Chuck Berry: The Biography
by John Collis
Category: Music

Chuck Berry is one of the greatest talents in popular music, and also an individual legendary for his difficulty and capriciousness. It's no exaggeration to say that, with songs like Roll Over Beethoven and Johnny B. Goode, he invented rock and roll. Literally dozens of his songs are now timeless classics, still performed by bands every night across the world. And he invented the duck walk. once remarked that I wouldn't warm to Chuck Berry if I was cremated next to him. Berry has always insisted on cash up-front before he'll even go on stage, usually performs the contractual minimum of a short set, and has not only invested his considerable wealth in property and a stable of cars, but also shamelessly congratulates himself on his acquisitiveness. His career has also been overshadowed, and more than once stalled, by trouble with the law, and time in jail for a relationship with an under-age woman. managers, and researched the truth about Berry's life back in his home city of St Louis, to produce an objective, and sometimes shocking portrait of a man who, even in his 70s, is still treading the boards and singing of Sweet Little Sixteen.