release on Berry is on Top was in 1959. Wee Wee Hours is on CD 1, track 14 due to being part of After School Session (1957). Thirty Days is on CD 1, track 3, since it never made it to one of the early albums thus placed in 1955. And so on.
Besides this strange sequence and the missing booklet, for little money you get a good CD set and lot's of early Berry recordings. Recommended. You can get the album at most record shops. Click here for a list.

Late addition: I should have listened to all the tracks first instead of writing. Morten Reff was so kind to point out that CD 2 contains the alt. take of "Sweet Little Sixteen" twice. Instead the song's 1958 hit version is missing. Thanks, Morten.

Chuck Berry Rocks at Bear Family

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:51:42 +0100

Most of you will know the German Bear Family Records label. Since 35 years, Richard Weize and his team provide and surprise us with countless Rock'n'Roll rarities always at highest quality levels. Bill Haley, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewes, ... all have been presented in huge box-sets from Bear Family, mostly containing tons of rare or previously unissued stuff.
In respect to Chuck Berry, Bear Family has been astonishingly quiet. Fred Rothwell's Long Distance Information reports on an aborted box-set once planned. The only Bear Family release listed in this site's discography is their 52-CD set Geschichte der Popmusik (Bear Family BCD16300) which contains an interview nowhere else to be found.
Therefore it's a great step forward that Bear Family recently released a Chuck Berry album. Called Chuck Berry Rocks (Bear Family BCD17139AR), this is a single, but fully packed CD.

The album comes with 32 tracks and a bit over 80 minutes of rocking Berrys. Bear Family selected the best-known and the best Rock'n'Roll numbers up to Dear Dad, organized chronologically. This can easily serve as one of the best Greatest Hits albums, even though (and goodly so) it misses the Ding-A-Ling.
I usually don't discuss Greatest Hits albums here as they are released by the dozens. I have to make an exception this time, though, out of two reasons. Reason one is the perfect sound quality of this CD. What else is to be expected from Bear Family?
The second reason which makes this new CD a nice addition to every Chuck Berry collection is the enclosed booklet. 52 pages for a single CD. No other label would provide you with such an amount of additional information accompanying the music on the CD. You can almost call this a book with enclosed CD. Bill Dahl describes each and every recording in detail, talking about the recording sessions, introducing the musicians, listing chart entries and integrating interviews. Best is the selection of photos, many from inside the recording studios and often some we haven't seen before.
All in all, this CD set is highly recommended, not only to those who look for Berry's greatest recordings, but also for all the collectors out there. Thank you, Bear Family!

Studio Outtakes - Why?

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:20:37 +0100

I wonder why - ok, that's not a Berry tune.
But I really wonder why someone creates and offers a CD such as "Chuck Berry - Chess Studio Outtakes" (no label, no number, no date).
A reader recently found this CD in an online catalogue and asked me if I knew anything about this release. Well, I know very little but what I know is more than enough.
The CD contains 29 tracks, all of them alternative takes originally not selected for publication. It comes with a nice, professionally looking cover and label, though after closer inspection it looks pretty home-made.
All of the tracks are very well known. In fact all of the tracks are just copies of the same tracks as published on the 4-CD set "Johnny B. Goode (HIP-O-Select B0009473-02)" in 2008.
So why would you want to but this CD if you can get the same contents plus additional three CDs full of Berry and additional studio outtakes and a great booklet and great packaging for around $100 (current retail price for the complete set)? Even if you do not care whether musicians or legal record companies receive income from your payment. (You should - as if you don't who's going to create the next album with really interesting stuff?)
Thus leave this bootleg in the shelves. If you don't have the outtakes already, run and get one of the few copies of the 4-CD set left (e.g. by clicking here).

Sweet Little Eight Variants of Sweet Little Sixteen

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 10:36:00 +0200

[This is a rewrite of a blog article originally posted on September 7th. Additional research revealed more facts and corrected some factual errors in the original post.]

In July I had to correct some common knowledge about Johnny B. Goode. Based on findings by Josep Rulló of Barcelona/Spain we learned that there were some errors with the so-called "complete" release of Berry's 1950s Chess recordings on HIP-O-Select's 4-CD-set Johnny B. Goode (HIP-O-Select B0009473-02).
Josep had another comment:

Sweet Little Sixteen – There's a lot of takes of this song in the Hip-O-Select set, but I think the one first released on the “America's Hottest Wax” LP is not there. I haven't heard that album for ages, but I seem to recall it had a false start (guitar intro only) and a complete take, wherein Chuck mixes the lyrics of the last verse with the lyrics from the first verse, and ends with “back in school again”. This line is not heard on any of the five (well, really four) takes used on the Hip-O CD set.

Josep's email started a long discussion about the various versions of Sweet Little Sixteen which can be found on the 4-CD set. And more importantly with the help of Morten Reff and Fred Rothwell we discussed in detail which versions can NOT be found on the 4-CD set.
The first part of Josep's comment was quite easy to solve. Just like with Johnny B. Goode take 2 the engineers at Universal clipped off the false starts when mastering the 2008 CD set. This happened to both the demo version (track 5 on CD2) and the previously unknown alternate take 11 (track 7 on CD 2). To listen to these false starts (and some studio chatter with the demo) you need to go back to records and CDs published in the 1980s.
The second part of Josep's comment lead into some more detailed discussions about the lyrics Berry sings because musically the multiple takes are very similar. Here's Josep again:

There are several lyrical differences between the available takes, but the most prominent one is in verses 1, 4, 5 and 7. On the master, Chuck sings “Boston, Pittsburgh, PA” in verses 1 and 7, and “Bandstand, Philadelphia, PA” in verses 4 and 5. Taking this as a starting point, you can find several variations. On the demo, take 3 and take 11, he even sings “Bandstand, Pittsburgh, PA” on verse 5, which is wrong not only lyrically, but also geographically !!. Of course, I think Chuck knew the lyrics perfectly, and in most of those takes he was merely trying to get the band together without paying much attention to the words, but this is useful to us today in order to tell one from the other.

By "master" Josep refers to the variant which finally made it to Chess single 1683 released January 1958. Given these lyrical variations one can differentiate between the four variants on the HIP-O-Select box easily:

CD 2, track 5 - the "demo" version with Lafayette Leake on piano. Berry sings about Boston in verses 1 and 7, and about Bandstand in verses 4 and 5, but has the Bandstand mis-placed to Pittsburgh in verse 5.
not on the set - the "demo" version complete with false start, studio talk and an extra guitar note at the end. This was first released on the bootleg LP "America's Hottest Wax" (Reelin' 001, 1979). The first legal release was on a German budget album called "The Giant's [sic] of Rock'n Roll" (K-tel TG 1367) in 1982, though less the false start. In full it appeared on Chess CXMP 2011 "Chess Masters" in March 1983 and Chess LP 9190 "More Rock'n'Roll Rarities" in August 1986. Note that for some reason the HIP-O-Select box only tells the original US releases.
CD 2, track 6 - take 3 of the second recording session, the one which leads to the final recording and has Johnny Johnson on piano. This was unreleased until 2008 when it made it to the HIP-O set. Here Berry sings "Boston" in verses 1, 4, and 7, while the only "Bandstand" in verse 5 is mis-placed to Pittsburgh again. The recording ends with some studio talk.
CD 2, track 7 - take 11, in which Berry puts "Boston" into verses 1 and 4, while verses 5 and 7 are about "Bandstand". Again Berry places the Bandstand to Pittsburgh during verse 5. This recording ends with someone coughing into the microphone. Again this version was unreleased before it was included into the HIP-O set - even though the box booklet incorrectly claims that this version had appeared as an alternate take on "Rock 'n' Roll Rarities" (Chess LP 92521, March 1986).
CD 2, track 8 - take 14. Finally Berry gets the lyrics right in the way we know it: "Boston, Pittsburgh PA" in the first and last verse, "Bandstand, Philadelphia PA" in between, that is verses 4 and 5. The take ends with Chuck joking that they finally got it. This version of take 14, though without the final studio talk, was first released on the 6-LP set "The Chess Box" (Chess 80001) in 1988.
CD 2, track 9 - take 14 again, though without the studio chat and accelerated by five per cent. It is this variant which was finally released as a hit single in 1958.

All of the variants listed above have Berry singing "back in class again" at the end of verse 6. So where is Josep's "back in school again" version?
Indeed there is a recording of Sweet Little Sixteen which is very similar to the final take except for the piano solo and Berry singing "school" instead of "class". This was the next-to-final take 13 of the recording session. Josep found it on Chess RCD024-2 titled "Hail! Hail! Rock'n'Roll", released in Spain in 1991. The take first surfaced on the two-LP set "Rock 'n' Roll Rarities" (Chess LP 92521) in March 1986, though in edited form.
On that double album there is a so-called unreleased version of Sweet Little Sixteen, which is take 13 preceded by a false start. However that false start does not belong to that take! Those who have access to the session tapes tell that the false start actually opens take 11, while take 13 never had a false start. Thus like we have found out with Johnny B. Goode, we must learn that the CHESS/MCA engineers in 1986 created unreleased versions by clipping and pasting parts from multiple takes into what they found to be a reasonable sequence.
This also explains why the HIP-O set contains take 11 and claims that this was a known take: The engineers at HIP-O found the take with the previously known false start (take 11) and included it in the set, without noticing that the take did not continue as known - and in addition they clipped off the false start, which was the only segment of the take known before.
Thus for now we have to add the following variants to our list:

not on the set - false start of take 11, originally released as the first part of the so-called unreleased version on "Rock 'n' Roll Rarities" (Chess LP 92521, March 1986).
not on the set - take 13 in which Berry sings "back in school again" during verse 6, originally released as the second part of that unreleased version. In unmodified form released on "Hail! Hail! Rock'n'Roll" (Chess RCD024-2, Spain 1991)

This now makes sweet little eight Chess studio recordings and variants of this famous tune. Only five of them are on the HIP-O-select box. So far for "complete" ...

For the sake of completeness I do not want to forget to tell that there is another studio recording of Sweet Little Sixteen made 1966 for Mercury. You can easily distinguish that one from the 1958 versions by the prominent tambourine playing.

I want to end this long post with another comment from Josep:

Man, can you believe the hours we've all spent listening to those takes? It shouldn't be that difficult to sort this out!!! If this isn't love for the music, then I don´t know what it is...

Quality Gold Collection GC-318X - Rare tracks on budget single

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 10:38:00 +0200

Morten Reff's book series "The Chuck Berry International Directory" documents and describes all Chuck Berry records ever released world-wide. The first volume contains all the US American and British releases plus most of the records officially released in other countries. Since the book was printed, additional records have been released. And collectors from all over the world reported additional obscure records. All these will be listed in a future volume of this series. Until then, we will report on some of the more interesting additions here.

One record missing from the Canadian discography is number GC-318X of the Quality Gold Collection of singles. The record is shown below. The interesting bit about this single, as Morten told, is that it looks like ordinary hit versions. However, they are not. Sweet Little Sixteen is the demo version and Reelin' And Rockin' is the alt. take, both of which first heard on the American Hottest Wax bootleg. The labels say (c)1981, but this is very unlikely as the first legal releases of these takes were in 1983 (UK) and 1986 (US).

If you know an exact release date of this single, post a comment here.

Vintage Masters CD from Wolfgang's Vault

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 19:08:27 +0200

In early 2008 I wrote a blog article on the various recordings of Chuck Berry concerts in San Francisco in 1967. Three of these shows are only available for listening online at Wolfgang's Vault, a commercial site which runs on the archives of promoter Bill Graham.
In this blog article I explained a legal (at least here) method to create an audio CD from the online show. And guess what, someone did!
On eBay and in various places you can now find a CD titled "Career on the riffs", which contains the show of December 29th, 1967. The CD has a label (Vintage Masters) and a number (VMCDR-116). The cover looks professionally made, but all in all the CD is handmade: a burned CD and a home printed cover.
Since Wolfgang's Vault does not allow you to sell CD copies of their contents, this seems to be an illegal copy. Let me know if you know better.

By the way: The creators of this CD cannot have learned about it here, because if they had, they would have omitted Steve Miller from the printed band listing.

Chuck Berry live 2008 on David Dover's Soul album

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:40:00 +0200

Thanks to Morten Reff I learned about a new CD album called "Dover Soul" by David Dover. This 2010 CD contains a segment of a show Dover performed with Berry on June 14th, 2008. David Dover told me:

I was hired to do all of the production for the show and it was at the Mabee Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Mabee Center is a large venue on the Oral Roberts University Campus. It's where Elvis used to play when he came to Tulsa. I did all the lighting and all the sound for the show. My band was the opening act and also played as Mr. Berry's band.

The CD comes with a ten-minute excerpt from Berry's performance. Though titled "Johnny B. Goode" on Dover's CD, you hear the complete closing segment of the show. First Berry performs his best-known song, then he continues with his usual closing routine asking for girls to dance on stage while Berry and the band run through a variant of what was once published as "House Lights" on the 1979 Rockit album.
The back cover of the CD shows Dover along with Berry on stage:

I asked David Dover how he came to record the Berry show and more importantly how he got Berry's permission for that.

I told Mr. Berry that I was going to record and he had no objections so I proceeded to do so. I recorded the entire show but Johnny B. Goode was the best of the bunch so that is the one I included on my album.

In contrast to a hundred of audience recordings made from Berry shows over the last decades, here we have a recording that is at least technically very good. Musically it is what you expect from an eighty-year old rock'n'roller. The backup band is better than most of the local pickup bands Berry uses when on the road, though not as good as the family line-up he plays with in St. Louis. When you look at a short video recording from this show, you see that Berry's friend, tour manager and bass player Jim Marsala was present on stage and guiding the band as he usually does.
The album is available from most of the large Internet shops. Click here for some links. The CD looks quite handmade. Even though I received a sealed copy through amazon, the disk is just a burned CD, not a pressed one. Likewise the cover seems to be made with a home printer. Song titles and running times are printed onto the CD only. Just like the recording information also writer credits are missing. I'm pretty sure that Dover did not write Who'll Stop the Rain by himself.
You can listen to an excerpt from Johnny B. Goode here or use the link to purchase the entire audio file.

[Additions to original post of 2011-08-06]
David Dover was so kind to provide us with additional information about this CD. In reply to my "handmade" comment he explained:

I have a publishing company and I own my own label so I suppose it would be considered an Indie label. I have the neccessary gear to produce a CD of good quality. A also have a Sony machine that mass produces them, so basically I am my own record company. I also own a shrink wrap machine to wrap the CDs. I have everything the big companies have except the money to promote myself.

Right you are, David. Therefore here's the place for me to promote your album. Recommended!
In addition David listed the following musicians as playing the Mabee Center concert: David Dover (guitar and vocals), Rick Heck (drums), Dave Russell (sax and vocals), Chip Anderson (bass and vocals), Rick Morrow (piano and vocals), Ricky Paul (guitar).

Thanks to Morten Reff and David Dover for help with this blog article.

Johnny B. Goode take 3 isn't - I mean take 3

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:48:00 +0200

Because it probably is his most important recording, Johnny B. Goode has been the topic of several comments and discussions in this blog before. (see here and here)
Common knowledge is that besides the well-known version as released in 1958, there is a so-called alternate version "Take 2/3" which consists of a short version of the famous guitar intro (take 2) followed by some studio talk and then continuing into a complete track (take 3).
On the HIP-O-Select 4-CD set of same name (HIP-O-Select B0009473-02) one can listen to both versions one after the other (CD 2, tracks 20 and 21). And if you listen carefully you will notice that take 3 and the finally released version are exactly the same recording. As Fred Rothwell explained in this blog, common practice for Berry was to play the intro and the rhythm first, while further lead guitar segments were overdubbed later. Thus track 20 (take 3) on the HIP-O-Select CD is the undubbed version and track 21 is the overdubbed version.
That's what common knowledge said. But then I received an email from a reader of this site who noticed something strange. Josep Rulló from Barcelona/Spain wrote:

We are missing the complete alternate take first used in the “Rock´n´Roll Rarities” album in the 1986. This complete take, identified as take 3, is very noticeably different from the master.
I mean, it´s great to have the basic track for the master (the undubbed master take), but I think somebody really got their wires crossed at Hip-O regarding this. Why did they leave the excellent alternate take out and, what´s more, splice the undubbed master take after the “Johnny B. Goode, take 3” voice?. They could have included everything as a great sequence that would have shown the recording process very clearly.

What Josep did - and none of the other collectors including me - was to compare the "Take 2/3" track on the HIP-O-Select box with the "Take 2/3" track as originally released by MCA/CHESS in 1986 on the double album "Rock'n'Roll Rarities" (Chess LP 92521). And when you compare these two, you will notice some minor differences and some major differences.
The minor differences are an additional false start of take 2 on the 1986 version, which is missing on the 2008 version which in turn has Leonard Chess shouting "Johnny B. Goode, take 2" at the beginning.
The major difference is that the 1986 version of take 3 is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT RECORDING from the take 3 on the 2008 CD. It has a much longer and different piano solo between the second and third verse which you can easily use to tell the versions apart.
I wonder if someone can shed some more light on this. So far this is my theory:
When Steve Hoffman of MCA/CHESS created the "Rock'n'Roll Rarities" album, he not only remixed some of the 1960s recordings. He and his team also found an unreleased version of Johnny B. Goode and some studio chatter about the recording of the song. So they took the aborted take 2, the following discussion, and the unreleased version (rumor goes that this is take 1) and combined those to what they called a "previously unreleased version". Note that they did not claim the unreleased take to be take 3. They just moved it after the studio discussion, not before. And because that studio talk ended with Len Chess introducing "Take 3" we all came to believe that the unreleased take was indeed take 3.
As it seems, this also fooled the engineers at Universal when they compiled the so-called "complete" CD set. They were supposed to add takes 2 and 3, so they took the master tapes and used takes 2 and 3 - the real takes 2 and 3. This is how the real take 3, which by incident is the undubbed master of the hit version, went into production. They clipped off the false start from take 2 (bad) and added Len Chess's introduction (good). But no-one noticed that the complete track was notably different from the 1986 version.
Thus we have to note that there are these studio versions of Johnny B. Goode:

Take 1: Recorded on January 6th, 1958. This was first released in 1986 on "Rock'n'Roll Rarities" as the second part of the so-called unreleased version
Take 2 incl. false start: Again first released on "Rock'n'Roll Rarities", this is the first part of the so-called unreleased version
Take 2 incl. announcement: First released in 2008 on the HIP-O-Select boxset, again this is the first part of the so-called "Take 2/3" but has the false start replaced with a spoken introduction
Take 3 without lead guitar: First released on the Hip-O-Select boxset as the second part of the "Take 2/3" track
Take 3 with overdubbed lead guitar: First released in 1958 on CHESS single 1691 this is the well-known hit version
Mercury version: Just for completeness - There exists another studio recording made on September 21st, 1966 and first released in 1967 on "Golden Hits" (Mercury MG-21103). This can be easily identified by the use of tambourine and saxophone.

We have to say a big THANK YOU to Josep twice: First for finding out the differences, and second for telling us!

Chuck Berry for Jukeboxes only

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 11:18:47 +0100

There are various white-label not-for-resale records containing Chuck Berry material. For a full discussion see this site's chapter on Radio and Promotional Records.
From Italy there are some not-for-sale records which seem to be used in jukeboxes only. At least this is what the two Italian singles below say.
CADET 2742 is the same as the original US single Tulane b/w Have Mercy, Judge and as such could be a normal DJ copy.
Durium 7811 however is different. It contains the 1972 live version of Reelin' and Rockin', though shortened to 2:45 minutes. The usual single edit is approximately four and a half minutes long. This edited version is ONLY available on this Italian record. In addition the song is coupled with a different artist's hit: Don't Ha Ha by Casey Jones is on the flip side. This indeed does not look like a DJ Copy but as if produced exclusively for jukebox use.

There are two questions: Does anyone know of other jukebox-only records? And especially for our Italian readers: Have these records only used in jukeboxes? Write a comment if you know something about these singles.
[Addition thanks to Morten Reff:] The same shortened version of Reelin' and Rockin' is also on the Italian single Cadet (Durium) DE-2796, though with Berry's I Will Not Let You Go on the flip side.

Layout and contents changes

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:19:26 +0100

As you might have already seen, the Collector's Guide to the Music of Chuck Berry looks a bit different than before.

I tried to make the site better readable. This includes different fonts and colors, but most importantly it includes the placement and size of images.

All cover scans are now placed in separate columns to the left and right of their corresponding description. This leads to some images displaying slightly smaller than before. However, as you certainly know, you can click on each and every image to see a larger and higher resolution version.

The site should display correctly on all of the common browsers both on computers and smartphones. Please check with your equipment. You may need to refresh the display in order to have your browser show the most recent version and not a cached copy you looked at before. If you encounter any display problems with the new look please let me know in email. Include a short description of your equipment.

While working on the layout I also included several changes to the contents. This includes a few new images, some changes to descriptions, and correction of a few factual or spelling errors. Enjoy!

Cohen: The Record Men - Don't buy it!

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 13:50:12 +0100

This site's bibliography section lists and comments all the relevant books about Chuck Berry and his work.
One of the books discussed is Rich Cohen's history of Chess Records called Machers and Rockers. As you can see, I found this book hard to read and full of errors. My recommendation was not to spend any money on it.
I recently learned that Cohen wrote a second book on the same topic. The title is "The Record Men: The Chess Brothers and the Birth of Rock & Roll". It have not been able to find out when it was released but I hoped he had taken the opportunity to correct all the flaws in his first book.
So I recently ordered this second book only to find that I became victim of a rip-off, unfortunately common among book publishers nowadays.
"The Record Men" is NOT a second Rich Cohen book! It is just the paperback edition of "Machers and Rockers" retitled. They have not changed a single word other than the page headers. Nowhere it tells that it's a reprint except for the Library of Congress Catalog entry. They even falsified the Larry King quote on the cover (unless King praised both books with the same words).
I did not recommend the hardcover edition, but I strongly discourage you to even look at this rip-off reprint.

Boxes for the Japanese Mini-LPs

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 17:31:00 +0100

When I first wrote about the new series of 16 Chuck Berry album replicas issued by Universal Music Japan, I complained that I do not understand why they do not offer hard, rigid boxes with the Mini-LPs to keep them safe.
I'm not alone as I learned. For some reason, Japanese album replicas are always sold in paper sleeves only. Only in rare circumstances a CD manufacturer will put several albums of a series in a box, though these then do not sell separately.
However, there's a market for Mini-LP boxes. To put the albums in a safe place, some companies offer blank boxes to carry a certain number of Mini-LPs. Here's one offer: Blank Mini-LP Boxes
And then there is a huge Japanese record shop chain called Disk Union. They sell many Mini-LPs and they want you to buy all of a series, not just the few you really want. Therefore Disk Union often produces promotional boxes which not only are huge enough to hold the whole series, but also are printed with information about the series or with the cover of one of the albums contained. For the Chuck Berry series Disk Union has produced two different boxes, one to hold the first eight albums, a second to hold the remaining eight Mini-LPs. These boxes are NOT sold separately. The only way to get them is to purchase the complete set of albums with it. And these boxes are not shipped by Disk Union to buyers outside Japan.
I have not been able to get the boxes from Disk Union or even a good photo thereof, although they were very responsive to my queries. However, thanks to Douglas Caldwell and Tiger Mountain Music I am able to show good photos of the boxes. Tiger Mountain Music imports the Disk Union sets from Japan and resells them from Canada. If you are interested in buying the boxes (and the included albums), check out their eBay store at Tiger-Mountain-Music.

These photos are copyrighted by Tiger Mountain Music and used here with permission. Click on the images to see the box in detail.
Here's a link to an offer of the two boxes by Tiger Mountain Music: click
For more information about Mini-LP boxes in general, visit the minilps.net site.

More Chuck Berry rarities on eBay

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:09:15 +0100

Again, Christmas time is near. So here is another set of eBay items a Chuck Berry collector may want. As said in the last blog post here, these are some true rarities, not offered often.
You can click on the items to go directly to the corresponding eBay page. In case you bid: Good Luck!

Chuck Berry rarities on eBay

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 13:02:01 +0100

In case you have kept a wish for Christmas, you may have a look on these eBay items. These are some true rarities, not offered often.
You can click on the items to go directly to the corresponding eBay page. In case you bid: Good Luck!

Japan Mini-LP Series Bonus Tracks - pt. 4

nospam@example.com (Dietmar Rudolph) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 11:38:41 +0100

Sorry for letting you wait for the final remarks on the new series of album replicas issued by Universal Music Japan.
Here's the fourth summary of bonus tracks hidden on the re-issues. [Read part 1] [Read part 2] [Read part 3]
These are the last three albums originally released by Chess Records in the 1970s. And for some reason only known to the Japanese compilers, they also added a re-issue of the single Chuck Berry album released by MCA in the late 1980s. As you can see, the bonus tracks are the same recordings as published on the American four-CD sets, again added where they fit.

Album	Original Number	Re-issue Number	Bonus Tracks
The London Chuck Berry Sessions	CHESS CH-60020	UICY-94636	the five additional recordings from the Lancaster Arts Festival the single edits of Roll 'Em Pete and My Ding-A-Ling South of the Border (live BBC 1972)
Bio	CHESS CH-50043	UICY-94637	Blues #1 Annie Lou Me and My Country One Sixty Nine AM Roll Away
Chuck Berry (1975)	CHESS CH-60032	UICY-94638	Turn On the House Lights Jambalaya The Song of My Love Johnny B. Blues Dust My Broom Here Today Rockin'
Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll	MCA MCA-6217	UICY-94639	no bonus tracks

Note: Clicking on the re-issue number takes you to sellers of this CD.