Announcements

In December 2014 the authors of this blog received an email which changed completely the way we worked. Up to then we were confident that we knew everything about Chuck Berry's recordings and about record releases of Chuck Berry's work. We were wrong!

A French reader showed us with a few images and sentences how little we knew. Thierry had so many records and variants we hadn't seen before. It was a pleasure to be enlightened by him again and again.

During the five years that followed, you have seen Thierry's name in articles and images on this blog many times. He was also a great help checking and correcting our database of all Chuck Berry recordings on this site. Thierry became a valued fellow researcher always hunting for details on recordings, releases, and concerts.

All of a sudden and totally unexpected

Thierry Chanu

passed away on 22 November 2019 at the age of only 60 years.

R.I.P., Thierry! We will surely miss you!

Dietmar, Morten, Fred, Arne

Thierry's knowledge about record releases was unmatched. Not even Morten went into this level of detail when researching releases. During the last years Thierry was of tremendous help in our research of Chuck Berry recordings. Berry’s music has lost one of its most loving collectors and knowledgeable persons.
Many thanks to Thierry's wife Anne and her sons for all their support!

Two years ago we had a long discussion on this blog regarding the recording of Johnny B. Goode. This included some comments about a man not only present at the recording but also deeply involved: Jack Wiener.

This is when I started researching about Wiener who was one of the most interesting record men in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Very little is known about Wiener's work. Therefore I started to write a short article about him. As I researched more, the article became longer and longer. Finally the text is now online as part of this site.

Most of his life Jack Wiener operated using the brand Sheldon Recording Studios named after his middle name. So when you were uninterested in Wiener so far, record collectors should now start to pay attention. Sheldon is a famous name not only to Chuck Berry collectors.

Looking at your Chuck Berry 45s you will see a tiny Sheldon stamp in the dead wax area around the label.

This Sheldon stamp signifies that this record has been mastered by Jack Sheldon Wiener. You will find this on a huge number of singles, EPs and albums from dozens of independent record companies such as Chess, Atlantic, or Vee-Jay.

Looking at your Chuck Berry LPs you will see the logo "Sheldon Recording Studios" on the back of One Dozen Berrys as well as on other Chess/Checker/Argo albums.

Now you're paying attention, don't you?

Jack Wiener (1935-1999) was a sound engineer by profession. From what he did, he was also an inventor, a designer, an architect, a producer, and a studio owner.

In his teens, Wiener built and sold high-fidelity cabinet speakers. At the age of 17 he entered the recording business and started to work at Universal Recording, Chicago and later at Master Recorders, Los Angeles. As an account executive he handled independent record companies such as DOT, CHESS or SUN for which he mastered, doctored, overdubbed and recorded artists such as Pat Boone, Chuck Berry, or Elvis Presley.

In 1956 Wiener started to build a first recording studio on his own located at 2120 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago. Yes, the famous Chess studios weren't Chess studios at all. The Chess brothers had bought the building and provided some money for the studio, but Jack Wiener was a co-owner and did all of the planning and management. He built the recording console, he planned the room layout and construction, and he selected and bought the studio gear. The famous sound we all know from 2120 was purely Jack Wiener's achievement.

Wiener also did all of the recording and mastering at 2120 S. Michigan Av. up to mid 1958. At his so-called Sheldon Recording Studios, Wiener recorded all the Chess/Checker/Argo artists, but also performers from other labels such as the Coasters, Johnny Cash, Ronnie Haig, the Mark IV and more. Not to be forgotten, he cut and mastered Chuck Berry's Sweet Little Sixteen and Johnny B. Goode.

In July 1958 Jack Wiener was drafted and left 2120. He became a member of the Audio-Visual Branch of the Information Service at the Fifth Army Headquarters in Chicago. Concurrently to his work for Army radio broadcasts, he continued to record, to master, and to design recording studios. For instance he recorded the complete 1959 Playboy Jazz Festival. His masters for Chess, Sun, Nashboro and so on were now marked with the tiny Sheldon stamp in their dead wax area. As a consultant Wiener designed the recording console for Sam Phillips' new SUN studio in Memphis as well as the Echo Recording Studios for Jack Clement.

A 1961 client list included more than 200 companies Sheldon was working for, mostly record labels from Ace to Vee-Jay but also radio and TV stations as well as advertising agencies. With the huge list of clients, it's no wonder in a July 1959 ad in Cash Box, Wiener proudly claimed "Best in Mastering: More hits on charts than any other independent studio".

In 1962 Jack Wiener built a new Sheldon Recording Studios at 1725 North Wells Street, Chicago. This time he included everything needed for providing full service to independent record labels. This included recording and mastering, but also pressing, label printing, packaging and shipping. "48 Hours from recording to sale."

By the end of the 1960s with the decline of the independent recording labels, Wiener moved his business to TV sound recording and processing. In the 1970s and 1980s he built and sold top-of-the-line equipment used for motion picture and television production. He also developed computer hardware and software for broadcasters and recording engineers.

Jack Sheldon Wiener was one of the unnamed experts behind all the great records you love. Singer and guitarist Ronnie Haig called him "The Genius in the Sound Room". Wiener's contribution to 1950s music should not be forgotten. Therefore the whole story is here on the main site.

Acknowledgements: I wish to thank all the fellow writers and experts who helped during my research such as Jason Wiener, Nadine Cohodas, Susan Schmidt-Horning, Ronnie Haig, Fred Rothwell, Bruce Pegg, Colin Escott, Peter Guralnick, Bill Leebens, Hermann Ruwwe, Bill Daniels, Opal Louis Nations, Tim Samuelson, Kandalyn Hahn, Morten Reff, Thierry Chanu, and Steve Carr. Thank You!

Once in Persia reigned a king who upon his royal ring carved these words so true and wise. Which when held before his eyes gave him counsel at a glance of his life of changing chance. Solemn words and these are they: "Even this shall pass away." Trains of camels through the sand brought him gems from Samarkand. Fleets of galleys through the sea brought him pearls to match with thee. But he counted not his gain nor his treasure, mine or main. "What is wealth ?", the king would say, "Even this shall pass away." In the revel of his court, at the zenith of his sport When the palms of all his guests burned with clapping at his zest He among his figs and wine would cry, "Oh, loving friends of mine, Pleasures may come, but they cannot stay, like even this shall pass away?" The most beautiful woman ever seen was the bride he chose his queen. Pillowed on their royal bed, whispering to her soul he said: "Though a bridegroom never pressed dearer bosom to his chest. But mortal flesh must come to clay and even these shall pass away." Towering over the village square, thirty meters in the air Rose his statue, carved in stone, as the king stood there lone Gazing at his sculptured name, said to himself, "So what is fame? Fame, it's but slow decay, even this shall pass away." Fighting furiously on a battlefield, once a javelin pierced his shield. Soldiers with a loud lament bore him bleeding to his tent Groaning from his tortured side, "Pain is hard to bear", he cried "Oh, but with patience day by day, even this shall pass away." Sick and sore with cancer; weak and tired and old, just minutes yet to go to pass the gates o' gold Spake he with his dying breath, "Life is done, so what is death?" Then in answer to the king fell a sunbeam on his ring Reflecting words he failed to say: "Even this shall pass away."

Chuck Berry, Pass Away, from the album „Rockit“ © 1979 Isalee Music Publishing

Charles Edward Anderson Berry Sr.

18 October 1926 – 18 March 2017

R. I. P.

As you know, this site is about the music of Chuck Berry. It is not about Chuck Berry as a person, his life, his family affairs or other gossip. So this blog entry is an exception. I have been asked by a German magazine to write a piece to honor Berry's 90th birthday and to cover his record releases in Germany. Courtesy of Rock'n'Roll Musikmagazin here's a translation of what I wrote.

On October 18, 2016, the first of the classic rock and rollers turns 90. This is amazing, because the music business is notoriously known not to be the healthiest living environment. But we can see from the example of Keith Richards (72) that some people survive almost any dose of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.
But for Berry, the music business was just that: a business. This may be because unlike Richards and most other colleagues he had long grown up when his first recordings emerged. At that time Berry had already completed training as a beautician, worked a few years as a janitor and spent his first sentence behind bars. He arose from a musical black middle class family. After work he played with local bands in St. Louis to earn some extra money for himself, his wife and his little children. It was about money and therefore they played what the audience wanted to hear: sometimes Blues, sometimes Jazz, often dance music, but also many standards, country and ballads. What was important was the show, so Berry was not only a stand-up comedian, he also hopped with his guitar duck-walking across the stage, did the splits and other gymnastics.
To increase his income, he thought records sales would be helpful. So he went to Chicago to audition for record companies, and ended up at Chess Records, where on 21 May 1955, the first single Maybellene (Chess 1604) originated. Leonard Chess, boss of the company and a tough businessman, managed to get Maybellene onto the radio and on the top spot of the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts. Now the money could flow.
However, the money did not flow in Berry's hands. The majority of the royalties ended up at music publisher Arc Music, which belonged to Leonard Chess and the brothers Gene and Harry Goodman. From the author's portion Berry also got only one-third as Chess had registered two uninvolved business partners as co-authors, Russ Fratto and Alan Freed. And the check for record sales would not have been very high either, as Chess musicians were usually paid by the hour.
But Leonard Chess knew how to make money. Therefore Berry stayed with the label. He quickly enforced better conditions for himself. Inspired by the success of the first records he became his own manager and learned to read and to formulate contracts properly. By the late '50s Berry had achieved a dozen hits on the Billboard charts and also got a better share of the revenue.
But record sales were primarily a marketing tool. You earned the big money from performances, of which in excess of 200 were completed each year. Again Berry was quite a businessman. As early as 1956 he separated from his band-mates. On the one hand their alcohol escapades prevented him from retaining control. Secondly, the band had to be paid, and that amount was taken from his pay. So henceforth Berry went on tour alone. The guitar in hand luggage, the audio equipment provided by the organizers and any vagabond band as a rhythm machine. Payment to be made before the show in cash and off the stage after exactly 60 minutes. Encores? I'm not paid for encores. The scene in the "Rock'n'Roll All Star Jam" DVD featuring a TV concert from 1985 is characteristic. During the grand finale to Rock And Roll Music Ron Wood, guitar in hand, chases Berry, who persistently denies his participation.
So no drugs, no sex, only rock'n'roll and only as a business? Not quite. The sex bit shook the well-planned business model over and over again. Many female fans were willing but not always discreet. In 1959 a disgruntled employee brought a criminal charge against him for sex with a minor and he went to prison for one and a half years found guilty of child abuse. In later times pornographic photos and videos, whether real or not, were leaked and published in exposé type magazines. Even as late as in 1990, during a raid on Berry's house, the police found secretly recorded videotapes from the ladies room of his restaurant, which cost him a suspended sentence and a multi-million dollar out-of-court settlement with the victims. Not by chance Berry's biggest selling record is about how he plays around with his Ding-A-Ling. No wonder Queen Silvia of Sweden, an activist against child abuse, had no desire to hand over Berry the Polar Music Prize awarded to him in 2014 for his lifetime achievement.
Berry's prison stay in the early '60s virtually destroyed his career. Meanwhile at exactly this time, with the help of his music, many new rock careers started. The Stones, The Beatles, The Beach Boys and thousands of other groups played the Chuck Berry song book from start to finish and sold his compositions by millions. Johnny B. Goode alone was not only played on stages, but also issued on records by nearly 600 artists. There are nearly 400 cover versions of Memphis, Tennessee, with just under 300 covers for both Roll Over Beethoven and Sweet Little Sixteen.
Berry had a few hits himself such as Nadine and Promised Land during the mid-'60s, especially in England. But he quickly moved into playing oldies for the most part. This was true for both his concerts as well as his later records which often consisted of well known standards. Even his new songs, often not bad, were based on well-known melodies, supplemented by intelligent lyrics.
The lyrics in particular contribute in a large part to Berry's later success. While the music of his records has always been a mix of the familiar, blues, country, jazz, ballads, the lyrics were always original. Berry could easily tell in the two minutes of a single a complete, amusing and catchy story. Nowadays, it's not without reason that Berry is mainly praised by his colleagues for his lyrical poetry.
In the '50s with Leonard Chess, Berry had a business partner with whom he could work well for their mutual benefit. After the end of the beat wave he lost his business acumen. He had always given quick money preference over artistic performance in concerts and so a large check lured him in 1966 to Mercury Records. Five albums with poor sales and four unsuccessful singles later, the planned fifth single was sent only to DJs and Berry remorsefully rejoined Chess. However, Leonard Chess had died and the company had become part in a large business group. Although Berry now had professional musical partners, the Woolies and the Billy Peek Band, who accompanied him both on records as well as tours, there was only a short period in 1972 when he scored a few hits again. Live and on these records, he played his oldies. The latest Chess record appeared in 1975. A brief new start in 1979 at Atlantic was unsuccessful. As soon as the Atlantic album was finished, Berry spent another six months behind bars, this time for tax evasion.
Until a few years ago from time to time Chuck Berry could be seen on a stage, assuming a Russian oligarch wagged enough cash. Since his 70th birthday and up to October 2014 he performed once a month at the Blueberry Hill in St. Louis together with his children. For Ingrid and Charles Jr. these appearances were likely to be considered as elder-care, for Chuck Sr. they were perhaps the only concerts he played for love rather than money.
Unlike the US and many European countries, in Germany the number of Berry records published during the 1950s was pretty low. There have been just five, maybe even only four singles on Deutsche London. It is questionable whether You Can't Catch Me (DL-20085, 1957) was ever released; at least I don't know of anybody who ever saw this record. If you know better, contact me! Even Johnny B. Goode was unissued in this country. During the '60s you could only get Berry's music in Germany on import records, mostly from Funckler in Holland, where from 1963 to 1965 a total of 17 singles called the "Chuck Berry Song Series" were released. Likewise the Funckler LPs were available in this country only as import copies.
In 1966 German Vogue tried the single Lonely School Days (DV-14547). There were hints that Vogue also wanted to release some English albums licensed from Pye Records and was probably hoping for additional new releases. However, due to Berry's change to Mercury it seems that this project was abandoned. On the other hand Mercury released no Berry singles onto the German market at all, just some of the LPs. It was only in 1972 that Mercury jumped on the oldies train and published some Berry oldies, though re-recordings from the late '60s.
From 1970 on Berry's work was marketed in Germany through Bellaphon. The people from Frankfurt were very active, publishing all the new American albums, but also oldies and rarities. This included seven Chuck Berry singles that Bellaphon brought to the German market between 1972 and 1976, of which My Ding-A-Ling (Bellaphon BF-18138) even got into the lower ranks of the Musikmarkt single charts.
Even in the GDR there was an album: Chuck Berry (Amiga 8.55.835, 1981) containing 16 Mercury recordings.
Chuck Berry's musical oeuvre is pretty much fully documented. The 16-CD collection Rock And Roll Music - Any Old Way You Choose It (Bear Family BCD 17273 PL), published two years ago, contains virtually every note ever issued on album or single. If you like it even more detailed, HIP-O-Select as part of the Universal Music Group between 2008 and 2010 released three sets of 4 CDs each containing Berry's Chess material, including a lot of alternate takes and outtakes.
For the true collector among Berry fans even this is not enough, though. While there are discount samplers almost monthly, in which the same material is released in ever new combinations, sometimes there are also interesting segments to discover. There might be a Oldies Collection enhanced with old interviews, or there is an unknown recording on a bootleg. Recently a CD gave us an old radio spot and a security announcement, which Berry had recorded for an airline.
A workgroup of international Berry collectors at irregular intervals write on my website http://www.crlf.de/ChuckBerry about newly issued old recordings, new cover versions or new live CDs containing mostly acoustically or artistically uninspiring, but often historically interesting concert recordings.
Collectors are primarily concerned with ancient rarities, such as Alan Freed's private publishing of a soundtrack LP or record covers never seen in stores. Of particular interest is the research about who played what on which Berry song. Here new information arises month after month. Even the two year old discography from the Bear Family Box is already outdated, because in the course of an old court case recording contracts with names and data became known. This case, of course, was also about money. Berry was sued by Johnnie Johnson, who died in 2005, for a share of the royalties because as a partner and pianist Johnson said he not only provided the piano accompaniment for many hits but also the melodies themselves. The case was decided and completed in 2002 in Berry's favor. Private documents submitted by the parties could be recently forensically evaluated. So now we know, for example, that Johnnie Johnson did indeed played the piano on Johnny B. Goode and that on Roll Over Beethoven there really is a trumpet to be heard.
Chuck Berry's musical heritage remains exciting, even 90 years after his birth. In 1978 Berry was given a big Birthday cake on the stage of the Düsseldorf Philipshalle, by a topless blonde. Today we do well to wish him health. Happy Birthday, Crazy Legs Berry!
The author would like to thank Joe Edwards, the owner of Blueberry Hill Restaurant & Music Club, and his daughter Hope Edwards, photographer and designer, for kindly providing the images [to the original article].

Starting today, the Chuck Berry Database is online. You'll find links to the database on top of all pages of the main text as well as in the menu to the right of this article. Or simply click HERE.
What is the 'Database'? The Chuck Berry Database contains the full and most accurate information about the musical works of Chuck Berry. This includes the full session data such as date, location or recording takes. It includes the full musicians listings for each song and recording. It has release information which tells you where to find a specific recording. And much more!
The database is much more than a full listing. It not only gives a chronological overview. Concurrently it cross-references all the data which allows you to query for instance all the different recordings of Johnny B. Goode. Or to find out which recordings Willie Dixon played bass on.
The database is an international joint work by Fred Rothwell, England, by Morten Reff, Norway, and by myself, located in Germany. Also collaborating were Thierry Chanu, France, Arne Wolfswinkel, the Netherlands, and Claude Schlouch, France, plus there was help from record collectors and readers of this page world-wide.
It was a tremendous work to collect all the data in the database and to take it to a structure which allows you to get answers to almost any question regarding the music of Chuck Berry.
The database project started in the late 1970s, early 1980s. I had a first access to computers and wrote a summary from all the session and recording data which I found on records and in books. By the end of the 1980s I had my own personal computer and database (dBase 2 running on CP/M). All the session data available then was put into the database with the goal to publish it as a book at some time. Over many years the project stalled as I was busy with family and work.
Then I learned to know Fred and Morten. Both were working on similar projects, and both had much more data and knowledge than I had. From then on we exchanged letters, later emails and combined our research. In the end, Fred published his "Long Distance information - Chuck Berry's Recorded Legacy" which was much more than a sessionography with lots of well-written comments about each recording. Morten published his four-volume "The Chuck Berry International Directory". Again this was much more than just a discography. It was THE complete and commented discography about all of Chuck Berry's records published world-wide. And I created the "Collector's Guide to the Music of Chuck Berry" on the Internet with hundreds of pages, this blog and much more.
Since the release of Fred's book, further recordings surfaced. When Fred wrote the sessionography for the huge 16-CD Bear Family box, readers learned about many additions over the previously published data. And when you look at the database now, you will find even more data and a lot of changes over those two print-versions.
The Chuck Berry database contains what Fred, Morten and I believe is the most up to date and most accurate report of Chuck Berry's recorded legacy. Whenever new information comes up, such as a new record or some new recording details, we will integrate it into the database soon. Therefore this will be the ultimate Chuck Berry sessionography.
If you have wishes for future extensions of the database or if you have reliable data that is missing or incorrect here, don't hesitate to contact us! Until then: Enjoy!

Regular readers of the Chuck Bery Collectors Blog will have noticed that during the last weeks a new signature appeared below some of the posts: Morten Reff's.
Who is this guy, you may ask.
If you are collecting Chuck Berry records, you will not even think to ask this question. But for the one newbie reading these pages, let me briefly introduce Morten.
Morten Reff is a (or probably the) world expert on Chuck Berry records. He's the one who knows everything about when a specific record was released in a specific country, what the cover looked like and what's special about its contents.
Like me, Morten is a second-hand Berry fan. When Berry had his first hits, Morten was only recently born, and I wasn't even that. So we were never touched by the original hype.
Morten started collecting Berry records when his hits were re-released during the early British Beat craze. He bought his first single on PYE Let it Rock b/w Memphis, Tennessee. I encountered Berry during the early 1970s, when his greatest hits were already marketed as "Golden Oldies".
Both of us then started to collect more and more Berry recordings and records, trying to find even less known or more strange songs. While I was happy to get some cheap French reprint of a Chess mono album, Morten ordered the old U.S. albums and got the then modern "enhanced stereo" versions. In any case we tried to get more and more, especially after having noticed that versions differed on some albums or singles.
Though not formally trained as a music historian, in this specific field Morten worked like one. His research became a huge stack of publishing data. Consequently when Howard DeWitt in 1981 published the first English-language book about Chuck Berry, Morten directly wrote to the author about how faulty the included discography was. Due to this the 1985 printing of DeWitt's book came with a much better and much longer discography - written by Morten Reff.
During the last few years, Morten has published the essence of his 40+ year research on Berry recordings and Berry-related recordings in a series of books called The Chuck Berry International Directory (CBID).
Morten and I got into contact 18 years ago when an early print version of this blog was distributed to Berry collectors all over Europe by help of a British record seller, Hugh McCallum. Since then we continue to exchange news and findings on Berry rarities. We share a lot: We both like Berry's music, but don't care for his personal life stories. We're from Europe, and we both hate to accept that My Ding-A-Ling became Berry's greatest hit. And finally we are convinced that a true collector must also be an extensive researcher. We both encourage other collectors to join in and share their knowledge with us.
With the print version of his over 2.000 pages of Berry's musical legacy finished, Morten agreed to post further findings (new records, new covers) in blog articles here. If you own the books, you might therefore bookmark this blog and print out the CBID additions.
If you want Morten (or me) to write about a specific Berry-related subject, feel free to send an email to cbguide@crlf.de. We promise to at least think about it.

The main reason why this part of the Chuck Bery Collectors website is a weblog (or blog) is to open it for your responses.
Several articles here have had great input by readers, sometimes even resulting in heated discussions.
For a good research, discussions and input are essential. This is why you'll find some options to add your personal comment to an article.

Unfortunately I had to stop allowing comments to December's article on Berry's Christmas song. This entry was abused by a huge group of blog spammers. To reduce my work in reading and deleting their garbage, I had to disable the comments function. Right now comments are still open for the 140 other articles here. If you want to add a note to the Christmas song article, please send me an email and I'll post it as a comment here.

It's sad that once again spammers destructed a useful Internet function. But it's interesting to see how the bloggers vs. blog spammers fight escalates more and more.

In the beginning we had no blog spammers. So bloggers wrote articles and readers used the comments form to add their thoughts. Comments were printed right below the main article for everyone to see - and to further comment.
Spammers recognized this as a nice opportunity to post their own texts on other people's websites. Why do they do this? One reason is to display advertising for a product all over the web. Another reason is to display links to their own offers - good for two purposes: readers of the blog might click on a link, and search engines will find lots of links to the spammer's site which in turn rises their position in result lists.
So spammers wrote little programs to search for comments forms and fill those with advertising and links automatically.

Website authors found their pages spammed with advertising or unwanted links, so a counterstrike followed.

The solution was called CAPTCHA, short for 'Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart'. The idea was to automatically find out whether a comment was written by a human reader or by a machine. There are various types of CAPTCHA. All of them work with something people can easily do and machines can't. Things such as reading a simple question and answering it or recognizing shapes in a distorted image. This is why there is a graphic with my comments form which you have to understand and describe. If you can do so, you're supposed to be human and you are allowed to post a comment.

So we excluded spammers who used computers. Next for the spammers was to change to use humans. Computers looked for comments forms, then humans such as cheaply paid students were hired to fill in the form with the spammers' ads or links. Typically the comment was nice enough to read with the advertising hidden, such as here:

Doe? your blog have a ??nta?t page? I'm having problems locating it but, I'd like to shoot you an e-mail.

Where's the advertising? In the user name and user homepage fields (not shown here). And while such a comment is nice to read, we do not want to publish their ads and links on our pages.

The next solution was algorithms to select useful comments from advertising. Comments were automatically checked against certain words and phrases. If a comment was seen as advertising, it's automatically rejected.
Worked - for some time. Next the spammers learned to mis-spell the keywords so the algorithms would no longer find them. So I received comments that read like this:

I have got you bolk marked too look at neww stuff you post

At some point the algorithms were no longer useful and we had to return to manual approvement. With blogs having few comments such as this one, this is still an option. This is the reason why you cannot post a comment and immediately see it on this site. With every comment posted, first I'll receive a message from the blog software in which I need to approve or reject the comment. Worked for some time.

But even this does not work any more now. For some reason, the Christmas song article was found by spammers to be a valuable target. (I suspect is has to do with a Facebook post about it.) Within a few days I received dozens of spam comments to reject. Sorry, folks, but this is too much work for me!

Another interesting fact is that many spammers nowadays seem to use people who cannot read English at all. Outsourced to China? Have a look at comments like this:

Keep up the {superb|terrific|very good|great|good|awesome|fantastic|excellent|amazing|wonderful} works guys I've {incorporated|added|included} you guys to {|my|our|my personal|my own} blogroll.|{Howdy|Hi there|Hey there|Hi|Hello|Hey} would you mind {stating|sharing} which blog platform you're {working with|using}?

You see? This is a template from which the spammer should have selected alternatives. If he had understood what to do.

Anyway. I have removed the comments function from certain blog posts. If you want to comment on a topic which does not have a comments form beneath, send me an email to (cbguide at crlf dot de) and I'll make sure your input will be seen by other Berry collectors.

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!

Those of you who follow these articles and the accompanying web site regularly will notice some recent changes.

As you know, this web site not only describes all of Chuck Berry's recordings and where they first appeared. I also show images of all these original records, CDs, and books.

Every image is contained twice: Within the text there is a smaller version working like a thumbnail image, when you click it you get a higher resolution image full of details. I spent a lot of work photographing the covers, enhancing them, repairing damages and so on.

Unfortunately I find this work misused all over the Internet. The copyright notes at the bottom of each page tell explicitly that the rights to all original covers belong to the corresponding record company, publisher, and their artists. It also says that the copyright to the enhanced digital photographs of these covers as shown on these pages belong to the author of this web site and the company owning it.

The copyright note says that you may use these images within other web sites if (1) you link to the original image (and not copy it) and (2) YOU TELL WHERE YOU GOT IT FROM. However, I find more and more websites using my work without telling the origins and at least linking back to the original pages. Interestingly these web sites pretending to show my work as their original contents (and thus stealing my work) are not only those who also offer to download the corresponding music (and thus stealing Chuck Berry's work). I also find many blog entries such as mine which talk about a record or another and simply take the image from my site. Which would be OK if they follow the rules listed above.

I know that Google and the like make it perfectly easy to find any text or image and to pretend that it would be yours. However, every web author knows that digital contents (such as photos and texts) is copyrighted just like any book or song. If you use foreign contents, you must have the original author's permission and depending on the use must pay them. I offer free re-use of the Chuck Berry-related texts and images on this site at no charge, but you must ask and you must tell the origin.

As most people do not ask and do not tell the origins, I decided to place the origin into the image itself. Thus in addition to the hidden copyright notes in all of the images here, every photo now has a watermark which tells where it comes from. I know that this makes the images useless for reprints. So if you want to use some of the photos from this site in a publication, such as Fred and Morten did with their books, let me know and I will provide you with an unmodified digital image. All others need to live with the watermarked images, sorry.

Only a few weeks after the CD release, the contents of Hip-O-Select's latest issue "Have Mery - His Complete Chess Recordings 1969 to 1974" is now also available for MP3 download and purchase at amazon.com.
This allows me to add more sound to these pages. As you know, throughout the discography wherever you see a little speaker icon next to a song title, clicking on this icon plays a short sample from this recording. Since the Listen To pages also include the samples of other variants of this specific song, you can easily compare versions.
By adding the samples from "Have Mercy" to the Back-at-Chess chapter there are now almost 400 song samples on this site - 392 to be exact.
If you are interested in getting the complete MP3 file and not only a 30 seconds sample, you can simply click on the Buy Now button of the amazon MP3 player. This directly gets you to the corresponding sales page at amazon.com.
[Disclosure: If you purchase an MP3 file through the samples from this page, I will receive a minor percentage of the amount you pay.]

I have completed the links to the amazon MP3 offers.
This means you can now listen to excerpts of

• all Chuck Berry recordings from Chess records between 1955 and 1966
• more than half of the Mercury recordings
• some of the later Chess tracks
• the 60th birthday concert
• the Atco recordings
• and various live recordings from Toronto, Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, Coventry, Wembley and Peterborough

99% of the 334 MP3 clips are offered by amazon U.S.A., a few are only available from amazon UK or amazon Germany. In those cases I added links to the corresponding files on these sites.
I think I have found all the Chuck Berry tracks offered by amazon. This turned out to be much more complicated than what you would expect. Here are some of the problems I ran into checking out the almost 1.000 MP3 clips listed by amazon's search function:

• amazon (or the suppliers) digitize albums, not songs. Therefore one and the same recording such as the Chess version of Maybellene is listed 12 times from various albums. And don't be confused that running times may vary several seconds.
• Especially the live versions such as from Toronto vary in length a lot, but we know this from the CDs already.
• Sometimes the same recording is listed under various titles.
• There's a huge mix of incorrect spellings both with song titles and artist names.
• Almost none of the live version contains any kind of information about recording date or place.

Due to this there may be errors. If you find one, let me know! Within a week there have been more than 1.000 accesses to the MP3 pages. Even though most of this were by search engines, it looks as if you find this addition to my site helpful. Tell me if I can make something even better. And no - there is no way to play the complete songs without paying for it.

This is a site about music. But it has been a site without music - until now.
In contrast to other music sites I had not included any sound clips or complete songs within this site. There was a good reason: If you use music for any commercial or non-commercial purpose, you have to pay the musician and the composer. Since I do not earn any money from this site, I cannot afford to license music for inclusion here. I know that other webmasters think and act differently and simply use music they cut from records or copied from somewhere. However, such is not only unlawful, in my opinion it is highly unfair against the creator of the music. How can you expect someone to create music if nobody is willing to pay them for it? It is really poor if like some weeks ago someone (himself a musician) asks me questions about some Berry tracks because he had a downloaded copy of a CD only - and not the commercial one with a great booklet answering his questions. Sigh!
OK, back to music. I recently found a legal way to provide you with excerpts from almost each and every Chuck Berry recording. Yes!
I started with Berry's original Chess era and added sound to every recording listed therein. That means you can now check out each and every recording Berry made between 1955 and 1966, including alternate takes and more. Isn't that great?
So if you see me mentioning as song such as

Maybellene

simply click on the loudspeaker symbol behind the song name. Try it!
Your browser will open a new tab or window where you should see one or in this case multiple Amazon MP3 Widgets. If it does not, this is because the widget needs both JavaScript enabled and a recent Adobe Flash Player installed. I'm sorry for that as this site nowhere else requires additional software other than a W3C-compatible Webbrowser (which I am proud of), but I decided that in this case the benefits overweight.
In the case of Maybellene there will be one widget for the original Chess version, one for the Mercury re-recording and several widgets for different live versions. If there are alternate takes, those will be displayed as well. Click on a widget to listen to this specific version. The widget displays controls for volume, pause and more.
This service is provided free by amazon.com. But of course you will not be able to listen to the complete track. There is a thirty seconds excerpt of each variant. That is all that is provided for free. If you are located in the U.S.A., you can use the widget's Buy MP3 button to purchase a DRM-free MP3 file of the complete track. Unfortunately amazon.com does not sell these MP3s to other countries and to make matters worse, other amazon stores do not stock all of the songs you find at amazon.com. That's a pity, but I cannot change it. Maybe I will add links to non-U.S. shops in the future like I did with the CD offers, but that's many days of work.
Please enjoy the new addition to this site and let me know what you think of it.

[Updated 11.11.2008]
Despite all the rumors and discussions happening in various online forums Chuck Berry's European Tour started today. Here is the schedule as officially published:

• 10.11. - Hallenstadion, Zürich (CH)
• 11.11. - Cirque Royal, Brussels (B)
• 13.11. - Club Ludre, Nancy (F)
• 14.11. - Le Zenith, Paris (F)
• 15.11. - Le Zenith D' Amiens, Amiens (F)
• 16.11. - Muziekcentrum Schaaf, Leeuwarden (NL)
• 17.11. - Jazz Cafe, London (GB)
• 18.11. - Jazz Cafe, London (GB)
• 19.11. - Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam (NL)
• 20.11. - Grugahalle, Essen (D)
• 21.11. - Olympiahalle, Innsbruck (A)
• 22.11. - SAP-Arena, Mannheim (D)

You may or may not have noticed, but for many months the pages of the website this Blog belongs to (http://www.crlf.de/ChuckBerry/) all ended with a question:

Would you be interested in buying a printed version of this website's contents?

Many readers clicked on this question and reached a poll questionary asking whether they would be interested and if, what they would be willing to pay for it. Over 150 readers filled the form with reasonable answers. Thanks to all of you!
In the meantime I had to remove the poll because 95% to 99% of the entered data came from automatic Spam-Bots entering random data just to see what it may be good for. Well, it was good for shutting down this kind of poll
Anyway I would like to summarize the results of the poll as those who entered their opinions might want to know what others thought.
As I said, in total there were some 150 useful replies. About 75% would be interested in buying a book version of this website. This corresponds to the opinions expressed in personal communication:

1. The site's contents is useful.
2. The site contains too much information to read it online, so you want to be able to read it offline while checking your record collection.

The second question asked how much you would be willing to pay for a printed version. The replies indicate that you have a reasonable knowledge of book prices and that you would be willing to spend a reasonable amount getting a book documenting Chuck Berry's complete recording output:

• The average suggested price for a black&white version is between US$20 and US$25.
• The average suggested price for a color version is around US$40.

About 5 readers suggested a price of US$75 or more. Thanks for the compliments! And about the same number suggested less than US$10. Hmmm....
Unfortunately printing a book is expensive. This site's contents adds to some 150 to 200 pages in print. Selling such a book for US$25 would require that at least 1.000 copies could be printed and sold at full price. This is not to expect, though, unless it would come from a mayor publisher. And printing the book for the 100 of you who already said they would buy it rises the price to the US$100 range.
Therefore unless a professional publisher approaches me covering most of the investment, I do not see a printed version offered in a bookstore ever. Sorry!
However, what I can envision to create is not a printed, but a printable version. I already experimented with creating a nicely laid out booklet. If I ever find the time I will put all of this site's contents into a document which prints clean and readable. I will then offer a version of this document for download so you can read it offline and print for yourself.
Such a printable PDF file will not be available for free, though. I will have to charge some amount to cover the effort spent. How much would such a printable version of this site's contents be worth to you? Let me know.

Hi everybody!
All of August not a single blog message was posted here. The reason was simple: I was traveling Denmark for some weeks - on a bike. A report will be posted soon at a different place on this site.
What did we miss in terms of Chuck Berry recordings? Nothing I know of. No new releases, no strange items found. So you did not miss anything.
Something you may have missed is Berry's performance at the U.S. TV show hosted by Jay Leno. You can view the segment on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVYh8i4_gh0. There's a discussion taking place at chuckberry.com about the quality of the performance with most forum writers highly praising Chuck. My view is a bit different:

Chuck's guitar 'playing' is next to inexistent. Whatever comes out of his guitar has nothing to do with the song - And I really LIKE the original recording! Also his singing misses all of the melody of the original. So just like Chuckie Boy I am disappointed when Chuck acts as a parody of himself such as in this show. Sorry!
Chuck created some of the nicest recordings of the rock music and authored a number of its greatest songs. But seeing him downplay these songs worse and worse over the last 40 years really hurts.
There's an old story about Chuck refusing to "dance" (playback) to his music in Dick Clark's Bandstand show. But seeing a performance like the one at Jay Leno's I wish he'd learned better.

In addition what you may have missed are the problems with Berry's last European tour where he missed some shows and the uncertainties about his upcoming European shows. I will not comment on those here as this site is dedicated to Berry's music - only! But I recommend you read some of the other Chuck Berry sites on the net before spending too much money on tickets.