Chuck Berry Dead at 90

Chuck Berry has died, ABC News reports. He was 90. The legendary rock’n’roll innovator influenced the Beatles, Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones, and countless other musicians of every generation that followed him. 

Charles Edward Anderson Berry was born in St. Louis in 1926 and got his start playing guitar in clubs around the city. In 1955, during a trip to Chicago, he recorded a version of the hillbilly song “Ida Red” for the blues label Chess, retitling it “Maybellene.” More hits followed throughout the ’50s—“Roll Over Beethoven,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” and “Johnny B. Goode.” Berry toured relentlessly and appeared in movies like Rock! Rock! Rock! and T.A.M.I. Show. He opened his own St. Louis venue Club Bandstand in 1958. His amusement park Berryland followed in 1961.

Berry’s career hit a snag when he was arrested in 1959 for transporting a minor across state lines. He eventually went to prison for charges stemming from that arrest in 1962. After his release from prison, he scored a few more hits, like “No Particular Place to Go” and “You Never Can Tell.” He landed his only U.S. No. 1 single in 1972 with “My Ding-a-Ling.” Late in the ’70s, he served another short prison sentence for tax evasion.

He was famous for his prickly personality, which is captured in the 1987 documentary Hail! Hail! Rock‘n’Roll. The film features a behind-the-scenes look at two 60th birthday concerts featuring Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Etta James, and others. Berry is seen scolding Richards, and there are long sequences where the legend lectures Clapton on the correct way to perform his songs. Richards has a story about a time when Berry punched him in the face.

In 1977, “Johnny B. Goode” was included on the golden record launched into outer space on the Voyager spaceship. In 1986, Berry was inducted into the first class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Throughout the last few decades, Berry continued to tour the oldies circuit relentlessly. In 2011, Berry collapsed during a show at Chicago’s Congress Theater, later citing exhaustion. He announced his first studio album in almost four decades, Chuck, last fall, on his 90th birthday.

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