A poignant take by Luke Dittrich in Esquire on Chuck Berry, his life, his career and the things taken away from him:
Here’s what happened to Chuck Berry after his ideas changed everything: He became famous, yes. He became a famous black man, touring around Mississippi and Alabama and Texas in the 1950s, playing concerts to theaters full of screaming white teenage girls. Is it any surprise what happened next? Is it any surprise that he had to take shelter from angry mobs in police stations after his concerts? Is it any surprise that his record company stiffed him for a big chunk of his songwriting royalties?
The first “English western” song that I recall my father playing for me on the National Panasonic cassette player was Maybellene. I had no clue who the artist was. Years later, I began listening to a version of this song by Paul Simon and incorrectly, in my head, credited him with writing it. But the more I listened to Paul Simon, the more it felt that this wasn’t his song.
Even some more years later, I went back to dingy store room in the creaking house in Triplicane and located the original Chuck Berry cassette. It had worn out and had fungus growing. Patiently for over three hours, I cleaned it up, re-spooled the tape and played it one last time.
