Fred Rothwell's
Long Distance Information: Chuck Berry's Recorded Legacy (Music Mentor Books, 2001) is the ultimate book for any serious Chuck Berry record collector: All Berry sessions, all the songs, all the session musicians, where to find which song if ever released, and tons of additional stuff.
First published in 2001 the book consists mainly of a 240 page commented "sessionography", a list of 93 recording sessions Chuck participated in between 1954 and 2000. For each session Fred lists the musicians and the songs recorded, whether released or not. For every song he shows a few main records containing it. He also fully describes and critizises every recording.
Chuck Berry's recorded legacy is not complete yet, though. Here is an addition to Fred's description of Session 65:
As we learn from the Chuck Berry songbook
Rock 'n' Roll Poet (see the
Bibliography), the song
You and My Country was penned by Chuck Berry. The songbook contains the lyrics, but not the notes of the song. Given the critical lyrics about
his country, it almost looks as if this recording was dropped from release for political instead of musical reasons:
I love my country, it's aim and intent.
I believe in the system as it is in print.
... snip ...
I know I'm nobody, I lost out in school.
But I feel something wrong unless I'm a fool.
I'm going to keep prying, at least I'll be trying,
'Cause somebody's lying.