Chuck Berry Rarities - 2

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

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

This is the fourth part of this series and it covers a record which isn't really a Chuck Berry bootleg.

John Lennon (featuring Yoko Ono & Chuck Berry) - Telecasts - Trade Mark of Quality 71046 (and multiple other labels/numbers)

Of all bootleg records containing unreleased Chuck Berry recordings, this one is probably the best-sold and the one of which the most variants exist. This is because it's not a Chuck Berry bootleg at all. Telecasts is a John Lennon bootleg, but it contains two recordings from the Mike Douglas TV show of February 3rd, 1972. In this show, co-hosted by Lennon, the ex-Beatle invited Berry as a guest performer. Two songs were recorded, Lennon and Berry singing duets backed by Elephant's Memory and Lennon's wife Yoko Ono: Memphis, Tennessee and Johnny B. Goode. Further segments from the show such as an interview with Berry and a cooking scene did not make it to this bootleg.

During research for this article, I learned a lot about bootleg creation in the 1970's. I strongly suggest you take some time to read the excellent blog The Amazing Kornyfone Label. If you follow closely the stories of Ken Douglas, one of the most famous early bootleggers, you'll learn that research is almost impossible. They never thought about getting their acts organized in any business sense. Which makes it more or less arbitrary how the records looked like. The color of the vinyl, for instance, was more or less random. The record pressing company just used what was lying around. Even in the same production run multiple colors were used. The same with labels or covers: any color, any print. Early bootlegs had their name placed on blank covers using a rubber stamp, but if there wasn't enough time, only some were stamped, others not. Due to this, bootlegs from Ken's Trade Mark Of Quality label (and others) exist in dozens of variants and no-one can tell which ones were produced when or in which quantity. Here is what I think might be the most probable history of this Berry bootleg.

It seems that the very first version of this bootleg was produced by the legendary Los Angeles-based bootleg label "Trade Mark Of Quality". The exact date is not known, but is must have been by the end of 1972. At that time the operation was run by Ken together with Dub Taylor. They used a so-called "Farm Pig" logo on stickers, inserts, and (sometimes) labels. The initial release had a catalogue number of TMQ 71046 which was printed on an insert (xeroxed on color paper). It came in a white or colored cover with or without a rubber-stamp reading "John Lennon (featuring Yoko Ono & Chuck Berry) Telecasts". Labels seem to contain the Farm Pig logo, but also other labels exist. Note that TMQ 71046 has been copied in later years with no or little difference. This means there are bootleg copies of this bootleg.

This might be the original version of TMQ 71046:



The matrix number etched in the dead wax of TMQ 71046 reads JL-517 A/B. It's not quite clear what this number stands for. JL of course is short for John Lennon. 517 seems to be some internal numbering at TMQ. There is for instance a Bob Dylan bootleg numbered BD-516.

The letter-sized photo-copied insert on colored paper contains poor quality photos from the shows including Berry and Lennon performing together.



The tracks on this record are as follows (spelling as on the sheet):
Side 1

1. JOHN SINCLAIR
2. IT'S SO HARD
3. THE LUCK OF THE IRISH
4. SISTERS, OH SISTERS
5. WE'RE ALL WATER
6. WOMAN IS THE NIGGER OF THE WORLD

Side 2

1. ATTICA STATE
2. SHAKE IT
3. SAKURA
4. MEMPHIS
5. JOHNNY B. GOODE
6. IMAGINE

In addition the sheet tells:
THIS MATERIAL WAS COLLECTED FROM:
THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW
DAVID FROST
THE DICK CAVETT SHOW

Shortly after the initial release of TMQ 71046 the owners of the label (if you can call them 'owners') split and formed separated bootleg labels. Ken Douglas continued using the Trade Mark Of Quality name. These second version records show a different TMQ logo, though. While the original label had a so-called "Farm Pig" logo, the second version uses the so-called "Smoking Pig" label. Douglas re-used the original tapes to produce his own TMOQ records.

The second variant of Telecasts has the TMQ number 1834 which is etched in the dead wax. Thus a different matrix was used. It came in completely white covers. Both the insert and the labels show the Smoking Pig logo.



Concurrently with the TMQ release(s) or not much later (appr. 1973) another variant of this bootleg has been produced from yet another matrix. This time the etching reads WEC-3711. The "company" is known as Contraband Music but this name doesn't appear on cover or label. The cover is blank with a full-size insert in brown on white. The labels are white with a rubber-stamped A and B.



The original TMQ matrix with the etching JL-517 (or copies thereof) has been used very often. This record exists in a multitude of covers and comes with a multitude of labels. Here's one example of a modified insert. This version had plain green labels. This may be a later or even an earlier version. Have a look at Bob's Boots discussion of TMOQ cover and label variants of a Bob Dylan bootleg.



For more variants of JL-517 see images here (Great Live Concerts 6012-4299) and here (Box Top Records). The best known version of JL-517 is the one with the full-color photograph of the bearded Lennon sitting at a piano in front of an audience. This version also has a full-color back cover. It is this cover on which the bootleggers first forgot to list the second track from side 2 "Shake it". The song is only missing from the track listing. On the record it still is. This error has been repeated ever since.



The labels of the photograph version are blank white. Both cover and record have been reproduced often. One version has a dog label (image at discogs here). In addition JL-517 has been used to produce one of the records in two-, three- or even nine-record sets such as John Lennon - Flower and John Lennon - The Plastic Ono Box.

The full-color photo from JL-517 has also been used to produce a picture disk. A picture disk is made out of transparent vinyl with a full-size print in between the two layers for the two sides. One should note that for the picture disk an even different master has been used (probably due to production reasons). The picture disk is etched 4-A and 4AB in the dead wax.



While Telecasts was the first bootleg containing the two Lennon/Berry duets, the same recordings have been used on other, later bootlegs as well. These contain different remaining Lennon recordings, typically other duets with Jimi Hendrix or Elton John. Examples of such bootlegs are the two LP set Working Class Hero (Chet Mar CMR-75, image), the Australian two LP set Stand By Me (Toasted Records TRW-1942, see below), and the single LPs The Joshua Tree Tapes (The Kornyphone Records for the Working Man TKRWM 1803, Johnny B. Goode only, image) and John Lennon with (LSD Record JCJ-37037, again see below).

The Toasted Records cover tells that there's a third duet from the Mike Douglas show (Roll Over Beethoven). This is incorrect, though. There's no Chuck Berry on that recording. Also note the spelling of Chuck on the LSD Record cover.





A (probably) legal release of the two songs plus the interview with questions to Berry, Lennon, and Ono was released in 2011 as a three CD set called Chuck Berry in the 1950s (Chrome Dreams CD3CD5073, 2011). You can also buy DVDs containing the complete show.



Thanks to Morten Reff for photos of the original TMQ record and the Toasted bootleg. All other images show records from my own collection.


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

• The Chuck Berry Vinyl Bootlegs, Vol. 1: Rare Berries
• The Chuck Berry Vinyl Bootlegs, Vol. 2: Six Two Five
• The Chuck Berry Vinyl Bootlegs, Vol. 3: America's Hottest Wax

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

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

This is the second part of this series and it covers a typical kind of bootleg record: a live show recording.

Chuck Berry - Six Two Five - Driving Wheel LP 1001 / Maybelline Records MBL 676

As typical for many bootlegs, the Six Two Five bootleg origins from a live show. Here it's Berry's concert for British Broadcasting BBC held at the BBC TV Theatre, Shepherds Bush Green, London, UK on March 29th 1972. Most concert bootlegs stem from professional recordings made during the concert, either cut directly from the mix or soundboard or produced for radio or TV broadcast. We don't know the exact origin of this concert recording, but the quality is high and the contents is exactly that of the original 45 minutes TV broadcast by the BBC. Thus it may have been cut from the TV transmission or directly from the edited BBC tape.

Two vinyl variants and one professionally made CD of Six Two Five exist. All show the exact same black&white photo of Berry shot from a TV screen. Also the font and placement of artist name and record title are the same. The three variants differ in the print below the photo.

Variant 1 reads Driving Wheel 1001 in the lower right corner. The lower left corner displays the Driving Wheel logo. The cover itself is blank white, the cover image is printed on a yellowish paper almost the size of the cover. The paper is glued onto the front cover.



It is not clear if the sheet containing explanations and track listing was separated from the cover initially. My copy has this sheet cut to 163x170mm and glued to the back of the cover. It has some sentences about the BBC show including the very interesting telling of a list of songs played but not broadcast. This list can only come from either the BBC themselves or from someone who was present during the original concert. Besides this, the back sheet names the album An 'S F T F' Production and lists five 'names' for which credit's due.



In addition to the sheet there's also a blue number stamped on the back cover. I don't know if this is the individual copy's number or the produced quantity, probably the former. Mine reads 00400.

The tracks on this record are as follows (spelling as on the back sheet):
Side 1

1. Roll Over Beethoven
2. Sweet Little Sixteen
3. Memphis Tennessee
4. South of the Border
5. Beer Drinking Woman
6. Let It Rock

Side 2

1. Mean Old World
2. Carol
3. Liverpool Drive
4. Nadine
5. Bye Bye Johnny
6. Bonsoir Cherie/Johnny B. Goode

While all of the songs as well as Berry's stage banter are very worth listening to, especially because Berry used a band, Rocking Horse, he had practiced with during the week before, the most interesting number is Berry's version of South of the Border, or South of Her Border as Berry puts it. This is the only song from this concert which has been released on an official record: Chess (UK) 45rpm single 6145027.

The Driving Wheel bootleg has a simple label reading only Side One / Side Two and 33 1/3 RPM. As you can see, the record is pressed in a purple-colored vinyl.



An interesting detail is the etching in the dead wax of Driving Wheel LP 1001. It reads DWLP-721-A/B. It is quite probable that 72 refers to the year of production. We'll return to this etching in a minute.



Variant 2 of Six Two Five has almost the exact same cover. The same size front sheet is now printed on white paper. The main difference is that the text Driving Wheel 1001 is missing from the lower right corner. The Driving Wheel logo itself is there, though.



The back cover is blank and to my knowledge there wasn't any insert or back sheet. The track listing is part of the record labels only.



Here you can see that this variant was released as MBL 676 on a label called Maybelline Records. Again the number 676 might point to the date of production.
As I said, it's interesting to look at the etching in the dead wax. On this record it reads DW1001A/B.



This makes it clear that this record was produced using a different, a new master disk. The reference to DW1001 makes me believe that for mastering the Maybelline bootleg they used a copy of the Driving Wheel bootleg as the source - and not the original tape.

In the early 1990's yet another variant of Six Two Five appeared. This time it was a factory produced CD. The front cover still looks the same. Only the lower parts are cut off and a label name ARCHIVIO is inserted. The catalog number is given as ARC 001. According to the print on the CD and a red stamp on the back cover this CD was Made in Italy 1991. As with all the information printed on bootlegs this is not to be taken too seriously.



By listening to the CD it becomes very probable that also the CD master was created from one of the two vinyl editions.

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

• The Chuck Berry Vinyl Bootlegs, Vol. 1: Rare Berries
• The Chuck Berry Vinyl Bootlegs, Vol. 3: America's Hottest Wax
• The Chuck Berry Vinyl Bootlegs, Vol. 4: Telecasts

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

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

Let's begin this series with the record I use for the thumbnail of the Chuck Berry Rarities section of this blog. This may be the first Chuck Berry vinyl bootleg, or not.

Chuck Berry - Rare Berries - Kozmik KZ-501

As with most of the early bootleg records, Rare Berries did not have a printed cover but instead came in a plain white envelope. Attached were two sheets of paper which are black and white photocopies. All copies of this record I have seen so far have these sheets glued to the two sides of the record cover, so I don't know if they were delivered loosely initially. Both sheets don't have any standard paper size, so it's quite possible that they were already glued on the cover at their initial sale.

The front sheet shows a (poor) photo of Berry. He wears the colorful stage outfit he used to wear by the end of 1972 and early 1973. So this indicates a production date of not earlier than 1972. And probably also not much later as fully printed covers became common with bootlegs in the mid 1970's.
In addition the front sheet (225x292mm) tells the artist name in capital letters, the record name in all lower-case letters, the logo KOZMIK and the record number KZ-501.

The back sheet (207x283mm) repeats label, artist and record name. Next is a sentence explaining the record as "A Limited Edition album, featuring Chuck Berry's most obscure recordings, taken from the outset of his musical career." Following is a track listing and discographical details of the recordings.

The tracks on this record are as follows (spelling as on the back sheet):
Side A

1. RUN AROUND
2. ROLLI POLLI
3. WORRIED LIFE BLUES
4. HEY PEDRO
5. IT DON'T TAKE BUT A FEW MINUTES
6. BLUE FEELING
7. SWEET SIXTEEN

Side B

1. OUR LITTLE RENDEZVOUS
2. DEEP FEELING
3. MERRY CHRISTMAS BABY
4. INGO
5. HOW YOU'VE CHANGED
6. BERRY PICKIN'
7. BLUES FOR HAWAIIANS

As you can see from the track listing, these are not the usual bootleg recordings. Instead of unreleased studio stuff or obscure live recordings, this album contains nothing more than previously released Chess material, though some of the lesser known. But definitely not 'rare'. All of these recordings could have been found in used-record shops even in the 1970's. No later than with the release of Chuck Berry's Golden Decade Volume 3 in 1974 almost all of these tracks were commercially available even on new records. Therefore I would date the release of Rare Berries to 1972 or 1973.

There are at least two different variants of this bootleg differing by the record label print. This points to at least two production runs.

Variant 1 has green labels. The text is written with a typewriter, the label name is written using a lettering guide. The labels must have been created in haste as they even did not re-type the B side label after mistyping £ for a 5 in the record number. And on Side A they weren't even sure of the (probably conceived) label name: Where the front sheet and Side B spell KOZMIK with a Z, the label of Side A has KOSMIK with an S.

Variant 2 has a much more professional looking multi-colored label. Besides the consequent spelling of KOZMIK it also tells 'Mono', '33 1/3 RPM', 'Jewel Music' as the song publisher, and the standard saying that 'copying of this record is prohibited'. If one wouldn't know better (and would miss the cover), this could be mistaken for a legitimate release. Interesting is the hint to Jewel Music Publishing, Inc. which was Chuck Berry's publisher in the UK at that time. This could point to the origin of this record.

Both variants seem to have been produced using the same master disk. The etching in the dead wax reads 'KZ 501 A/B' on both records.

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

• The Chuck Berry Vinyl Bootlegs, Vol. 2: Six Two Five
• The Chuck Berry Vinyl Bootlegs, Vol. 3: America's Hottest Wax
• The Chuck Berry Vinyl Bootlegs, Vol. 4: Telecasts

This blog article is a true collaboration between Morten Reff and me. Here are the results of our joint research on Chuck Berry On Stage, the original CHESS album from 1963.

When Morten described Berry's seventh CHESS album on page 60 in his Chuck Berry International Directory, Volume 1, he noted:

The original pressings of this LP had a sticker on the front cover saying 'Including "MEMPHIS" & "SURFIN' USA".

As you know, all later variants of this album had this text printed directly on the cover, using a different font style and color. (Look at the end of this article if you don't remember.)

So when in August I found an eBay offer of a copy having the title sticker, Morten did not hesitate to buy it - even though it was quite expensive.

This finally allows us to show an image of the original cover of CHESS LP 1480. (Click for a higher resolution image.)



A contemporary ad from Chess showed a black and white image of the sticker version of the album. And the sticker seems to be applied hastily just before the photo shooting as crooked as it is.



Though now having this extremely rare variant opens another set of questions:

When receiving the album, Morten found

"The copy I bought features the second label, the black label (repress) image on page 60."

So how does a later vinyl make it into the original first sleeve? Two answers are likely: Between 1963 and 2014 someone might have replaced the original vinyl with a repressing, given the original record being defect or broken. Or, as Morten knows, CHESS usually pressed more covers than vinyl albums, so what they had available were used. Thus in the factory someone might have taken an old original cover from the box at the bottom of the stack when packing the newly pressed albums.

We can only speculate on this. But what is even more interesting to know is: "Have there been sold any copies of this album which neither have the printed text nor the sticker?"

We won't remove the sticker from this valuable album, but we both expect it to have no printing under the sticker. So we think the very first printings of the cover did not include any reference to Memphis or Surfin' USA. What we now found, might indeed not be the very first variant of this cover. It might already be a second variant, 'enhanced' with the title sticker.

So our question to all Berry collectors reading this blog is: Do you have a copy of CHESS LP 1480 which has no sticker and no printing of the 'including' text? If you do, send us an image and we would be happy to show it here.

During this discussion, we also found that while neither this site nor Morten's book could have shown the sticker variant of the cover, we also failed to show the correct non-sticker variant. On my site I had a later French reissue (which was then also pirated to Wikipedia), Morten's publisher included by accident the British Pye version.

The correct second (or third) cover variant has the label name and number prominently right next to the photo as it can be seen here. Sorry for that. So here's what should have been in the book and on the site.

In the 1950s everything was simple: Singles had to run two minutes or 2:30 the max. Albums were just a collection of singles plus some tracks too bad for a single release.
In the 1960s albums became an artistic concept on their own. Singles were selected from the album tracks. And because album tracks often became longer and longer, record companies edited album tracks down to a running time reasonable for radio stations to play. That was something in the area of 3 to 4 minutes. By the way: According to The History of the 45 RPM Record, the longest 45 rpm track ever released was Bruce Springsteen's Incident on 57th Street (1987).
When collecting Chuck Berry records, you will find a couple of single edits. The most well-known is of course My Ding-A-Ling which was 11:52 on the original album and cut down to 4:16 for the famous #1 single. Ding-A-Ling has been re-issued on CD multiple times, so getting both the album version and the single edit is easy. However, some single edits are quite rare to find and you need indeed get yourself the original 45 rpm single to listen to the shortened version.
Here's a table of tracks which have been edited to fit on a hit single. Not included are the many album tracks which have varying lengths on CDs or LPs due to different fades or space restrictions.

Year	Song	Original album track	Shortened single track
1964	Chuck's Beat	10:36 on Two Great Guitars (Checker LPS-2991)	2:55 on Checker 1089
1964	Bo's Beat	14:04 on Two Great Guitars (Checker LPS-2991)	2:55 on Checker 1089
1969	It's Too Dark in There	3:53 on Concerto in B. Goode (Mercury SR-61223)	2:58 on Mercury 72963 (promotional release only)
1972	My Ding-A-Ling (live)	11:52 on The London Chuck Berry Sessions (Chess CH-60020)	4:16 on Chess CH-2131
1972	Johnny B. Goode (live)	4:38 on The London Chuck Berry Sessions (Chess CH-60020)	3:53 on Chess CH-2131
1972	Reelin' and Rockin' (live)	7:10 on The London Chuck Berry Sessions (Chess CH-60020)	4:19 on Chess CH-2136 (US version) 4:30 on Chess 6145 020 (UK version) 2:42 on Durium LdA-7811 (Italian Jukebox version) 4:55 on Chess CH-25002 (French version, faded only, not edited)
1973	Bio	4:21 on Bio (Chess CH-50043)	3:45 on Chess CH-2140 (US version only) full length in all other countries

A small note first: Sorry for no posts since September - I've been busy.

Most Chuck Berry discographies including Morten Reff's The Chuck Berry International Directory are certain that there were five original singles released during Berry's stay with Mercury Records:

• Mercury 72643 - Club Nitty Gritty / Laugh and Cry
• Mercury 72680 - Back to Memphis / I Do Really Love You
• Mercury 72748 - It Hurts Me Too / Feelin' It
• Mercury 72840 - Louie to Frisco / Ma Dear
• Mercury 72963 - It's Too Dark In There / Good Lookin' Woman

I have to disagree. I know of and have copies of the first four singles. But after collecting Berry records for decades, neither I nor anyone I know has ever seen a regular release of Mercury 72963.
All one can find is a promotional copy of Mercury 72963 having a white promo label and - if you're lucky - having a white sleeve containing a note to reviewers that this is the side [sic] from the Concerto In B. Goode album YOU (the reviewers?) requested.

So yes, there is a 45rpm single containing It's Too Dark In There / Good Lookin' Woman. And yes, the label says Mercury 72963. But no, this was never part of Mercury's sales catalogue. And no, this was never released as a regular release other than this promotional copy.
If you disagree, please prove me wrong by sending a scan of a regular commercial label of this record.

As you know, some of the more interesting Chuck Berry record rarities are those produced exclusively for radio stations. This site has a complete section on these records at Radio Show and Promotional Records.

Since Morten Reff's "Chuck Berry International Directory, Vol. 2" (see here) was issued, I had always wondered why on page 523 Morten lists the "Royalty of Rock - Berry/Richard" album as an 1983 release, while my copy clearly states 1982. Now I know why!

There are TWO versions of this radio show record:

#1 (c) 1982 TM Special Projects
has a black and white label with "Royalty of Rock" printed in a gothic font. The two sides are labeled Segment 1/Segment 2 and Segment 3/Segment4.
The cue sheet has the "Royalty of Rock" logo (with king's crown) printed in red. It lists opening and closing narratives to be read by the station's host. These parts of the segments are not on the record. Side 2 therefore directly starts with "Reelin' and Rockin'" and ends with "Johnny B. Goode".

#2 (c) 1983 TM Programming
has the crown logo printed in red as well as name and address of RKO Radio Networks. The two sides are labeled Side A and Side B.
It contains the same music and interviews as #1, but in addition has the opening and closing narratives spoken by some "Billy Juggs" (who was a DJ with KMET of LA). Thus side 2 starts with Juggs saying "You're listening to ..." and ends with "Chuck Berry is one of the true legends in The Royalty of Rock".

If you know more about TM Programming and the RKO radio albums, feel free to comment here.

We haven't heard or read anything new from Chuck Berry for many years.
So this recently published piece of Berry poetry is the latest (and maybe last) demonstration of Chuck Berry's wit and wisdom and it pretty much explains why.

Give you a song, I can't do that.
My singing days have passed.
My voice is gone, my throat is worn,
and my lungs are going fast.

You can read the complete interview with Ohio's Cleveland.com here: http://www.cleveland.com/music/index.ssf/2012/10/chuck_berry_is_worried_about_h.html
Thanks to Owen for passing the link!

During the last weeks, SEVERAL CD sets appeared containing most or even all of Berry's 1950s recordings. There is a simple legal reason for this which I will cover in a different blog entry. Thus we can can be sure to see more of such re-releases over the years.
In any case, such re-releases will be of interest to customers only if they are complete, if they come with additional information, or if they contain rarities or unreleased recordings. Given that, let's have a look on the 3-CD set Chuck Berry in the 1950s (Chrome Dreams CD3CD5073, 2011).
Completeness: Yes, it contains every track released until 1960. The sequence is a bit odd as they chose to put the first four CHESS albums in their original sequence on the first two CDs. The third CD then combines the remaining tracks from singles which did not make it to the original albums. As with the other set discussed some weeks ago they mistakenly included the wrong version of Sweet Little Sixteen. Any unreleased tracks from the 1950s have not been included.
Additional Information: The box comes with a nice 16-page booklet containing photos (some rare) and a well-written lengthy story by Charles Waring.
Rarities: The additional 'bonus' tracks include the Ecuadors and Alexander recordings plus one of the two 1956 live tracks. These aren't really rare in contrast to the two live recordings with John Lennon from 1972. These recordings for the Mike Douglas TV Show broadcast 16 February 1972 can be found on many Vinyl bootlegs, but to my knowledge are here for the first time on a legal CD.
Unreleased Recordings: While there are no unreleased musical recordings on this CD set, we do find four interviews which have not been published on audio CDs or Vinyl records before. Despite the CD title, this is Chuck Berry in the 1970s and 1980s.

• There is the interview from the same 1972 Mike Douglas TV show with Berry, Lennon and Yoko Ono. This has been available on video and DVD before, though not on audio.
• Next is an eight-minute segment from the John Davidson Show broadcast originally on 15 October 1980. This segment has been available on YouTube for some time but then pulled for legal reasons.
• The interview labeled FM Radio 1983 was in fact recorded backstage at the Sam's Town Hotel in Las Vegas on 15 October 1983. Steve Goddard talks about how he made this interview here. This is probably also the source for this audio track.
• Finally there is a seven-minute segment from Johnny Carson's Tonight Show of 5 November 1987. This is available on YouTube in case you want to see the complete show.

The Chrome Dreams three-CD set Chuck Berry in the 1950s is available from the usual Internet shops. For some offers, click here.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

While the computer behind me is busy doing some heavy-duty calculations, I'll add some more information about the new series of album replicas issued by Universal Music Japan.
Here's the third summary of bonus tracks hidden on the re-issues, one more to follow. [Read part 1] [Read part 2]
As you can see, these are the same recordings as published on the American four-CD sets. In contrast to a strict chronological sequence, the compilers in Japan tried to put the alternate takes and versions close to the originally released ones. Recordings not used in the 1950s are placed where they fit chronologically (mostly).

Album	Original Number	Re-issue Number	Bonus Tracks
Chuck Berry in London	CHESS LP 1495	UICY-94632	Chuckwalk Liverpool Drive Chuck's Beat (long LP version) Bo's Beat (long LP version) Spending Christmas
Fresh Berry's	CHESS LP 1498	UICY-94633	Shake Rattle & Roll (teke 23) Wee Wee Hours (inst.) Honey Hush (take 3) My Mustang Ford (inst.) My Mustang Ford (stereo remix) It Wasn't Me (stereo remix) Sad Day, Long Night His Daughter Caroline (fast)
Back Home	CHESS LPS-1550	UICY-94634	Untitled Instrumental (1969) My Ding-A-Ling (1969) Gun (fast) Gun (slow That's None of Your Business My Pad (poem)
San Francisco Dues	CHESS CH-50008	UICY-94635	Ramona Say Yes Ramona Say Yes (alt. mix) Lonely School Days (slow)

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