Chuck Berry dies at 90
Jailed for armed robbery, ‘immorality’ with a minor and tax evasion... but his music shook the world
ROCK and roll legend Chuck Berry, who wrote the soundtrack to rebellion for generations of teenagers, died last night after a career spanning seven decades.
The pioneering US singer and musician – whose hits were covered by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones – was found unresponsive at his home in St Charles, Missouri, by police officers at 12.40pm (5.40pm GMT) yesterday after his carer raised the alarm. He was 90.
A police spokeswoman said: ‘The St Charles County Police Department sadly confirms the death of Charles Edward Anderson Berry Sr, better known as legendary musician Chuck Berry.’
Last night, tributes poured in from across the world. Author Stephen King tweeted: ‘Chuck Berry died. This breaks my heart, but 90 years old ain’t bad for rock and roll. Johnny B. Goode forever.’
Songwriter Huey Lewis said he was ‘maybe the most important figure in all of rock and roll. His music and his influence will last forever.’
Born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1926, Berry was one of the first musicians to take rhythm and blues from its black roots and cross over to a white teenage audience.
Early hits included Johnny B. Goode, Roll Over Beethoven, Sweet Little Sixteen and Maybellene. The musician’s death comes weeks after he completed his first album in 35 years, called Chuck. He dedicated it to his wife of 68 years, Themetta.
To many, he was as famous for his on-stage presence, including his trademark ‘duckwalking’, as his songs.
The Jacksons said on Twitter: ‘Chuck Berry merged blues & swing into the phenomenon of early rock ’n’ roll. In music, he cast one of the longest shadows. Thank You Chuck.’
Despite frequent brushes with the law, financial woes and mismanagement, the star influenced generations of modern rock stars who followed him.
When Nasa launched the unmanned Voyager I craft in 1977, an album was stored onboard to explain music on Earth to aliens including a single rock song: Johnny B. Goode.
Bob Dylan called Berry ‘the Shakespeare of rock ’n’ roll’ and Sir Paul McCartney once dubbed the star ‘one of the greatest poets America has ever produced’.
Rolling Stone Keith Richards said of Berry in 2014: ‘He just leaped out of the radio at me. I ate him basically, I mean I breathed him.
‘It wasn’t just food, he was the air I breathed for many years when I was learning guitar.’
However, Berry’s career was nearly ended before it began after he was convicted of armed robbery and spent three years in a young offenders’ institution. On release he worked as a hairdresser while he honed his trade as a musician.
His recording career began in 1955 with his first release Maybellene. In the next few years, he scored a succession of hits, all aimed at a teenaged audience.
Then in January 1962, he was sentenced to three years in prison after it emerged he had transported a 14-year-old girl across state lines. Berry claimed that he brought her over to work in his bar in St Louis. But three weeks after the girl was fired, she reported him to the police claiming he tried to use her for immoral purposes.
Berry’s defence was not believed by an all-male white jury, and he was sentenced to five years in jail. The conviction was quashed at an appeals court on the grounds the presiding judge at his trial made racist comments.
Tax charges came in 1979, and another three-year prison sentence, all but 120 days of which was suspended.
Berry received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 1984 and was among the first inductees to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1986.
‘In music he cast one of the longest shadows’