Chuck Berry, from the 1959 film Go, Johnny, Go!
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyp13Q6dQjY&w=550&h=309]
It sums up Chuck's approach, this – those four teens at the table, clapping along and digging the sounds*. Yes he was a great showman, and wrote great songs, but what really did it for him is that his lyrics aimed straight at the white teen experience: "She's too cute to be a minute over seventeen" – "Riding along in my automobile, my baby beside me at the wheel". All traces of the original black world where the music developed, of hard times and juke joints and cheating women, were stripped away, and instead we got the world of bubble gum and going steady and drive-ins and teenage romance.
Well, fair enough. It worked. He was a pioneer – and had his own experiences of being ripped off. The Beach Boys' Surfin' USA, originally credited just to Brian Wilson, was a straight steal from Sweet Little Sixteen.
[* the guy at the table with the three girls is Ritchie Valens, who was killed in the Buddy Holly plane crash in February 1959, before the film was released.]
Leave a Reply