Definitive Collection

"Chuck Berry: The Definitive Collection," (Chess, 2005) actually is one of the best, most inclusive of the numerous compilations of the great early American guitar hero/rocker's work. It gives us 30 songs, including most of the big hits, going way back to the seminal mid 1950's, when they were new, and so was rock and roll, and Berry was helping to make it. "Maybelline," his first hit, for the Chicago studio Chess, reached #5 on the Billboard Pop chart in the summer of 1955, months before Elvis Presley signed with RCA Records. "Roll Over Beethoven," and "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," followed in spring, 1956.Somewhat embarrassing admission: I was a suburban New York high schooler then, and there was the piano in the living room. One day, Dave Goddard, a friend from Valley Stream Central High School, who'd had his very own rock and roll hit with his group "The Aquatones," was over visiting. My mother found out he could play, and begged him: he sat down and asked, "Mozart or Beethoven?" "Oh, Beethoven," she said. "Roll Over Beethoven" came booming out; it was the greatest moment of my teen-aged life.Well, shortly after that, Chuck Berry got himself into trouble, serving 20 months in prison for violating the U.S. Mann Act, supposedly taking a young girl across state lines for immoral purposes. The man did write "Sweet Little Sixteen,""Schooldays," and "Sweet Little Rock & Roller," after all, not to mention, "Almost Grown."Be that as it may, Berry still tours, I believe: I caught him a few years ago, in New York. He was a long way from high school, but he still had that swaggering duck walk. Can't personally vouch for the truth of it, but the professional musician with whom I caught that show, an Englishman resident in New York, said that, almost unique among touring performers, Berry didn't carry a band with him. All he had to do in any city was walk into the local musicians' union hiring hall, and say, "I'm Chuck Berry and I play Chuck Berry, any questions?" There never were any. How could there be?