Jon Brewer's official Berry documentary - now on DVD

In April 2019, German/French TV station ARTE broadcast a new documentary "Chuck Berry - The Original King of Rock 'n' Roll" by Jon Brewer. The film originally premiered in Cannes in October 2018 and has probably been broadcast in other countries and languages since. In November 2020 Cardinal Releasing Ltd. published an extended version of the film.

As a reminder: The film is a typical documentary/interview combination. The documentary part is taken from very well known sources, mostly from Taylor Hackford's "Hail! Hail! Rock 'N' Roll" and its DVD bonuses. New interview segments are from many known musicians such as Johnny Rivers, Gene Simmons, Steve Van Zandt, George Thorogood, and Alice Cooper. The most interesting segments are interviews with the Berry family and close friends which speak quite frankly (though of course biased) about living and working with Chuck. So we listen to Chuck's wife Themetta, their children Charles, Ingrid, and Melody, the grandsons Charlie and Jahi as well as Jim Marsala, Joe Edwards, and Wayne Schoenberg. In total it is a very complete and historically exact description of Berry's life and career. And if you exclude Elise LeGrow, the soundtrack is perfect.

The DVD contains both the 103-minute documentary as well as larger segments of the interviews used within the film. This way you get another 100 minutes of talks about Chuck Berry by musicians Alice Cooper, Gene Simmons, Steve Van Zandt, George Thorogood, Joe Perry, Nils Lofgren, Nile Rodgers, Joe Bonamassa, and Johnny Rivers as well as by family and friends Ingrid Berry, Charles Berry Jr., and Jimmy Marsala. Recommended.

The DVD unfortunately is Region-coded. It will only play if your DVD player is able to show Code 1 DVDs (US+Canada). If it does you can buy it from the usual online stores even outside the U.S.A.