Fresh Berry Information

Eagle eyed (and eared) blog correspondent Arne Wolfswinkel has done some serious checking of the Berry discography posted as a PDF file here on this blog and found some errors requiring amendment.

Deep Feeling / School Day session
Close listening and playing the songs at double speed has revealed that there is no bass on Deep Feeling or School Day. Instead, there are two guitars on the recordings, the second being Hubert Sumlin playing rhythm guitar beneath Berry's lead fills. As previously noted there is no bass on the two takes of La Juanda but the bass is back, played by Willie Dixon, on Blue Feeling (and the slowed down version of the tune, Low Feeling)

Sweet Little Sixteen
The version of Sweet Little Sixteen on The Chess Box (CH6-80001), despite what the box-set notes tell us, is not the speeded up version released as the single Chess 1683 but is take 14 before it was tweaked to make the single sound brighter and the vocals higher.

Vacation Time
Arne points out that Vacation Time on the Hip-O Select B0009473-02 box-set is preceded by a studio announcement '14A remake of 21' and not 13A as listed in the discography. However, listening yet again to the studio tapes there is a version of Vacation Time preceded by the following studio dialogue 'A remake of 21. I hope this god damn thing sells records Chuck, it's cost us a fortune. Here we go 13A'. I thought this was the issued version of Vacation Time but can only conclude there was a further take (14A) which became the issued cut. I believe that where an A appears in the take number, this indicates an overdubbed cut where the basic track is enhanced generally by additional guitar but sometime additional vocals. The differences between these takes can be very slight and I guess this is a case in point.

Too Pooped To Pop
Arne points out that there is a sax present on Take 4A of Too Pooped To Pop, issued on the Hip-O Select B0009473-02 box-set, as well as on the Chess 1747 single cut. On checking the studio tape again I can confirm that sax is present on all the takes. Of the 13 takes only 4 are complete takes (4A, 8A and 9A plus the master take, the number of which is unknown). Again, this is an A take overdub session with identical instrumental backing, including the backing vocals, but with variations in Chuck's overdubbed lead vocals.

Brown Eyed Handsome Man
Again Arne spots that on the August 3 1961 instrumental version of Brown Eyed Handsome Man tenor saxes are present. This, in effect, means that the saxes are present on all the cuts at this session. The backing track for both the instrumental and vocal versions is identical with just the guitar overdub substituted for Chucks vocal on the former.

The Promised Land session
There was an error regarding the line-up for this session. The PDF lists Ellis 'Lafayette' Leake and/or unknown: guitar/piano when it should be Ellis 'Lafayette' Leake and/or unknown: piano, unknown: guitar. The and/or regarding the pianist comes from an eye witness report by Guy Stevens in Jazzbeat magazine #4 dated April 1964 in which he says Leake had to leave the session halfway through and was replaced by a young studio pianist who may or may not have been Paul Williams who played on Chuck's following session a month later.

Many thanks Arne, keep 'em coming!