“Johnny B. Goode”  is a 1958 rock and roll song written and originally performed by Chuck Berry.  The song was a major hit among both black and white audiences peaking at #2 on Billboard magazine’s Hot R&B Sides chart and #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.  The song is one of Berry’s most famous recordings, has been covered by many artists, and has received several honors and accolades.  It is also considered to be one of the most recognizable songs in music history.  The song is ranked as number seven on Rolling Stone’s list of “the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.  (More from Wikipedia)

 

While not at all minimizing the contributions of the legends that I have discussed thus far, my own nominee for the man who most directly congealed a variety of musical ingredients into what we know today as rock and roll is Chuck Berry.  Berry’s classics like “Maybellene” (1955), “Rock and Roll Music” (1957) and “Johnny B. Goode” (1958) sound as fresh to my ears today as they did the first time I heard them more than 50 years ago.  His 1956 hit “Roll Over Beethoven” – “Roll Over Beethoven” also might be my very favorite Beatles cover song – contains a truly delicious song lyric:  “Roll over [in your grave], Beethoven / And tell Tchaikovsky the news”. 

Six of Chuck Berry’s songs made the 2004 list of Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”; “Johnny B. Goode” was ranked #7, and it topped Rolling Stone’s 2008 list of “100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time”.  

(June 2013/1)