Chuck Berry: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Charles Edward Anderson Berry was the epitome of black rock 'n' roll music. His repertoire spanned over twenty four years in which time he influenced both his contemporaries as well as the new breed;- the Beatles, the Stones and is unfortunately to blame for Status Quo's monotonous hammer-on guitar music. He not only broke racial barriers but was one of the first real singer/songwriters and with a penchant for stage gimmicks, culminating in the celebrated “duck walk” was a genuine performer of the 20th century.
Amongst his acclaimed career lay a plethora of bad press, some adulterated from true stories, the remainder were just plain blunderous for a black, anti-establishment figure to be party to. His rags to riches tale is an impelling one for a young, black American of the age but beneath this was a succession of scandals. Despite working as a carpenter in Missouri, Berry sought other ideas, one of which was to lead to his incarseration in a reform school for three years. During his late teens Berry and two friends Skip and James hold up a barbershop, with a firearm Berry found in a used-car lot. Berry recalls it as “having a wooden handle which was burned off in a fire and it had no magazine, but the barrel still left it resembling a potent 22 calibre weapon”. Later that day they robbed a bakery and their takings had now reached $94. Now on the run they hijacked a civilian vehicle until being caught and arrested miles up the road. They were all held in a local jail where they were promised a fair trial if they agreed to the sheriff's demands. After a 21 minute trial, Berry was sentenced to serve three years in the intermediate reformatory for young men.
Sweet little sixteen years later and Berry was charged with illegally employing an underage French girl and a fourteen year-old Apache indian girl in his nightclub. Under the terms of the `Mann Act' Berry was ostentated as a white slave trader inporting the girls from across the border. Slanderous comments about Berry's motive came in abundance as the media rubbished his reputation with radio stations angling to find stories as, ironically, his recent “Sweet Little Sixteen” hit the airwaves. The two cases were separately contested. The first concerning Ms. Mathis in the French trial was eventually cleared after she admitted she was in love with Berry and had fabricated her age and story to work in his club. Over a year later the Indian trial arose and what heighted the publicity about the case was that the fourteen year old had, unknown to Berry, worked as a prostitute on his premises. Eventually after years of trial and mistrial Berry was set to pay a $10,000 fine and sentenced to serve three years imprisonment.
On his early release for good behaviour Berry put his head down to music and on the back of reappraisals by 60s popular artists he had the ability to drawn on a new fan base. Prison had only seemingly horned up the now Mark Morrison-esque Berry as he surrounded himself with young women, finding hippy girls to be both beautiful and intriguing. Although in his forties, his name was becoming synonymous with young girls. He was no Jerry Lee Lewis or Chaplin in that he played away from home but Berry was getting a reputation outside of his music. One of these girls he `befriended' was Candy, a sixteen year old, who idolised Berry to which he integrated her into his entourage. Whilst still married to Toddy since 1950, rumours of orgies on Berry's part soon became known. With the double entendre of “My Ding-a-ling” and its subsequent damning by a certain Mary Whitehouse, Berry's legend was crumbling from the inside. His extravagant rock 'n' roll lifestyle was to set the tone for further idiots later in the century. He owned twenty one cars, most of which were cadillacs and had twenty three properties situated across North America. Indeed his wealth or at least his mis-management of monetary affairs and the philosophy as “As long as you know you have it why bother where it is” was to soon land him in hot water with the authorities.
Soon Berry was indicted for tax evasion of unaccounted monies from a recent British tour. The press on both sides of the Atlantic leaped again at the chance to squeeze out another story. Moreover, they disgraced him evoking incidents some fifteen years apart to depict this “viral” figure. In June 1979 Berry was put away to serve 100 days for his crime.
In his more senior years he retired from performance to his self-named amusement park in Missouri. Controversy still hounded him as he was frequently busted by the Police who dragged up more bad publicity for Berry. It was also alleged that in one of his clubs he had installed video-cameras in the ladies washroom which were directly signalled back to Berry's quarters. He pronounced his innocence on the grounds of security but as the scandals snowballed the Berry legend was becoming more veiled. In the early 90s his house was raided and drugs, guns and homemade porn were found. Furthermore the Police charged him with a six month sentence for drug possession. More damagingly it was contested he was involved in child abuse charges which were later dropped. Berry's life was never far from the public gaze but he often refused to comply but it is nice to see that an adulterous, drunk convict and miserley druggie with a taste for young girls and weaponry can make it to the top. Most of the accounts I read on Chuck Berry were too sycophantic but in his self-titled, obviously!, Berry reveals a great deal of himself genital warts an' all.
Despite his checkered life Berry claims “I'm still drinking screwdrivers and smoke a pack of Kools a day. I still weight 180lbs as I have since age 18. So the future looks fantastic and I'm forecasting my welfare as fine.”

by Chris Simmonds.