Jimmy Marsala's biased memories of Chuck

Since the late 1970s Chuck Berry traveled to shows domestic and overseas with his friend and bass player James "Jimmy" Marsala. Marsala acted as the band leader performing sound checks and instructing the keyboarder and drummer, often locals, on how to play when sharing the stage with Berry.

Now Marsala has written a book called "Memories of Chuck" in which he reports his experiences on the road.



Marsala's recollections could probably have made this a highly interesting book. Unfortunately they didn't. Given the reports from promoters and journalists about Berry's habits regarding payments or female fans, one would expect nice stories from a first-hand witness. Unfortunately the result is tame and boring.

Marsala tries to correct the public image of Berry by defending him in every way. For every incident reported, Marsala finds a probable and nice explanation, whether on leaving a promoter with paid rooms to get a different hotel, or sending the band off-stage, or overrunning fans with a rental car. All of Marsala's stories are so biased you are tempted to stop reading after one third of the book. Only in the very end you'll find a chapter on Berry's "thriftiness". Everyone else would probably call it "closefistedness". Seems as if Marsala in the end did not really liked to sleep on the floor only because Berry decided to book just a single and single-bed hotel room for the two.

Besides two chapters containing short anecdotes of Marsala's life with Berry, the book chronologically describes incidents on various shows and tours between 1979 and 2014. There are five pages about Berry/Marsala's performance at Bill Clinton's inauguration party, five pages about a show in Spain, five pages about a tour in Brazil, and so on. Everything is very brief. Of the 180 pages of the book, only about 100 contain text at all.

Most of the remaining pages contain color(!) photos from Marsala's collection. Most show Marsala and Berry on stages all over the world, or they show Marsala and the band waiting for transportation. Other photos show Berry or Marsala with other famous artist such as Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin or Bill Wyman. Unfortunately many of the photos are not of best quality.

As Marsala writes from a first-hand witness position, we are supposed to believe what we read. You should take into account that Marsala writes from memory, though. And memory may not always be trusted. I cannot judge on most of the anecdotes reported, but I have been on-site at the 1983 Eindhoven concert. This is where the Berry photo from this site's logo originated. In 1983 I wrote about this concert and what I wrote does not necessarily match Marsala's memories.

I wish Marsala would have taken the time to write more, to write more professionally and to write more openly. Then this could have been a very good book. As it is, you will still want to buy a copy, but like me you will be disappointed.

Since none of the larger publishers seems to have been interested in selling this book, Marsala published it on his own using a Canadian company called FriesenPress. This is not a publisher but a company who offers self-publishing. Marsala provided the complete book, probably along with the non-professional layout. FriesenPress stores the book's electronic file and prints a copy as soon as a buyer wants one. They work together with sellers such as amazon and even with local book-on-demand companies for fats supply. When I ordered my copy from amazon Germany, the paperback I got was printed on demand by a German company. Yours may come from some place completely different. Some sellers are listed here.