The Chuck Berry Collectors Blog

Morten Reff's book series "The Chuck Berry International Directory" documents and describes all Chuck Berry records ever released world-wide. The first volume contains all the US American and British releases plus most of the records officially released in other countries. Since the book was printed, additional records have been released. And collectors from all over the world reported additional obscure records. All these will be listed in a future volume of this series. Until then, we will report on some of the more interesting additions here.

One record missing from the Canadian discography is number GC-318X of the Quality Gold Collection of singles. The record is shown below. The interesting bit about this single, as Morten told, is that it looks like ordinary hit versions. However, they are not. Sweet Little Sixteen is the demo version and Reelin' And Rockin' is the alt. take, both of which first heard on the American Hottest Wax bootleg. The labels say (c)1981, but this is very unlikely as the first legal releases of these takes were in 1983 (UK) and 1986 (US).

If you know an exact release date of this single, post a comment here.

In early 2008 I wrote a blog article on the various recordings of Chuck Berry concerts in San Francisco in 1967. Three of these shows are only available for listening online at Wolfgang's Vault, a commercial site which runs on the archives of promoter Bill Graham.
In this blog article I explained a legal (at least here) method to create an audio CD from the online show. And guess what, someone did!
On eBay and in various places you can now find a CD titled "Career on the riffs", which contains the show of December 29th, 1967. The CD has a label (Vintage Masters) and a number (VMCDR-116). The cover looks professionally made, but all in all the CD is handmade: a burned CD and a home printed cover.
Since Wolfgang's Vault does not allow you to sell CD copies of their contents, this seems to be an illegal copy. Let me know if you know better.

By the way: The creators of this CD cannot have learned about it here, because if they had, they would have omitted Steve Miller from the printed band listing.

Thanks to Morten Reff I learned about a new CD album called "Dover Soul" by David Dover. This 2010 CD contains a segment of a show Dover performed with Berry on June 14th, 2008. David Dover told me:

I was hired to do all of the production for the show and it was at the Mabee Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Mabee Center is a large venue on the Oral Roberts University Campus. It's where Elvis used to play when he came to Tulsa. I did all the lighting and all the sound for the show. My band was the opening act and also played as Mr. Berry's band.

The CD comes with a ten-minute excerpt from Berry's performance. Though titled "Johnny B. Goode" on Dover's CD, you hear the complete closing segment of the show. First Berry performs his best-known song, then he continues with his usual closing routine asking for girls to dance on stage while Berry and the band run through a variant of what was once published as "House Lights" on the 1979 Rockit album.
The back cover of the CD shows Dover along with Berry on stage:

I asked David Dover how he came to record the Berry show and more importantly how he got Berry's permission for that.

I told Mr. Berry that I was going to record and he had no objections so I proceeded to do so. I recorded the entire show but Johnny B. Goode was the best of the bunch so that is the one I included on my album.

In contrast to a hundred of audience recordings made from Berry shows over the last decades, here we have a recording that is at least technically very good. Musically it is what you expect from an eighty-year old rock'n'roller. The backup band is better than most of the local pickup bands Berry uses when on the road, though not as good as the family line-up he plays with in St. Louis. When you look at a short video recording from this show, you see that Berry's friend, tour manager and bass player Jim Marsala was present on stage and guiding the band as he usually does.
The album is available from most of the large Internet shops. Click here for some links. The CD looks quite handmade. Even though I received a sealed copy through amazon, the disk is just a burned CD, not a pressed one. Likewise the cover seems to be made with a home printer. Song titles and running times are printed onto the CD only. Just like the recording information also writer credits are missing. I'm pretty sure that Dover did not write Who'll Stop the Rain by himself.
You can listen to an excerpt from Johnny B. Goode here or use the link to purchase the entire audio file.

[Additions to original post of 2011-08-06]
David Dover was so kind to provide us with additional information about this CD. In reply to my "handmade" comment he explained:

I have a publishing company and I own my own label so I suppose it would be considered an Indie label. I have the neccessary gear to produce a CD of good quality. A also have a Sony machine that mass produces them, so basically I am my own record company. I also own a shrink wrap machine to wrap the CDs. I have everything the big companies have except the money to promote myself.

Right you are, David. Therefore here's the place for me to promote your album. Recommended!
In addition David listed the following musicians as playing the Mabee Center concert: David Dover (guitar and vocals), Rick Heck (drums), Dave Russell (sax and vocals), Chip Anderson (bass and vocals), Rick Morrow (piano and vocals), Ricky Paul (guitar).

Thanks to Morten Reff and David Dover for help with this blog article.

Because it probably is his most important recording, Johnny B. Goode has been the topic of several comments and discussions in this blog before. (see here and here)
Common knowledge is that besides the well-known version as released in 1958, there is a so-called alternate version "Take 2/3" which consists of a short version of the famous guitar intro (take 2) followed by some studio talk and then continuing into a complete track (take 3).
On the HIP-O-Select 4-CD set of same name (HIP-O-Select B0009473-02) one can listen to both versions one after the other (CD 2, tracks 20 and 21). And if you listen carefully you will notice that take 3 and the finally released version are exactly the same recording. As Fred Rothwell explained in this blog, common practice for Berry was to play the intro and the rhythm first, while further lead guitar segments were overdubbed later. Thus track 20 (take 3) on the HIP-O-Select CD is the undubbed version and track 21 is the overdubbed version.
That's what common knowledge said. But then I received an email from a reader of this site who noticed something strange. Josep Rulló from Barcelona/Spain wrote:

We are missing the complete alternate take first used in the “Rock´n´Roll Rarities” album in the 1986. This complete take, identified as take 3, is very noticeably different from the master.
I mean, it´s great to have the basic track for the master (the undubbed master take), but I think somebody really got their wires crossed at Hip-O regarding this. Why did they leave the excellent alternate take out and, what´s more, splice the undubbed master take after the “Johnny B. Goode, take 3” voice?. They could have included everything as a great sequence that would have shown the recording process very clearly.

What Josep did - and none of the other collectors including me - was to compare the "Take 2/3" track on the HIP-O-Select box with the "Take 2/3" track as originally released by MCA/CHESS in 1986 on the double album "Rock'n'Roll Rarities" (Chess LP 92521). And when you compare these two, you will notice some minor differences and some major differences.
The minor differences are an additional false start of take 2 on the 1986 version, which is missing on the 2008 version which in turn has Leonard Chess shouting "Johnny B. Goode, take 2" at the beginning.
The major difference is that the 1986 version of take 3 is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT RECORDING from the take 3 on the 2008 CD. It has a much longer and different piano solo between the second and third verse which you can easily use to tell the versions apart.
I wonder if someone can shed some more light on this. So far this is my theory:
When Steve Hoffman of MCA/CHESS created the "Rock'n'Roll Rarities" album, he not only remixed some of the 1960s recordings. He and his team also found an unreleased version of Johnny B. Goode and some studio chatter about the recording of the song. So they took the aborted take 2, the following discussion, and the unreleased version (rumor goes that this is take 1) and combined those to what they called a "previously unreleased version". Note that they did not claim the unreleased take to be take 3. They just moved it after the studio discussion, not before. And because that studio talk ended with Len Chess introducing "Take 3" we all came to believe that the unreleased take was indeed take 3.
As it seems, this also fooled the engineers at Universal when they compiled the so-called "complete" CD set. They were supposed to add takes 2 and 3, so they took the master tapes and used takes 2 and 3 - the real takes 2 and 3. This is how the real take 3, which by incident is the undubbed master of the hit version, went into production. They clipped off the false start from take 2 (bad) and added Len Chess's introduction (good). But no-one noticed that the complete track was notably different from the 1986 version.
Thus we have to note that there are these studio versions of Johnny B. Goode:

• Take 1: Recorded on January 6th, 1958. This was first released in 1986 on "Rock'n'Roll Rarities" as the second part of the so-called unreleased version
• Take 2 incl. false start: Again first released on "Rock'n'Roll Rarities", this is the first part of the so-called unreleased version
• Take 2 incl. announcement: First released in 2008 on the HIP-O-Select boxset, again this is the first part of the so-called "Take 2/3" but has the false start replaced with a spoken introduction
• Take 3 without lead guitar: First released on the Hip-O-Select boxset as the second part of the "Take 2/3" track
• Take 3 with overdubbed lead guitar: First released in 1958 on CHESS single 1691 this is the well-known hit version
• Mercury version: Just for completeness - There exists another studio recording made on September 21st, 1966 and first released in 1967 on "Golden Hits" (Mercury MG-21103). This can be easily identified by the use of tambourine and saxophone.

We have to say a big THANK YOU to Josep twice: First for finding out the differences, and second for telling us!

There are various white-label not-for-resale records containing Chuck Berry material. For a full discussion see this site's chapter on Radio and Promotional Records.
From Italy there are some not-for-sale records which seem to be used in jukeboxes only. At least this is what the two Italian singles below say.
CADET 2742 is the same as the original US single Tulane b/w Have Mercy, Judge and as such could be a normal DJ copy.
Durium 7811 however is different. It contains the 1972 live version of Reelin' and Rockin', though shortened to 2:45 minutes. The usual single edit is approximately four and a half minutes long. This edited version is ONLY available on this Italian record. In addition the song is coupled with a different artist's hit: Don't Ha Ha by Casey Jones is on the flip side. This indeed does not look like a DJ Copy but as if produced exclusively for jukebox use.

There are two questions: Does anyone know of other jukebox-only records? And especially for our Italian readers: Have these records only used in jukeboxes? Write a comment if you know something about these singles.
[Addition thanks to Morten Reff:] The same shortened version of Reelin' and Rockin' is also on the Italian single Cadet (Durium) DE-2796, though with Berry's I Will Not Let You Go on the flip side.

As you might have already seen, the Collector's Guide to the Music of Chuck Berry looks a bit different than before.

I tried to make the site better readable. This includes different fonts and colors, but most importantly it includes the placement and size of images.

All cover scans are now placed in separate columns to the left and right of their corresponding description. This leads to some images displaying slightly smaller than before. However, as you certainly know, you can click on each and every image to see a larger and higher resolution version.

The site should display correctly on all of the common browsers both on computers and smartphones. Please check with your equipment. You may need to refresh the display in order to have your browser show the most recent version and not a cached copy you looked at before. If you encounter any display problems with the new look please let me know in email. Include a short description of your equipment.

While working on the layout I also included several changes to the contents. This includes a few new images, some changes to descriptions, and correction of a few factual or spelling errors. Enjoy!

This site's bibliography section lists and comments all the relevant books about Chuck Berry and his work.
One of the books discussed is Rich Cohen's history of Chess Records called Machers and Rockers. As you can see, I found this book hard to read and full of errors. My recommendation was not to spend any money on it.
I recently learned that Cohen wrote a second book on the same topic. The title is "The Record Men: The Chess Brothers and the Birth of Rock & Roll". It have not been able to find out when it was released but I hoped he had taken the opportunity to correct all the flaws in his first book.
So I recently ordered this second book only to find that I became victim of a rip-off, unfortunately common among book publishers nowadays.
"The Record Men" is NOT a second Rich Cohen book! It is just the paperback edition of "Machers and Rockers" retitled. They have not changed a single word other than the page headers. Nowhere it tells that it's a reprint except for the Library of Congress Catalog entry. They even falsified the Larry King quote on the cover (unless King praised both books with the same words).
I did not recommend the hardcover edition, but I strongly discourage you to even look at this rip-off reprint.

When I first wrote about the new series of 16 Chuck Berry album replicas issued by Universal Music Japan, I complained that I do not understand why they do not offer hard, rigid boxes with the Mini-LPs to keep them safe.
I'm not alone as I learned. For some reason, Japanese album replicas are always sold in paper sleeves only. Only in rare circumstances a CD manufacturer will put several albums of a series in a box, though these then do not sell separately.
However, there's a market for Mini-LP boxes. To put the albums in a safe place, some companies offer blank boxes to carry a certain number of Mini-LPs. Here's one offer: Blank Mini-LP Boxes
And then there is a huge Japanese record shop chain called Disk Union. They sell many Mini-LPs and they want you to buy all of a series, not just the few you really want. Therefore Disk Union often produces promotional boxes which not only are huge enough to hold the whole series, but also are printed with information about the series or with the cover of one of the albums contained. For the Chuck Berry series Disk Union has produced two different boxes, one to hold the first eight albums, a second to hold the remaining eight Mini-LPs. These boxes are NOT sold separately. The only way to get them is to purchase the complete set of albums with it. And these boxes are not shipped by Disk Union to buyers outside Japan.
I have not been able to get the boxes from Disk Union or even a good photo thereof, although they were very responsive to my queries. However, thanks to Douglas Caldwell and Tiger Mountain Music I am able to show good photos of the boxes. Tiger Mountain Music imports the Disk Union sets from Japan and resells them from Canada. If you are interested in buying the boxes (and the included albums), check out their eBay store at Tiger-Mountain-Music.

These photos are copyrighted by Tiger Mountain Music and used here with permission. Click on the images to see the box in detail.
Here's a link to an offer of the two boxes by Tiger Mountain Music: click
For more information about Mini-LP boxes in general, visit the minilps.net site.

Again, Christmas time is near. So here is another set of eBay items a Chuck Berry collector may want. As said in the last blog post here, these are some true rarities, not offered often.
You can click on the items to go directly to the corresponding eBay page. In case you bid: Good Luck!

• this is the complete 1980 Dick Clark radio show as broadcast by NBC. It contains many segments of a Berry interview nowhere available on CD.
• like the NBC show above also this item is described in this site's section on rare promotional and radio records: the promotional album for the movie Go Johnny Go! The seller asks for $800 but you may get it a bit cheaper as he thries to sell it for months.
• Likewise the asking price for this copy of Chess EP 5121 Sweet Little Sixteen is much too high. $250 where the disc itself is less than VG.
• Do you have a Laserdisc player? That was some early variant of a DVD. Here's a Laserdisc called Sweet Home Chicago containing a Berry performance.
• If your budget is small, you may have a look on this offer. This seems to be a re-issue of the Soundtrack to Jazz on a Summer's Day containing the Berry live performance of Sweet Little Sixteen you may not have in your collection.
• And finally, here's the complete set of the 16 Japanese Mini LPs, which are a must have for Berry collectors in any case.

In case you have kept a wish for Christmas, you may have a look on these eBay items. These are some true rarities, not offered often.
You can click on the items to go directly to the corresponding eBay page. In case you bid: Good Luck!

• the rare radio record from Westwood One containing a Chuck Berry live concert never released anywhere else. This is definitely a must-have for every Berry collector!
• here's a promotional copy of Chess 1691 Johnny B. Goode
• Chess EP 5118 with the Head over Heels (or better vice versa) cover
• Here's the rare CD re-issue of Concerto in B. Goode
• Checker 1089 is rare in any case as the shortened single versions of Chuck's Beat and Bo's Beat are hard to find. In addition, this is a DJ Copy!

Sorry for letting you wait for the final remarks on the new series of album replicas issued by Universal Music Japan.
Here's the fourth summary of bonus tracks hidden on the re-issues. [Read part 1] [Read part 2] [Read part 3]
These are the last three albums originally released by Chess Records in the 1970s. And for some reason only known to the Japanese compilers, they also added a re-issue of the single Chuck Berry album released by MCA in the late 1980s. As you can see, the bonus tracks are the same recordings as published on the American four-CD sets, again added where they fit.

Album	Original Number	Re-issue Number	Bonus Tracks
The London Chuck Berry Sessions	CHESS CH-60020	UICY-94636	the five additional recordings from the Lancaster Arts Festival the single edits of Roll 'Em Pete and My Ding-A-Ling South of the Border (live BBC 1972)
Bio	CHESS CH-50043	UICY-94637	Blues #1 Annie Lou Me and My Country One Sixty Nine AM Roll Away
Chuck Berry (1975)	CHESS CH-60032	UICY-94638	Turn On the House Lights Jambalaya The Song of My Love Johnny B. Blues Dust My Broom Here Today Rockin'
Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll	MCA MCA-6217	UICY-94639	no bonus tracks

Note: Clicking on the re-issue number takes you to sellers of this CD.

While the computer behind me is busy doing some heavy-duty calculations, I'll add some more information about the new series of album replicas issued by Universal Music Japan.
Here's the third summary of bonus tracks hidden on the re-issues, one more to follow. [Read part 1] [Read part 2]
As you can see, these are the same recordings as published on the American four-CD sets. In contrast to a strict chronological sequence, the compilers in Japan tried to put the alternate takes and versions close to the originally released ones. Recordings not used in the 1950s are placed where they fit chronologically (mostly).

Album	Original Number	Re-issue Number	Bonus Tracks
Chuck Berry in London	CHESS LP 1495	UICY-94632	Chuckwalk Liverpool Drive Chuck's Beat (long LP version) Bo's Beat (long LP version) Spending Christmas
Fresh Berry's	CHESS LP 1498	UICY-94633	Shake Rattle & Roll (teke 23) Wee Wee Hours (inst.) Honey Hush (take 3) My Mustang Ford (inst.) My Mustang Ford (stereo remix) It Wasn't Me (stereo remix) Sad Day, Long Night His Daughter Caroline (fast)
Back Home	CHESS LPS-1550	UICY-94634	Untitled Instrumental (1969) My Ding-A-Ling (1969) Gun (fast) Gun (slow That's None of Your Business My Pad (poem)
San Francisco Dues	CHESS CH-50008	UICY-94635	Ramona Say Yes Ramona Say Yes (alt. mix) Lonely School Days (slow)

Note: Clicking on the re-issue number takes you to sellers of this CD.

As promised, I try to report more about the new series of album replicas issued by Universal Music Japan.
Here's a second summary of bonus tracks hidden on the re-issues, more to follow. [Read part 1]
As you can see, these are the same recordings as published on the American four-CD sets. In contrast to a strict chronological sequence, the compilers in Japan tried to put the alternate takes and versions close to the originally released ones. Recordings not used in the 1950s are placed where they fit chronologically (mostly).

Album	Original Number	Re-issue Number	Bonus Tracks
New Juke Box Hits	CHESS LP 1456	UICY-94628	I Got to Find My Baby (stereo remix) Bye Bye Johnny (stereo remix) Run Around (stereo remix) Jaguar And Thunderbird Down the Road Apiece (stereo remix) I'm Just a Lucky So And So Route 66 (stereo remix) Come On Come On (alt.) Adulteen Go Go Go (alt.) Go Go Go Brown-Eyed Handsome Man (inst.) Brown-Eyed Handsome Man (stereo remix)
Twist	CHESS LP 1465	UICY-94629	Brown-Eyed Handsome Man Too Much Monkey Business Memphis, Tennessee Nadine (Is It You?) Promised Land No Particular Place to Go My Ding-A-Ling (1972 single) Now this compilation is strange as several bonus tracks were not even recorded when the original album was released. And what has Ding-A-Ling to do here???
On Stage	CHESS LP 1480	UICY-94630	all 11 tracks from the 1963 Detroit concert first published on You Never Can Tell - His Complete Chess Recordings 1960-1966 (HIP-O-Select B0012485-02, 2009) Read more on this Japanese release ...
St. Louis to Liverpool	CHESS LP 1488	UICY-94631	Nadine (Is It You?) The Little Girl From Central I'm In the Danger Zone FrauleinO Rangutang (unfaded instrumental) Big Ben (Blues)

Note: Clicking on the re-issue number takes you to sellers of this CD.

CHESS LP 1480, Chuck Berry On Stage, is one of the strangest albums released during Chuck Berry's work with Chess Records.
Released while Berry was in jail, the Chess brothers had no new material available. Therefore they looked through their archive and found some lower quality tracks from older sessions. Even combined with some greatest hits, the album did not look as if it could be a commercial success. Thus, the Chess brothers went one step further.
By adding noise from an audience crowd and some shouting MC they made the album look like it would have been recorded live in concert. Next they changed the titles of some songs for further obfuscation. So Sweet Little Sixteen became Surfing USA, and Let It Rock became Rocking on the Railroad.
It didn't help and interest for this album was low. Seems like record buyers are not as stupid as companies want to believe.
When CDs became popular, nobody expected sales from re-releasing this album. Especially as the previously unreleased tracks became available without the fake applause over the years, one after the other which, however, took until 2009. If you were interested to listen to the original album with all the damage Chess introduced, you had to go to your Vinyl collection.
Finally, as part of the new series of album replicas issued by Universal Music Japan, CHESS LP 1480 is available on CD now!



The CD contains the original contents of the CHESS album including all the fake applause and shouts. It also includes How High the Moon which was not listed on the original cover, though on the disk. To fill up the re-issue CD, Universal added a true live concert from 1963, which makes the album title correct in some sense. The Detroit concert has been published before on You Never Can Tell - His Complete Chess Recordings 1960-1966 (HIP-O-Select B0012485-02, 2009). Note that the "enhanced" versions having the fake applause were omitted from that complete set. Here they are, finally.
To get the Japanese re-issue, click here: UICY-94630

As promised, I try to report more about the new series of album replicas issued by Universal Music Japan.
Here's a first summary of bonus tracks hidden on the re-issues, more to follow.
As you can see, these are the same recordings as published on the American four-CD sets. In contrast to a strict chronological sequence, the compilers in Japan tried to put the alternate takes and versions close to the originally released ones. Recordings not used in the 1950s are placed where they fit chronologically (mostly).

Album	Original Number	Re-issue Number	Bonus Tracks
After School Session	CHESS LP 1426	UICY-94624	You Can't Catch Me I've Changed Untitled instrumental (1956) Maybellene (live WINS) Roll Over Beethoven (live WINS) Rock and Roll Music (demo) Thirteen Question Method (early version) Sweet Little Sixteen (demo) Sweet Little Sixteen (take 3) Night Beat (take 3) Time Was (slow, take 4) Time Was (slow) Reelin' and Rockin' (take 1) Merry Christmas Baby
One Dozen Berrys	CHESS LP 1432	UICY-94625	Rock and Roll Music (alt.) Sweet Little Sixteen (take 11) Sweet Little Sixteen (original master) Reelin' and Rockin' (take 7/8) Johnny B. Goode (take 2/3) Around and Around (overdub take 2) Around and Around (overdub (take 3) Ingo (overdub take 3) Beautiful Delilah (take 15/16) Beautiful Delilah (take 6) 21 Blues 21 21 (take 14) Vacation Time
Berry is on Top	CHESS LP 1435	UICY-94626	Oh Yeah Time Was (fast) House of Blue Lights Sweet Little Rock'n'Roller (take 5) Long Fast Jam Long Slow Jam Run Rudolph Run Little Queenie (take 8 ) That's My Desire Do You Love Me (alt.) Do You Love Me
Rockin' at the Hops	CHESS LP 1448	UICY-94627	Almost Grown (take 14) Almost Grown (take 28) Blue on Blue (Upchuck) Blue on Blue Betty Jean (take 14) Betty Jean (take 17) County Line Childhood Sweetheart (alt.) One O'Clock Jump I Just Want to Make Love to You (take 3) Broken Arrow (take 21) Let It Rock (alt. mix) Too Pooped to Pop (take 4A) Say You'll Be Mine (Equadors) Let Me Sleep Woman (Equadors)

Note: Clicking on the re-issue number takes you to sellers of this CD.