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“The St. Charles County Police Department sadly confirms the death of Charles Edward Anderson …
Rock ‘N’ Roll Legend Chuck Berry Dead At 90
The guitarist was known for a string of 1950s and ’60s hits.
Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images
Rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Chuck Berry has died, Missouri police said Saturday. He was 90.
“The St. Charles County
Police Department sadly confirms the death of Charles Edward Anderson
Berry Sr., better known as legendary musician Chuck Berry,” police said in a statement posted to Facebook.
First responders were called
out to a home on Buckner Road around 12:40 p.m. and found a man later
identified as Berry unresponsive “and immediately administered
lifesaving techniques,” the statement reads. They were unable to revive
him and he was pronounced dead at 1:26 p.m.
Berry penned a great number of hits in the 1950s and 1960s like “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Rock and Roll Music”
that influenced generations of rock groups, including The
Beatles. Merging a captivating stage presence with his own blend of
blues, country and jazz, Berry helped define the fledgling rock’n’ roll
genre, later becoming one of the first musicians inducted into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.
Born into a middle-class
family in St. Louis, Missouri, Berry picked up the basics of guitar from
a neighbor and started performing music as a teenager. In 1952, he
formed a trio with Johnnie Johnson on piano and Ebby Harding on drums
that rose to fame in the local nightclub scene. To pay the bills, Berry
worked as a hairdresser. But soon enough he wouldn’t have time for that ―
a trip to Chicago netted a recording session with Chess Records, during
which Berry performed an old hillbilly tune called “Ida Red.” Changing
the name to “Maybellene,” Chess sent the track to an influential New York DJ, and it became a hit among the teenage set.
According to an oft-cited line
by John Lennon, “If you tried to give rock ‘n’ roll another name, you
might call it ‘Chuck Berry.’” Berry’s music became so well-known, he
toured the country with only a guitar, trusting he’d be able to find
musicians in each city he played who could serve as his back-up. Many of
his lyrics focused on teen culture, although he was significantly past
that age by the time he started traveling around singing about cars and
dates.
But in the nascent era of
the Civil Rights Movement, Berry’s status as a black man with a
following of young white people ― a lot of them girls ― caused certain
conflict. He’d been known to take refuge in police stations to dodge
protesters after his shows, which sometimes featured police presence
themselves, according to an Esquire
profile. After a teenage coat-check girl who worked briefly at a club
he owned alleged Berry had an affair with her, the guitarist served two
years in prison. A tax evasion charge sent him to prison again, briefly,
in 1979. Then, in 1990, a police raid on a recording compound he owned
turned up a stash of marijuana and images of Berry with nude women
― including one underage ― but charges were later dropped.
Notoriously interview-shy,
Berry had been living out his later years in Ladue, Missouri ― near his
hometown. He never stopped writing music, and performed regular gigs at a
local restaurant and club called Blueberry Hill.
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