Chuck Berry - Rock God and Madman

 Leaning into developing and producing a solo musical project over the last few months has been a very satisfying use of my spare time. I'm realizing that I had built up a wall of misconceptions about myself during my musical journey and knocking down some of those misconceptions has shown me a vista of possibilities that I simply wasn't seeing before. 

As happens with so many creative projects, my inspiration and skill have hit a plateau over the last few weeks. I'm still picking up the guitar and playing my heart out but it really feels like I'm just using the same bag of tricks over and over again. In an effort to bring myself some new skills and inspiration, I signed up for my first-ever guitar lessons.

FIRST EVER?! Yeah. I've never taken lessons to play bass or guitar. I've learned plenty from friends and fellow bandmates, learned to play by ear very early and I've used countless books, followed by websites to learn new skills, theory and songs. But I've never like paid someone to show me how to hold my hands. I'm stubborn and cheap. 

In a fascinating alignment of the stars, one of my favourite YouTube guitarists, The Samurai Guitarist from Winnipeg, posted a really great video called "This sounds UNBELIEVABLY cool (seems IMPOSSIBLE)". In the video, he examines this weird triple bend thing as performed by western-style picker Jerry Donahue. Sammy G. breaks down why this little trick is so amazing then proceeds to break down the "riff" and show his struggle over the course of about a week as he practices the trick. His level of guitar nerdom over this little riff spoke to me. As someone who's worn off fingertips and split off all my fingernails trying to master Victor Wooten tricks I totally got it. And showing that week of struggle and effort illustrated what it takes to figure that stuff out. It's a lot but really - a week of practice is totally achievable for anyone that wants to play. 

Perhaps it's no coincidence then that he also had an advertisement for his new Samurai Guitar Dojo in the video. At $7.50 a month - it's a steal of a way to build some new skills. I was sold. Plus who doesn't want to be trained by a samurai? I'm already sharpening my shuriken for week 4.

The first set of lessons focuses on how to solo using blues double stops. As Sammy G. notes, this kind of soloing is probably best heard played by Chuck Berry or by Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones. While I've been doing ok learning the technique of it all, I was feeling like my improvisation was falling a bit flat so I went out on a search for some Chuck Berry songs to inspire me. I could have gone with the 'Stones but I don't like Mick Jagger and now that Charlie Watts has died, there's no one good left in the band. 

So Chuck Berry it is.

While I don't think I'd ever describe myself as a super-fan of Chuck Berry, I've always loved his music and I mourned his passing in 2017 alongside the rest of the rock-and-roll world. 

By the time I was born in 1981, Chuck's best work was long behind him and he was firmly entrenched in the nostalgia circuit. But as a kid who came of age in the 80's and 90's, Chuck Berry was very much there. From Back to the Future to the Beethoven movies, not to mention the rest of his amazing catalogue on constant rotation on one of my favourite radio stations, CHAB in Moose Jaw, Chuck Berry's music was always on the radar. 

But I'd never really done a deep dive into Chuck and hadn't taken the time to relax and watch him play live. He's a madman (which if you read his bio... yeah). My favourite performance was from very deep into that "nostalgia circuit" and was a performance he put on at the BBC studios in 1972 backed by Rocking Horse. The very first song in the set is "Roll Over Beethoven". It starts off normal enough, he approaches the mic, starts the song and just seems like a pretty relaxed guy doing a spot-on performance of one of his biggest hits. But then the solo hits and my GOD you can see him crack. Like his sanity drains out. Have a gander:

That stare he gives the piano player is kinda chilling. 

Of course, Chuck always had the best solos. They're not complicated, and as I'm working through these lessons, I'm seeing that they really are just a few simple elements. But he PERFORMED. There's a very old clip from 1958 in Belgium where he performs "Johnny B Goode" during his prime. He plays the notes with his fingers but he performs the solo with his legs and feet. Crazy.

So has my soloing improved? No. Not really. But I did learn that I just need to be ok with the fact that I've only been given the first couple of tools and that there's more to come. I mean I'm only soloing on the A chord so far. In a couple days, I get to see what I can do with the E and the D! So there's plenty of room to improve! 

But I've a fresh appreciation for Chuck Berry and I realize more clearly than ever how everyone who's come since, all of us who have done anything that's an offshoot of pure rock n' roll are just copying Chuck. There's a little Chuck in everything we do. 

*** I'm fully aware of Chuck Berry's problematic history of sexual assault and violence. I acknowledge that many people may have been hurt. I also acknowledge that as a black man in the 1950's, the world was looking for a way to knock him down a few pegs. Like so many cultural icons who we would later learn were kinda shitty in their everyday life, I struggle to come to terms with both sides of this coin. I will say that unlike many of the people we've seen "cancelled" over the last decade, Chuck Berry did time in prison and served his debt to society. It doesn't forgive anything and we must all look at this through both lenses. I will appreciate and understand his contributions to culture, but I will not celebrate his abuse.