Chuck Berry Rarities - 3

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.

Great news for Chuck Berry collectors!
Over the last years, the U.S. branch of Universal Music provided us with three superb four-CD sets documenting Chuck Berry's complete recordings for CHESS Records from 1955 to 1975 including many previously unissued tracks:

• Johnny B. Goode - His Complete '50s Chess Recordings (HIP-O-Select B0009473-02, 2008)
• You Never Can Tell - His Complete Chess Recordings 1960-1966 (HIP-O-Select B0012485-02, 2009)
• Have Mercy - His Complete Chess Recordings 1969-1974 (HIP-O-Select B0013790-02, 2010)

Now, the Japanese branch of Universal Music fulfills another long-standing collectors' wish: Perfect CD re-issues of Berry's original CHESS albums.
In a series called the "Chuck Berry 55 Papersleeve Edition", Universal Music Japan re-released 15 original CHESS albums and one MCA album. Of most interest is that this includes albums previously not available on CD such as Bio, Back Home, or San Francisco Dues. Each album is sold separately, but many collectors will want to get the whole set. Unfortunately the retail price of 2,800 Yen translate to approximately $35 each, plus packaging, postage, customs and taxes.
If you can afford buying some, you will be glad to get:

• a 100% exact replica of the original album sleeve scaled to CD size. This includes the exact printing of the original US edition, even on the spine. Bio and The London Sessions come in their original gatefold cover. And they even managed to duplicate the paper texture, e.g. of the London Sessions album.
• an audio CD of SHM-CD type. This CDs are made from a special enhanced transparency polycarbonate material (Super High Material) said to improve sound quality. It plays on every CD player, though.
• a many-page booklet containing a preface by Marshall Chess, recording data for all songs, complete lyrics, and a long description of the album by Kazuhiro Uda, that one unfortunately in Japanese language only.

Given this high-quality outfit, two things are a bit astonishing. First of all, the CD does not come in a hard box. You just get a plastic envelope which includes the papersleeve and the typical obi strip. This "tasuki" is common to Japanese CDs and includes information about the CD such as price or track listing, all in Japanese language. Secondly, because the obi strip is lost easily, you are left with the papersleeve, which contains absolutely no indication of its Japanese origin.
And without the obi strip and its Japanese-language track listing you might easily overlook another important aspect of these re-releases: Bonus Tracks!
While the original London Sessions album contains five studio tracks and three tracks from the Coventry concert, this re-issue has another eight tracks. This includes the five additional songs from Coventry as released on Have Mercy - His Complete Chess Recordings 1969-1974 (HIP-O-Select B0013790-02, 2010), the single edits of both Roll 'Em Pete and My Ding-A-Ling, and the live version of South of the Border from the 1972 BBC concert in London.
I will try to find out which additional bonus tracks are on the remaining CDs, but I guess they used all or most of the additional tracks from the American four-CD sets. Stay tuned.



Currently these CDs seem to not be stocked by the typical Internet shops. The only offers I found so far were on eBay:

• Set 1 of eight papersleeve albums of the 1950s and 1960s
• Set 2 of eight papersleeve albums from In London to the birthday concert

Thanks to Morten, Andy, and the folks at Universal Music Japan for information about this release!

Radio station records and CDs contain pre-recorded radio shows produced by the large American broadcasting corporations or by dedicated companies. They are sent to the small FM stations all over the U.S.A. who don't have the funds or manpower to produce all their radio shows by themselves.
Collecting radio station records is one of the last true research projects in popular music as no catalogs exist to explain which records were produced and what they contain. Those radio station albums of interest to the Chuck Berry collector are listed in a special section of this page. View here.
Most radio station records contain a DJ playing popular hits. That's far from interesting. Some shows, though, contain material not available on records or CDs anywhere else. With Chuck Berry these are several interviews which made it to radio station albums. And there even is a live concert available on a radio station album which is not published anywhere else.
So when fellow collector Hans recently found another radio station album claiming to contain Chuck Berry Live, I was very interested to learn more about it.
The show Hans found is part of the Cruisin' America with Cousin Brucie series published by CBS RADIORADIO (no typo). The three-hour show was to be broadcast on April 22-24, 1988. It contains the usual hit selection from Tutti Frutti to Who'll stop the rain.
At the end of the program in hour three, segment four finally comes In Concert: Chuck Berry with three songs: Memphis, Tennessee, Maybellene, and Johnny B. Goode. But if you expected to listen to unreleased material, you'd be disappointed. The first two are the standard Chess recordings with live audience dubbed onto them. They are taken from the original Chess fake-live album Chuck Berry On Stage. The third song indeed is a live recording, but a very well known one taken from the 1972 Chess album The London Sessions.
So while the contents itself was disappointing, learning about this show was not. Thanks to Hans for letting us know and providing the scan below.

Strange things happen ...

While I was busy earning some money, someone decided they could earn some money as well.

By re-releasing the "After School Session" album ...

In mono ...

On Vinyl !!!

Yes: Doxy Records DOY 608, released in the UK in February 2009 is a NEW vinyl album. It comes on 180g vinyl in mono. It uses the original front cover, but has DOXY printed in the upper right corner where we used to read CHESS.

All this information is from descriptions I found on the net. I have not seen a physical copy and I do not intend to spent money for it, but if you do, let me know some more details.

Here's a link to a sellers page: offer on ebay

In 1999 CBS produced and broadcast a four-hour mini-series called "Shake, Rattle And Roll: An American Love Story". The series runs through the 1950s Rock'n'Roll history by following a fictional band called The HartAches. Many well-known artists are portrayed such as Elvis, Little Richard, or Bill Haley. Chuck Berry is played by actor Cornelius Bates. I have not seen this TV broadcast as it was not shown in Germany and the video tape seems to be sold out.
In addition to the movie, MCA produced a soundtrack CD (see here). Here you hear 1999 artists perform classical rock'n'roll songs such as Slippin' and Slidin' or Summertime Blues. These cover versions were used in the TV soundtrack. Also on the CD are two original tunes: The Chords' Sh-Boom and The Platters' Only You. Probably the most important track on the album is Fur Slippers written by Bob Dylan and performed by B. B. King. There is no Chuck Berry on the soundtrack CD.
However, and this is why I talk about it here in the Chuck Berry Rarities column, there IS a variant of this CD which contains Chuck Berry! As a "Musical Preview" MCA sent out a promotional CD to radio stations. It seems that this promo CD was sent out before the final soundtrack CD was completed. The HartAches' version of Side by side is missing on the promo CD, but there is an additional HartAches (i.e. Peter Beckett) recording: Lucille. Also only on the promotional variant of this CD there is a version of The Glow-Worm by a band called The Melody Knights, and there is Chuck Berry's Maybellene. Although this is the original master and not a re-recording, it makes this promotional CD another Chuck Berry Rarity.
Here is the cover of the promo CD which also differs from the final copy.

Do you have/know Maxi Singles containing Chuck Berry recordings? Sure, but what is a Maxi Single?
There is one Chuck Berry record I know of, which is labeled a Maxi Single: Chess UK 6145007 of March 1972 has a prominent MAXI SINGLE printing on its label. Other than that it looks like an ordinary 7-inch 45rpm single containing Rock and Roll Music. The flip side contains two songs, though: Johnny B. Goode and School Day. So how do you name this. Morten Reff lists this record as a single, Chess called it a Maxi Single, to me it's an EP.
When I hear record collectors talking about a Maxi Single, they are usually referring to a 12-inch (LP-size) record which is played at 45rpm just like a 7-inch single. 12" singles were common in the late 70s and throughout the 80s. And yes, there have been 12-inch maxis containing Chuck Berry recordings - as you can see on the image below:

In the center of the image is the small Chess 1972 Maxi Single. To the left you see another Chess record. Chess GCHX-101 from 1988 is listed by Morten Reff as an UK EP. To me it is an Italian Maxi Single. We're both correct, probably. The 12-inch record has two tracks on each side, so calling it an EP makes sense. It was pressed in Italy, but according to Morten distributed from the UK.
To the right is the famous DINO 12CHUCK1 record from 1991. It has two Chess recordings on one side and a mixed medley of nine Berry hits on the other. Origin is the UK. This DINO record was concurrently also released as a 7-inch single and as a CD-single.
Finally in the upper center of the image you see a promotional copy of 12CHUCK1. This is a bit strange for a promotional copy as it has completely blank labels and came in a completely white sleeve. I have no idea how a DJ would know what to play from it.
Do you know any other Maxi Single containing Chuck Berry recordings? I'm talking about 12-inch 45rpm records.

Rocksmuk is a 1972 Dutch LP which has been of interest to many Rock'n'Roll collectors because it included not only well-known hits, but also interviews with Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
For many years this interview was found only on this rare album until it surfaced on several bootleg LPs and CDs in the late 1980s and 1990s. Because the original Rocksmuk LP contained hits from the Chess and Sun labels, most collectors saw this as a bootleg as well. As such it is listed on this site and in Morten Reff's Chuck Berry International Directory.

A few months ago, a Dutch reader complained about this classification:

On your site I see that you call this LP a bootleg.
However, it is a legal release from 1972 (not 1973).
One side has the Chess label, the other side has the Sun label.
For both labels the distribution rights came within the same company. By the look of it I guess it was Bovema (now EMI).
In 1972 the book "Pop smuk" (fl. 9,50) was published and this LP is an addition to that book. The book also has the interviews, but of course in print.
Both book and LP were legally widely available in bookshops.

First: Thanks, Luuk! It's always nice to get response from a reader as it shows someone is really reading your stuff.
Following Luuk's comment, I went to find the Popsmuk book he was talking about. It took some months to find a seller, but finally I got it:

The full title of the book is Popsmuk/Het Popjaarboek '72 by Pim Oets/Gijsbert Hanekroot, © 1972 Born nv.
So this proves Luuk's first remark: The book is from 1972 and as the sticker on the cover refers to the LP, that one should be from 1972 as well.
This however contradicts Fred Rothwell's statement who dates this interview to September 1973. Using the book we can correct Fred by quoting Pim Oets: "The interviews in this book have been made between September '71 and September '72 for the VARA radio program of same name [...] The sequence of the presentations is in chronological order." Given that Berry's interview is the next-to-last one, September '72 should be the best guess for the date of this interview.
The book in total contains 27 portraits from Ray Charles to Paul McCartney, each consisting of some very good photos by Gijsbert Hanekroot and some three pages of interview by Pim Oets. Berry's part is an extended version of the interview heard on the album.
The most interesting page in regard to the album is page 137, the next-to-last one. It contains a description of and a voucher for the Rocksmuk LP. As always, a click on this image gives you a better-readable version.

So what do we learn from this ad? First we find a label for the "elpee". While the album itself does not contain any label information other than Chess and Sun, the ad calls it Negram NQCS 1. According to Discogs, Negram was a "Dutch label, which was run by Hans Kellerman. In the late seventies it changed name to Bovema Negram, which was eventually acquired by EMI Holland." Negram indeed produced Chuck Berry records in the Netherlands such as Spotlight on Chuck Berry (Chess SPLO-3) or the Dutch version of the London Sessions album (at least according to Discogs). So here's Luuk almost correct. It wasn't called Bovema back then, but it seems Negram had rights to the Berry material.
Finally the ad contains a voucher on 7.50 Dutch Gulders to reduce the album price from Hfl. 17.50 to "een tientje" (ten). And it says the album is "leverbaar bij de erkende platenhandel", i.e. available in well-known record shops.
Given all that, I must accept Luuk's comments: Rocksmuk is most probably a legal release.

One of the rarest official Vinyl albums containing unique Chuck Berry recordings is a Japanese concert recording named The Day of R&B. Originally released in 1982, this album contains several songs recorded by the Japanese band RC Succession, some tracks by Sam Moore of Sam & Dave fame, and two Berry recordings, all cut during a live show in Yokohama in 1982.
One reason for the rarity of this record is that in 1982 you simply did not know about strange Japanese records in Europe or in the U.S. There were a few mail order shops which sent out catalogs every half a year such as Rockhouse or Bear Family. But these catalogs contained U.S., European, and U.K. releases yet seldom Japanese ones.
Even if you had found out about this Japanese album, it would have been difficult to impossible to purchase it from Japan. I remember buying once sending cash in a registered letter. Not only highly insecure, but also time-consuming with no guarantee you ever get the item you wanted.
Things have changed a lot in this regard. Still it happens that you do not notice a release you might be interested in. So I found out about a Japanese re-issue of this rare Vinyl album only by reading Morten Reff's new book. The CD was released in 2005 celebrating 35 years of RC Succession. So how do you purchase a Japanese record nowadays? Through the Internet, easily.
Ask Google on "The Day of R&B" CD and you'll get a list of multiple Japanese Web shops selling this item. Some even have English language text. Payment using Paypal or Credit Card is accepted world-wide. Shipping is easy, and all it takes for you is to wait two weeks until the CD arrives. Thanks, Internet!
If you are looking a bit more, you will notice that using a slightly incorrect title and with no note on Berry's participation the CD is even listed at an amazon shop near you.

By the way: The record number listed in Morten Reff's book is incorrect. Correct is Toshiba-EMI TOCT-11089

Whenever I come across an unusual Chuck Berry record, I try to find out where it stems from, what it is about and why it is special in some way. As long as Morten Reff's Chuck Berry International Directory book is not out, the only good sources for this are Fred Rothwell's book Long Distance Information and the Goldmine Promo Record & CD Guide. When both fail I ask Morten Reff for help.
But when I recently got me a new 2LP set, Morten was of no help at all. Not because he did not want to. He just did not know this record. This is the first time such happened since Morten and I started to exchange Berry information, which is a lot more than ten years by now.
To be honest, the album I found is not really a Chuck Berry album in its direct sense. But it is related to Chuck Berry in many ways. First, it contains 23 Chuck Berry songs, 19 recorded by Berry himself plus 8 Berry songs recorded by other artists such as Johnny Rivers, Ronnie Hawkins, Rod Steward, Elvis Presley, or the Beach Boys. And yes I know that the math does not work, but indeed some of the songs are on this set sung twice by both Berry and some other singer. And secondly, this album's cover shows nothing more than the line "Just let me hear some of that rock'n'roll music" which as we all know is a Chuck Berry quote.

The 2LP set was produced by The Goodman Group Music Publishers in 1979. The Goodman Group is a group of music publishing companies which was under supervision of Gene Goodman (brother of band leader Benny) until Marshall Chess (son of Leonard Chess) took over the business after Goodman retired. Along with the Chess Brothers, Goodman and his brother Harry in August 1953 formed Arc Music Publishing which owned and used the copyrights of all of the material coming out of Chess Records, including Berry's — and still does today.
Like other publishers, the Goodman Group presented their catalogue to the industry not only in writing, but also on records such as this. "This two-record compilation contains excerpts from 100 of our most successful copyrights, along with a summary of chart activity" wrote Gene Goodman on the back of this set. And indeed there are 100 well-known songs included, all in recordings by their original artists or in famous cover versions by e.g. the Beatles or CCR.
All songs come in excerpts of a minute or a half, sometimes as a combination of multiple recordings. So you hear Berry start with Back in the U.S.A. until Linda Ronstadt takes over after the first verse. It's quite funny to listen to this collage, especially because it is not in chronological but in alphabetical order (by song title). Usually the better-known versions are included, such as Rod Steward singing Sweet Little Rock And Roller instead of Berry. Sometimes the better-known versions seem to have been out of reach, such as with Around and Around which is not sung by the Stones but by Berry himself.
All in all this is an interesting Berry-related item. It is probably rare as it was only produced for industry experts and never available for sale. I have not found any description of it on the Internet yet. But it's not too rare. I helped Morten to get a copy for himself and if you look around, you might be able to find one for yourself as well.

We know about Radio Station records and this site has a complete section on Radio Station records related to Chuck Berry. So far my knowledge was that these records were used to distribute pre-recorded radio shows to the many FM radio stations throughout the USA.
To my surprise I recently found a non-US radio station album. Or at least an album of which I think is a non-US radio station album. In contrast to the US albums, the record Let It Rock (BBC Radioplay TAIR 87059) shown below has a printed cover containing details about each song, liner notes about the artists and even a drawing up-front which seems to show Chuck Berry. There are five Berry recordings, four by Bo Diddley and a few by Clarence Henry, Dale Hawkins, Bobby Charles, and Paul Gayten.
The record's publisher is listed as BBC Radioplay Music Library. The back cover includes the note "BBC Radioplay Music is not available to the public".
Can any reader shed some light on this release? It seems to be correct that the record was not sold commercially as there are very few out there. However, why would the BBC create a sampler for their own internal use? And why would they spend the money to create and print a complete album cover and label only for a library issue? Let me know if you know anything about this or other BBC Radioplay releases.

Chuck Berry where?
Baarn is a small town in the Netherlands, not far away from Hilversum. I do not know if Berry ever played a concert in Baarn and I strongly doubt so. But this article is in the Chuck Berry Rarities category, not in Chuck Berry Live Tapes. So this article is not about a concert, it is about rare records and stuff.
What makes Baarn interesting is that in the early 1950s Philips built their first LP pressing plant here. Since then Baarn has always been related to records and recording, even today Universal Music has their Dutch office in Baarn.
The pressing plant changed names over the years as the music business of Philips became Phonogram, later Polygram. In the 1970s Polygram also produced the Chess label records for distribution in the Netherlands, Germany, and other parts of Europe.
Recently a seller on ebay sold some interesting items related to Baarn. He said his father worked in the pressing plant and took home some souvenirs. So I was able to purchase an unused label of the Chuck Berry's Greatest Hits album (Chess 9283 004).

Of course this is just a gimmick, but it's certainly something not seen often.
Even rarer is another item I recently was able to purchase from a different source. It is also Dutch and I pretty much believe it stems from the Baarn pressing plant as well. Below is a record which label says "Proefpersing", i.e. Check Pressing. The number is CH 50043 which is the US catalog number of Chuck Berry's Bio album of 1973. From the label we can see that this test pressing of Bio was made or checked on September 25, 1973. Both A and B side were checked and approved. The print and signatures are on side A only. Side B has a completely blank white label. An interesting question is how such an internal test sample somehow made it to the record collectors market. Do you know of other, similar items?

Recently I came across a white label EP on French BARCLAY label. Its number is 70668 and you may know it. It's a 1964 Chuck Berry EP containing Nadine and three other Berry numbers.
The first thing you will notice is that this record neither tells you the name of the artist nor any song titles. (The one I have has some handwritten notes on it which are obviously unrelated and added by a later owner. I removed those from the scan below. As with every scan here, click on it for a higher resolution image).
The printed text on this translates to "Sample, no commercial value". The stamped date might be the date of production. I asked around and Morten Reff told me he owns a similar copy, though his is stamped July 1st.
We could not find out whether these records are test pressings produced for internal checks within the record company, or if this is how Barclay marked their promotional copies given to DJs or dealers. If you can add any knowledge to this, let us know by sending a comment to this entry.