My Curiosity Runnin' Wild

[jabberwocky]

'Twas over four years ago I last saw Chuck Berry. I reckon there is that aspect of "it is something to do before he, or you, dies"--he did invent rock 'n' roll (not singlehandedly, of course, but at least as much as anyone, and more than most), after all. I have already seen him once, though; I am just some Chuck Berry fan YA KNOW? Even if I

Comments

Re: Cruisin' and playin' the radio

[jabberwocky]

Yeah man. I can't believe how much I had forgotten (but quickly was reminded) regarding the sloppy looseness of the show, the who-gives-a-dang-what-happens-next feel. Forgetting what song he was in the middle of, inadvertently changing keys mid-song (sometimes more than once, and his able backing band always following him into the new key), belligerently turning his own guitar up to drown everything else out, the rubber-man dance moves, the guy and his act are just an inspiration plain and simple. I am definitely going again next month (the 13th) then on the 14th apparently there's a (free?) screening of HAIL! HAIL! ROCK AND ROLL at the Tivoli which should also rule, and be over in time for bowling.

Too bad about the last-minute no-picture policy. I like how the guard was like "you had the last hour to take a picture while he was onstage"...it's like, uhh, yeah but not with us! But really I just think it's great that he even does autographs, most people of his rock and roll stature certainly do not avail themselves as such. You'll have a heck of a time getting a Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen or Paul McCartney autograph after a concert (yet all three owe a particular debt to Charles B.).

You Done Started Back Doin' The Things You Used To Do.

[jabberwocky]

Most definitely, on all counts.

On the former part, to be fair, none of the names mentioned are octogenarians who nevertheless do at least one concert a month, and none of the names mentioned were quite as instrumental in crafting an entire genre, least of all the genre in which they exist.

On the latter part, I'd only potentially (but by no means definitely) except the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, and the Everly Brothers, ya know? All still working to some degree (but by no means as much as Chucklez from what I can tell).

Re: You Done Started Back Doin' The Things You Used To Do.

[jabberwocky]

Good call on Little Richard. To be sure, he was an oversight on my part, not that there aren't several others (Wanda Jackson also comes to mind, for example). It seems like a lot of others that could easily have made the list of the biggz have only died in the last five years or so (Ike Turner, Ray Charles, James Brown, Bo Diddley, Johnny Cash even...crap I had a bigger list in my head ten seconds ago when I set out to write this part).

Indeed all those early people were sorta mixin' and matchin', but most of the ones mentioned more or less started out independent of any influence by the others (again, this is all "to my knowledge"). I'm pretty sure Jerry Lee Lewis didn't hear "Johnny B. Goode" and decide to become a rock 'n' roller as a result, whereas that could easily have been the case, and probably was, with Tom, Paul, or Bruce (et cetera).

Hence my earlier italicization of "potentially"--it's hard to know for sure what kind of influence was being passed around directly in those early days, but I would say that since they were all sort of coming into it simultaneously, each had his or her own part in propagating the music as a whole on critics and crowds (and so on), and therefore even if they all existed in bubbles from one another, they were still having influence on one another in a collective way, with the listener as a proxy. At the very least.

There's a pretty sweet part of Hail! Hail! Rock And Roll where Jerry Lee recounts that his mother said of him (Jerry) that "you're good, but you're no Chuck," or something like that. His own (southern white boy's) mother, dang!