On Friday afternoon, Al and I set out on the first leg of the road trip proper: Chicago to St Louis, part of historic Route 66. Unlike the famous song, which fair rattles along, our experience was a massive pain in the balls. It took nearly 7 hours overall, in what seemed like rush hour traffic at both ends. Still, we were on our way.
St Louis was always on the list of places to visit. One of my friends from University, Helen, lived in St Louis for a while and made it sound (20 years ago at least) pretty exotic. I’m pretty sure she told me then about the 200m tall Gateway Arch, commemorating the city’s role in westward expansion. I knew that Budweiser is made there. And although my baseball knowledge is poor, I did at least know that the Cardinals are one of the most successful ‘franchises’ (shudder) in recent history with a couple of World Series wins in the past decade.
But the real reason, the only reason, was to pay homage to the place that made Chuck Berry. I often thought it significant that he was born and raised in that ‘Gateway’, a (supposedly) short distance to Chicago and the North, near the Mississippi river that so personifies independence, escape, freedom and adventure.
Everyone knows and loves at least one, probably several, Chuck Berry songs. Subconsciously, I’ve adored him since 1985. Like any kid growing up in that decade, one of my core memories is Michael J Fox performing “Johnny B. Goode” at the ‘Enchantment Under The Sea’ dance. (I saved up a shit ton of money in my late 30s to buy a guitar just like that one.)
That song is flawless. Despite being nearly 60 years old now (it was recorded in Chess Studios in 1958), it’s still crisp, it still sparkles, it’s still exhilarating. That dizzying intro, drums that positively thud, a pounding bass line, the boogie guitar rhythm, gorgeous tinkling piano and he’s totally yelling the words. And not just any old words: but a story. A country boy from Louisiana (originally ‘coloured boy’, changed for commercial reasons) leaves his ‘log cabin made of earth and wood’, and heads out to become a famous musician, carrying his guitar in a ‘gunny sack’, sitting ‘beneath a tree by the railroad track’, ‘strumming with the rhythm that the drivers made’. Not only is it the quintessential rock and roll tune, it’s a prize-winning novel, nailed in just over two and a half minutes.
So culturally significant is “Johnny B. Goode” that it was one of a very select few tunes dispatched into the far reaches of space on board the Voyager Spacecraft in 1977. Then US President Jimmy Carter wrote: “This is a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings”.
But most of his initial hits in the late 50s and early 60s could have been sent out there. They’re pretty much all solid gold, all characterised by exquisite lyrics, a virtually unique guitar style and infectious energy: “Maybelline”, “Sweet Little Sixteen”, “Carol”, “Memphis”, “No Particular Place to Go”, “Let It Rock”, “Roll Over Beethoven”, “Brown Eyed Handsome Man”, “You Never Can Tell”, “Too Pooped To Pop” (my kid’s favourite). On their own, these performances would have been significant: that they were then covered and copied by Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, The MC5, Jimi Hendrix, The Animals, Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie make them the foundation of pop music as we know it. Chuck Berry created a culture.
He himself isn’t perfect – far from it. He’s done some grim things in his time, some unforgivable and a couple of which meant prison sentences and shady financial settlements, even as recently as the 90s. Separating a person from his or her art is increasingly a challenge these days…
Anyway, Al and I only had a few hours in downtown St Louis tonight. We headed quickly to the Delmar Loop area, a strip of restaurants, shops and clubs that includes the Blueberry Hill bar, where Berry has played hundreds of shows in the past 20 years. It’s perfectly pleasant, with a Hollywood style walk of fame for notable St Louis residents of the past (including Miles Davis, Scott Joplin, Yogi Berra, William Burroughs, Tennessee Williams).
At the end of that walk is the Chuck Berry statue, commissioned and unveiled in 2011.
Blueberry Hill itself is worth seeing, a massive boozer festooned throughout not only with Berry paraphernalia but loads of other fine records and pop memorabilia stretching back nearly 70 years.
It’s here, on the stage downstairs, that he did his last shows, unofficially retiring in 2014 at the age of 88.
Better to remember him in his prime though. In this 1972 performance of his “Promised Land”, it’s all there: a story about a troubled journey that takes in nine states via Greyhound buses and jets, lyrics that fit absolutely perfectly with the rhythm, a playful performance that is both loose and yet totally controlled. And in exactly two minutes.
A few weeks after Voyager left Earth, Saturday Night Live did a sketch about it. The joke then was that the first radio message received from outer space was: “Send More Chuck Berry”.
I for one welcome our alien overlords.
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