Remembering Chuck Berry

I saw Chuck Berry live twice – both times in the same year. The first time was at London’s Hackney Empire in July 2008. I almost never made it, having initially ordered my tickets through a hotline I saw advertised in a newspaper, which turned out to be a scam. I realised my blunder in time to halt the transaction but by then the show was largely sold out and only the very worst seats remained. I went to and fro over whether I wanted to watch Chuck from the nosebleed seats but eventually decided that I did and persuaded my friend Graham to come with me.

When I telephoned the theatre to book tickets, the lady in the box office was just about to reserve me some seats in the gallery when she paused. She said the system was showing that the theatre had just released some seats that morning, which it had previously been holding back. They were in the front row. Did I want those instead, she wondered. I didn’t need to be asked twice.

Graham and I caught a train and then a bus to Hackney for the show and took our seats in the front row, just right of the aisle, not really knowing what to expect from Chuck, now well into his old age. The theatre was beautiful and the audience filled with ageing Teddy Boys sporting elaborate hairdos.

The band kicked in a few seconds before the curtain rose to reveal Chuck already on stage, decked out in a glittery shirt and a white sailor’s cap. He launched straight into Roll Over Beethoven and, almost immediately, did his famous duck walk from one end of the stage to the other. He was fast and nimble. It was hard to believe this was a man of 81 and even harder to believe that the Chuck Berry was performing Roll Over Beethoven just a few metres away from us.

A grainy cellphone shot of Chuck Berry at the Hackney Empire (Charles Thomson).

In an hour-long set he blasted through hit after hit, from School Day (Ring Ring Goes The Bell) to Memphis Tennessee and Sweet Little Sixteen. He got the whole audience singing and laughing along with My Ding A Ling and invited some lucky women on stage to dance during Johnny B Goode. He had many more dancing in the aisles, too. Sadly, security were very heavy-handed and kept instructing people to sit back down, despite Chuck repeatedly shouting from the stage to let them dance.

Chuck was was so good that night that when, a few months later, Camden’s Jazz Café announced he was returning to London to play two shows at the venue, I told my friend James that we had to go. The Jazz Café was a favourite venue of mine at the time – small and incredibly intimate.

The choice of venue got me thinking. I had been to the Jazz Café enough times to know the artists usually entered through the same door as the ticketholders. I checked with a promoter friend who had booked artists into the venue and he confirmed the front door was also the artist entrance. James and I hatched a plan to get to the venue early and see if we could collar Chuck for an autograph on the way in.

Chuck, despite his many positive qualities, was not famed for his kindness towards fans. Musician Brian Johnson wrote in his autobiography that after Chuck toured with Johnson’s band Geordie for a week in 1975, using all their equipment for free, Johnson asked him: “Mr Berry, can I have your autograph?” Chuck replied: “I only sign one a day and I’ve already done it.”

If James and I were to get an autograph, we would have to be the first to ask that day. And so we arrived at the Jazz Café’s front doors at about 2pm, to make sure we didn’t miss him. By the time the doors opened about five hours later there was no sign of Chuck – we concluded he must have arrived about 10 hours early just so he wouldn’t have to sign his daily autograph – and we were cold and wet and our feet were sore.

On the plus side, we were numbers one and two in the queue and bagged ourselves a spot in the standing area, right in front of the stage.  Literally. It’s a tiny venue with a low stage and no barrier. When Chuck descended the metal staircase to the stage a few hours later and took his spot behind the microphone, we were perhaps four feet away from him. He was playing his guitar right in front of our faces.  

But he wasn’t playing it very well. Chuck was unrecognisable as the performer I had witnessed months earlier at the Hackney Empire. He seemed at times hesitant and confused.

An early sign that Chuck wasn’t altogether himself came when he started playing his hit song Maybellene but ended it singing the lyrics to Johnny B Goode. Later in the show he started playing Maybellene again.

His guitar playing was wonky throughout. He faltered at the beginning of Sweet Little Sixteen and had to start again. During South of the Border, he lost his place and announced, “Damn, I can’t think of the next line.” Apologising for his confusion at one point, he said, “I’m 81 years old, I’ve got no business being on this stage.” He was actually now 82. 

Chuck Berry on stage at the Jazz Café (James Newman).

Partway through the show – just before he played Nadine – he decided his guitar was out of tune (it wasn't) and began twisting knobs back and forth with abandon. The ensuing, lengthy, ham-fisted attempt to re-tune his guitar prompted an array of comical facial expressions from his alarmed band members, including his son, who after a while tried to step in and stop his dad fiddling with the strings. 

But it was too late for intervention, for by that time Chuck had begun walking to the opposite end of the stage and yelping at his young pianist, “Give me an E! Give me an E!” Alas, the pianist’s efforts did not appear to aid Chuck, who played the rest of the show with his guitar sounding rather peculiar.

Chuck Berry with his son at the Jazz Café (James Newman).

None of this is intended a criticism of Chuck, of course. As he had said, he was in his 80s and he didn’t have to be up on stage. We were lucky he was there at all and only a fool would expect a man of 82 to perform to the same standard as his younger self. Chuck was simply acting his age. But nonetheless, it was in stark contrast to his effervescent performance months earlier at the Hackney Empire, where he had defied his years.

Who knows what the problem was; Perhaps he was jetlagged. Maybe he hadn’t had a night off that week. Perhaps I had just caught him on uncharacteristically good form in Hackney.

Whatever the reason, it certainly didn’t diminish Chuck in the eyes of the audience, who laughed and cheered throughout the show. His confusion was endearing and he handled the situation with great humour. James and I look back on that evening extremely fondly. We have relived it several times, in hysterics as we recalled the sheer horror on the band’s faces as Chuck started meddling with his guitar. There is some video of the tuning incident on YouTube, although sadly incomplete and recorded from the side, missing the band's brilliant reactions.

A year later I learned Chuck was returning to the UK to play a show at one of my local theatres and bought tickets. However, the tour was later cancelled – apparently due to a dispute with the promoter – and he never returned to the UK.

He may have been well into his old age by the time I got to see him but it was a privilege to witness the man up close, even on an off day. Chuck Berry was one of music’s great pioneers, not to mention a phenomenal songwriter with a gift for musical storytelling which will likely never be rivalled.

More than that, though, he was a survivor. The obstacles he had to overcome were many and enormous. The genre he innovated was hijacked. Rock & Roll's creation was attributed to its white thieves instead of its black pioneers. Meanwhile, Chuck was maligned and mistreated by a racist justice system.

But despite everything, he soldiered on. He survived touring segregated America, he survived the theft of his music, he survived prison and he reached 90. He died a hero and a legend.

I am grateful that for a few brief hours we occupied the same space. My friends and I clapped and bobbed as he played the songs that changed the world. We laughed together. He duck walked past me, within touching distance, playing Johnny B Goode. I couldn’t ask for more than that.

Rest in Peace, Chuck Berry. The true King of Rock and Roll. 

Here is a video I took on my cellphone of Chuck performing Johnny B Goode at the Jazz Café: 

'The Second Coming'

Huge congratulations to my friend Tony Best, who has unearthed a piece of music history.

In an article for black music journal Wax Poetics, Tony - a writer based in Los Angeles - has managed to secure the inside track on one of the most mythologised unreleased projects in Prince's famous and extensive vault. The vault is rumoured to contain thousands of unreleased songs, dozens of unreleased music videos and several unreleased movies.

Among those movies is an abandoned 1982 project titled 'The Second Coming', which began life as a concert film. Music video director Chuck Statler captured a live concert from the latter portion of Prince's 1982 Controversy Tour. The gig, at the Met Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, was shot on 16mm film and has long been on the 'most wanted' list for Prince's army of dedicated fans.

Prince and his management were equally excited by the concert footage. There was a feeling that it could generate real commercial success. A view was taken that if the live material was intertwined with narrative segments, it might be easier to secure a wide theatrical release. Work commenced on these autobiographical interludes but was later abandoned. The footage has sat unreleased ever since.

For, I think, the first time ever, Tony has convinced Chuck Statler to discuss the project in-depth for publication. But it gets better. He has also persuaded Chuck - who technically owns the footage - to release a number of screengrabs from the film for the first time ever in the 30 years since it was shot. You can read Tony's in-depth interview with Chuck and look at the exclusive movie stills by clicking here and visiting the Wax Poetics website.

The footage is significant for several reasons, the most important being that it is thought to be the only high quality filmed concert from Prince's early career. A number of bootlegs from the era have circulated for many years but are shot by static, rear-of-venue cameras. Chuck Statler spent some time following Prince around on tour before filming, so he could decide on which would be the best angles to shoot from. The footage is an absolutely integral building block of Prince's live videography - the foundation upon which all else was built - but, scandalously, still has yet to receive any sort of public airing.

The earliest Prince performance footage currently on the market is the musical segments in Prince's Oscar-winning movie 'Purple Rain', for which 'The Second Coming' ultimately wound up being a prototype. But while the performances in 'Purple Rain' were staged and lip-synched so they could be shot multiple times from different angles, Chuck Statler managed to capture an entire live gig from Prince's Controversy Tour, raw and untouched. The prospect of such footage one day coming to light has tantalised fans for three decades now.

Prince's next attempt at a concert movie, 'Sign O The Times', was marred by the fact that much of the video and audio - shot across several gigs in the Netherlands in 1987 - turned out to be unusable. As such, a wealth of the footage wound up having to be re-shot or re-dubbed. While 'Sign O The Times' received rave reviews, the need to tamper with the footage to such a degree is a huge regret for many of Prince's fans, who feel the gig lost its energy.

The likelihood of 'The Second Coming' seeing the light of day any time soon is remote. The concert displays Prince's raunchy side, pushing the boundaries of sexuality in music. He performs much of the show in bikini bottoms and suspenders. Since he became a Jehovah's Witness he has distanced himself from this aspect of his earlier career, refusing to play his sexually explicit hits onstage.

However, Tony's piece sheds new light on the much-debated lost movie and the release of the never-before-seen screengrabs is a real scoop.

In a way, I owe my music-writing career to Tony. He spotted me writing online years ago and suggested I contribute some articles to Wax Poetics, which I wound up doing. In fact, when you click to visit Tony's 'Second Coming' exclusive, my first ever Wax Poetics article - an interview with Motown musician Jack Ashford - has somehow found its way onto the related articles menu. My work for Wax Poetics gave me something I could show to editors - a collection of published articles. My projects for WaxPo also gave me the confidence to seek other interviews for other publications, including my own JIVE magazine in 2009.

Tony and I have our own 'lost' project. In 2009 we began work on a collaborative piece about the Jacksons music video 'Can You Feel It'. While 'Thriller' is constantly cited as Michael Jackson's first hugely innovative music video, 'Can You Feel It' is often overlooked, despite bucking the music video trend several years prior to 'Thriller'.

The video featured groundbreaking special effects and even a spoken word intro by Orson Welles. When Dick Clark screened the film on American Bandstand, he told the audience that he had initially been reluctant to show a music video because he found them boring, but had then watched it and been blown away. Tony and I felt that the video's importance had been overshadowed by the phenomenon of 'Thriller' and set about placing it in its rightful historical context.

The story required us to track down people who had worked on the project - which we did with very limited success. The company which produced the video had since dissolved. Most of the principal players in its production had since died. Of those we did track down, some weren't especially keen to speak to reporters, others had very hazy memories. We did track down one gentleman who was highly involved in the video's mind-blowing special effects, but the project faltered because of a lack of other sources. The story had been intended as a WaxPo feature, but Tony instead wrote a one-page piece about the video for the mag's RE:Discovered section.

When I flew to Los Angeles in the Summer of 2010, I was recognised at my hotel on the morning that Tony was coming to meet me. When the fans I was getting pictures taken with found out that Tony was the author of the WaxPo article, they insisted he be in the pictures too.

Picture courtesy of Wanda Peoples (Click to enlarge)

Tony was a great tour guide, ferrying my friend Angela and I around the city using the underground network, telling us jaw-dropping stories about his years working in the gangster rap industry. I remember stopping at a Barnes & Noble on our travels so I could pick up the latest Jet magazine with Prince on the front cover. He also came with us to Forest Lawn, where Michael Jackson was laid to rest. As we parted ways, he sent us to an awesome record store called Amoeba, where I found a legit copy of Prince's 'Black Album' for a ludicrously low price of about $9.

I messaged Tony on Facebook earlier to tell him what a coup his Prince piece was, but I also felt compelled to post it here too. I really hope you all go and read it.

Until next time...

Tony and I at Forest Lawn, June 2010 (Click to enlarge)

FBI File Reveals Attempt to Convict Jackson with Racist Law

Documents contained in Michael Jackson's FBI file show that the LAPD tried to prosecute the star under the same legislation used in the past to smear black luminaries such as Jack Johnson and Chuck Berry.

Records show that the LAPD contacted the FBI on 7th September 1993 to ask whether the bureau would assist in the prosecution of Michael Jackson under the Mann Act.






The Mann Act, also known as the 'White Slavery Act', was introduced in 1910. Allowing officers to make arrests on the vague premise of 'immoral behaviour', the law was frequently used to smear black men, particularly those who consorted with white women.

Jack Johnson, the world's first black Heavyweight Boxing Champion, was the first person to be prosecuted under the act. In fact, Geoffrey C Ward writes in his book 'Unforgivable Blackness' that the potential to smear Johnson had been one of the primary motivating factors behind the introduction of the law.

Johnson was viewed by the press and the establishment as a black man who didn't know his place. Not only was Johnson a black world champion more than 50 years before segregation was lifted, but he flaunted his success in a society which demanded that he be humble. He wore expensive clothes and jewellery and invested his money in a fleet of luxurious automobiles, a hobby for which he was repeatedly punished by white policemen who issued him with undeserved speeding tickets.

But what riled the establishment more than anything was that Johnson consorted with white women. Johnson was often accompanied on his travels by prostitutes, but so were the majority of his white contemporaries.
In 1913 Johnson was prosecuted under the Mann Act for 'transporting a female across the state line for immoral purposes'. None of his white contemporaries who also travelled with prostitutes were arrested or charged with similar crimes.

Johnson's alleged victims had travelled with him willingly and admitted it under oath. Moreover, the trips in question had taken place long before the Mann Act was even introduced. However, an all white jury convicted him regardless.

Years later the Mann Act was also used to sabotage the career of black musician Chuck Berry.
In 1959 Berry met a 14 year old waitress in El Paso and asked her to work as a hat-check girl in his restaurant. The girl agreed and he drove her from El Paso to St Louis on his way back from a concert.

On this flimsy premise Berry was arrested for 'transporting an underage girl for immoral purposes'. He was convicted under the Mann Act and sentenced to three years in prison.

In the same year Berry's white copycat Elvis Presley began openly dating Priscilla Beaulieu, a 14 year old girl. Furthermore, Scotty Moore's biography of Presley asserts that prior to his involvement with Beaulieu, the star had been dating an even younger girl.

Ergo, in 1913 the Mann Act was used to convict a black boxer whose only 'crime' was to indulge in the same behaviour as his white contemporaries. Later, In 1959, the Mann Act was used to prosecute a black musician for giving a job to an underage girl, while his white contemporary repeatedly slept with underage girls and went unpunished.

The Mann Act is an inherently racist law. Whilst it has not been used solely to prosecute African-Americans, the potential imprisonment of Jack Johnson was a primary motivating factor behind its introduction and since then it has been repeatedly used to convict black men of crimes that they didn't commit.

That Jackson was also targeted under the Mann Act is certainly intriguing and could be seen to strengthen the argument that he was targeted by a malicious prosecution on account of his race. Devastatingly, it suggests that for all America's superficial changes, little has changed since the days of Jack Johnson. Of course, the US Attorney's decision not to prosecute Jackson under the Mann Act could be seen as a sign of progress, but the LAPD's decision to pursue Jackson in the first place - given the sheer abundance of evidence suggesting his innocence - remains disturbing.

That Jackson wasn't railroaded when he eventually entered the courtroom indicates at least some progress. That said, the fact that the 2003 allegations against Jackson even made it into a courtroom was proof in itself that Jackson was given a bum rap - the allegations were nonsensical and his accusers were proven con artists. But while Johnson and Berry were convicted, Jackson's jury at least made the right decision.

In Jackson's case it was only the media which tarred him as guilty.