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Chuck Berry R.I.P.


Matthew

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It kind of struck me just how relatively "young" rock music is, given that 4 of the music's most influential "founding fathers" were still with us:  Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino.  They may have been eclipsed by subsequent developments in rock, but they were huge figures in their time and helped put rock into the ears of millions of listeners in the early days.  The fact that they were still with us as sort of living national monuments was kind of comforting.  Now the first of them has passed.

Roll over Beethoven, Chuck Berry is on his way.  May he Rest in Peace.

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I felt safe when he was alive, just because he would always be there to represent himself if/when called upon. Now it's all going to be in somebody else's hands. Uh-oh...

RIP, much love. and God Bless America, you really don't know how lucky you were, boys.

 

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2 hours ago, duaneiac said:

It kind of struck me just how relatively "young" rock music is, given that 4 of the music's most influential "founding fathers" were still with us:  Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino. 

But Louis Prima, the inventor of rock, has been dead for several decades.  So it is not that young.  

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And so has been Bill Haley.

And strangely enough, fairly early on Haley was belittled as being an "old father" not really suitable for being promoted as a teen idol by "virtue" of his "age". Whereas they at the same time clipped off 5 years off the actual age of Chuck Berry (5 years being a hell of a lot that may have made an enormous difference at that time and in that age bracket) when a lot of early (i.e. 70s, probably earlier too) rock encyclopedias (at least in Europe) all claimed him to have been born in 1931 while later on - after R'n'R had long ebbed off and turned into "rock" and the R'n'R heroes played the oldies circuit to their fans who had gotten older too ;) - we were faced with the fact he actually dated from 1926 :D which made him almost as "old" as Bill Haley. And this despite the fact that Berry would have needed that artificial rejuvenating far less (just by the way he came across). ;)

Edited by Big Beat Steve
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46 minutes ago, OliverM said:

 ...and engagement often finishing concerts in full sweat! The excitement while listening is still complete.

Well, not wanting to belittle his memory, but when I caught him live on stage in 1988 he played a set of relatively routine material in a routine sequence of stage effects, and after close to 60 minutes sharp everything was over as if against a stopwatch, no encore, no nothing. (Yes, and no photo taking from the audience, of course). Off the stage, lights on,over and out. Not that it was an all-out surprise (revews to that effect of his live apperances had been around), but it was a bit formulaic. Yet audience applause had not been lacking (of course 95% of those in attendance had been long-time r'n'r fans - some from way back in the 50s - so it was a matter of seeing the old hero live once more and "you can't do wrong" no matter what he did, but still ... ;)

 

 

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