[Dixielandjazz] Chuck Berry

[Eric Holroyd]

Ginny (Gluetje1 at aol.com) mentioned that Chuck Berry was born in 1926 and is still performing.

In reply, Harry Callahan says ‘Funny you should make mention of Chu Berry’, and of course Chuck and Chu are two entirely different people.

Chuck Berry is one of my major musical heroes, and single handedly managed to confuse generations of would be rock & roll guitar players who tried to learn his stuff from recordings.

The thing was that Chuck played in pianist Johnny Johnston’s band long before he became famous, and Johnny of course played his material in ‘piano keys’ like Bb and Ab.

Beginning guitar players like to play lots of stuff in the keys of E and A, where the open strings make it much easier to do.

Unfortunately for them, they could never get their guitars in tune to play along with Chuck...

Another of my heroes is Jerry Lee Lewis, and I’ve just watched ‘Great Balls of Fire’ with Dennis Quaid playing Jerry Lee (although Jerry Lee himself plays all the piano stuff in the movie).

Over the years I’ve been berated by fans and musicians alike for having musical interests ‘outside of jazz’ – and whilst they accept that I can enjoy Bach and Beethoven they seem to find a problem in my liking for Fifites Rock and Roll etc.

And I haven’t even mentioned Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps yet.

Kind regards

Eric Holroyd