Chuck Berry, Sumner 1944

 Chuck Berry

 Chuck Berry

 “If you tried to give rock ’n’ roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry’”—John Lennon

Chuck Berry’s showmanship blossomed early. At his high school talent show, his rendition of Jay McShann’s “Confessin’ the Blues” scandalized the Sumner faculty but won wild applause from his peers. The applause has never stopped.

The father of rock and roll got his start in the clubs of St. Louis and East St. Louis in the early 1950s when he began playing guitar with the Johnnie Johnson Trio. Audiences responded to Berry’s showmanship and the “hillbilly” riffs he incorporated into blues ballads. When Chess Records released “Maybelline,” Berry’s cover of the country song “Ida Red,” in 1955, American music changed forever. The number-one hit sold over a million copies, and by 1959 Berry counted 17 chart singles, including top-ten hits “School Days,” “Rock and Roll Music,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” and “Johnny B. Goode.”

Berry was among the first inductees at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 1986 opening. In 2004, Berry ranked 5th on Rolling Stone magazine’s “100 Greatest Artists of All Time.” Now in his 80s, Berry still performs monthly at the Blueberry Hill Duck Room in the Delmar Loop