Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry, born in 1926, American singer and composer, one of the first musicians to bring the influence of rhythm-and-blues music to mainstream rock and roll. He was born Charles Edward Anderson Berry on October 18, 1926, in St. Louis, Missouri. He learned to play guitar in high school and spent some time in a reform school.

Berry wrote and performed such rock classics as “Roll Over Beethoven' (1956), “Rock and Roll Music” (1957), and “Johnny B. Goode” (1958). “Maybellene” (1955), Berry's first hit, was one of the first songs to rise to number one on three separate Billboard charts: rhythm and blues, pop, and country and western. Berry's complex guitar runs and energetic dancing, often performed at the same time, thrilled audiences at his live shows. His “duck walk” dance step, which combines crouching, walking, and playing guitar, became legendary.

Berry greatly influenced rock-and-roll musicians of the 1950s and 1960s, including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. His albums include Chuck Berry's Greatest Hits (1964), Golden Decade (1967), and Chuck Berry at the Fillmore Auditorium (1967). He has received many honors and awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.