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Chuck Berry.
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Berry, Chuck (1926—)
Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Charles Edward Anderson Berry, better known as Chuck Berry, epitomized 1950s rock 'n' roll through his songs, music, and dan...
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Chuck Berry (born 1926), creator of the "duck walk" and known as the "father of rock and roll," has been a major influence on popular music. Even though his career and life reached great peaks and dec...
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Critical Essay by Lester Bangs
So many grit-jive geniuses—Elvis, Little Richard, and Bo Diddley—have turned stiff in their old age. That's why it's a double delight to find...
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Critical Essay by Robert Hilburn
Though Berry may not have been as dominant a figure in rock in the 1950s as Presley, his records and, particularly, his songs represented virtual blueprints for untold...
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Critical Essay by Robert Christgau
Chuck Berry is the greatest of the rock and rollers…. But Chuck Berry isn't merely the greatest of the rock and rollers, or rather, there's noth...
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Critical Essay by Jon Young
Presto! It's 1957 again and nothing could be finer. The solos [on Rock It] may be a tad less brash, the beat a mite slower—otherwise Chuck's still the ...
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Critical Essay by Joel Vance
Berry was the first literate lyricist in rock-and-roll, and, so far as I'm concerned, he's still the champ. His delighted exploitation of the possibilities o...
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Critical Essay by Pete Welding
While the music is pleasant enough [on San Francisco Dues] the album as a whole is not very exciting. That is, it won't challenge any of the early … LPs by...
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Critical Essay by Michael Lydon
Heady days, that first lindying era of rock. In retrospect it is astonishing how fast it happened…. Which means that the music filled a gargantuan need that neit...
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Critical Essay by Richard Williams
Charles Edward Berry was to the Fifties what Dylan was in the succeeding decade: the poet of the age. Over boogie-derived rhythms which rolled like a hot-rod Ford, h...
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Critical Essay by Tony Glover
At his best Chuck Berry was a hip short-story teller, with insightful, affecting and entertaining pictures to show, set to a strong jumping boogie beat. But he never had ...
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Critical Essay by Mike Jahn
[If] there is any one performer who conceivably could be credited with having influenced every rock 'n' roll and rock musician to follow, it would be Berry. E...
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Critical Essay by Arnold Shaw
Chuck Berry has been called "folk poet of the '50s," "the major figure of rock and roll" and "the single most important name in ...
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Critical Essay by Bob Sarlin
Berry was a rarity of his time: a full-blown singer/song-writer, equally gifted as a performer and as a composer of rock material. (p. 31)
Chuck Berry … was the bes...
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