Roll Over, Beethoven
My Tribute to Chuck
Berry
Chuck Berry 1.0
I was in third grade when the Beatles took America by storm.
Late winter 1964, my dad brought home The
Beatles Second Album for us. I knew their songs like “I Want to Hold Your
Hand” and “She Loves You,” but I was not prepared for the guitar riff that
started the album:
Da da da da da da da
Da da da da da da da
Da da da da
Da da da da
Da
Da
Da
Da
This was not the Beatles I had heard before. It took me by
surprise, and it was an education. One look at the disc told us who the
songwriter was: Chuck Berry.
Who the heck was Chuck Berry? I’m sure I just thought
he was some white guy. I also didn’t know who Beethoven and Tchaikovsky were
either, but my brother was able to explain to me who they were, and what was
meant by “Roll Over, Beethoven.”
I, of course, wanted to get into the Lennon & McCartney songs, so my
appreciation of “Roll Over, Beethoven” was not immediate. It was pure rock-n-roll,
and I wasn’t there yet in my young life.
Chuck Berry 2.0
In high school, Chuck Berry had a hit single with “My
Ding-a-Ling.” By then I knew a bit more about him – at the very least that he
was black – and that he was a revered rock-n-roller. As someone that was more
into 1960s and 70s rock music, I still was not impressed. I just seemed too old
school.
I recall hearing complaints about Berry’s song, how it made
a mockery of who he had been in the past, how young people couldn’t appreciate
him, and all that rot. I didn’t care one way or another. The sexual innuendo of the song was not
lost on me, and besides, “My Ding-a-Ling” was a fun sing-a-long with my friends
in the car. I am first to admit, it did nothing to help me understand his importance.
Chuck Berry 3.0
In the early 1980s when I started dating Jim, I began to
learn more about the music from the 1950s. Jim is not a baby boomer, so his
frame of reference on music is different than mine. We used to go see a cover
band called Earthrise, and one of the songs they would regularly do was “Johnny
B. Goode.” Jim taught me how to
jitterbug to that song, and it became our thing. (We also jitterbugged to Bob
Seger’s “Old Time Rock-n-Roll,” a tribute to the very music I liked to ignore.)
In this way, Chuck’s music started to have a small influence in my life – a way
to connect to the man I love and have some fun together. You can’t be sad or blue when you’re
jitterbugging!
And it was totally lost on me that “Johnny B. Goode” starts
with the same basic guitar riff as “Roll Over, Beethoven.”
(This video is from 1969, and has Davey Jones of the Monkees introducing Chuck)
Chuck Berry 4.0
This great rock-n-roller died in 2017. It didn’t really cause more than a blip
on my radar. Perhaps I thought
about “Johnny B. Goode” and the good times the song brought. Perhaps not. I
think I put a photo of him doing the duck walk with his guitar on my Facebook
page.
It has only
been in the last year I’ve started to fully appreciate the man, the music, and
what he created artistically and culturally. I know see him at the top of my musical heap.
Chuck Berry 5.0
Along with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones were huge fans of
Berry’s. In fact, I have a book here waiting to be read called Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the
Racial Imagination by Jack Hamilton, featuring Chuck and Mick on the cover
looking at each other. In the
chapter entitled: "The Rolling Stones and the end of the 1960s", Hamilton is
discussing the Stones song “Gimme Shelter”:
“Gimme Shelter” is an
explicitly violent piece of music. The song begins with the quiet,
tremolo-laden guitar intro, playing a straight-eighth-note figure that’s little
more than a decelerated version of the propulsive guitar introductions made
famous by Chuck Berry in the 1950s on hits such as “Roll Over, Beethoven” and
“Johnny B. Goode.”
The work of Berry is everywhere. This is just one example.
I’ve come to believe that no matter what form of rock we enjoy, his influence
is in there somewhere. That is legacy.
Chuck Berry 6.0
I really didn’t know how to end this tribute to Chuck, and
my slow realization of his importance in the music that marked my youth and
beyond. Leave it to poet Billy
Collins to help me make a connection.
This week I
read his poem “November,” in which he says:
How foolish it is to
long for childhood.
This caused me to think: What
do I long for from childhood?
My first response was Nothing.
But then I thought of the day in 1964 my dad brought home The Beatles Second Album, and we put it
on the stereo in his bedroom. I realized that if I could go back to one moment
in time, it would be moment I heard that opening guitar riff of “Roll Over,
Beethoven” for the first time. I would love to know what I really felt at that
time, as it was the clarion call for all to come.
Yes – if there was a moment I could revisit, it would be
that one.
I would spend years thinking the Beatles were the be-all and
end-all. But they and the Stones and many other acts knew that there would be
no Beatles or Stones without the likes of Chuck Berry and others from the
mid-1950s.
I’ve often told people I was born the same year as
rock-n-roll. However, I have to admit, I wasn’t fully appreciative of what that
meant. It has been a lifetime of learning what the true significance.
It was a true revolution.
And leading the way was a man who at the time didn’t even have
full rights in our country.
Mr. Chuck Berry.
Some notes on Beatles albums.
In the early years, the American versions of the Beatles albums were different than the UK versions, and boy am I now grateful. "Roll Over, Beethoven" was on With the Beatles UK version, buried in the middle of the album somewhere. It was the opener on The Beatles Second Album in the United States, a title that does not even exist in the UK catalog.
Here are photos of our original album, complete with places we had to tape the cover together. I cannot imagine how many hours I must have spent looking at this cover, front and back, while listening to the music.
More notes on Beatles version
Until I found this video on YouTube, I didn't even think about the fact that my favorite Beatle--George--does the singing and the awesome guitar work on this song. Oh, my heart!
Beatles recorded version:
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