The Chuck Berry Top 25 Countdown (Nos 20-11)

Today is the second part of our Chuck Berry Top 25 Countdown. We'll be talking about songs that were later covered by the crème de la crème of Rock and Pop.

At #20 we find Around and Around: The swinging B side to Johnny B. Goode tells the story of a reelin'-and-rockin', all-night party Berry and his band played that had to be busted up by the cops. It's got a swinging rhythm, with the stop-start pauses he was so fond of at the time and a funky, bluesy guitar solo that was born from jamming with his band before a memorable show. "Sometimes I didn't jam before a concert, but these guys were on-the-ball musicians and we almost had a concert before the concert started that evening," he recalled in his autobiography. "For nearly two hours, we jammed, played standard sweet songs to gut-bucket, rock and boogie. One of the riffs we struck upon never left my memory and I waxed the tune with words about a dance hall that stayed open a little over time. … Let it be known that at the actual experience, the police didn't knock." Nevertheless, the story had legs. The Rolling Stones played the song on Ed Sullivan's show, and the Grateful Dead subsequently played it hundreds of times. The song was also covered by the Swinging Blue Jeans, the Animals, David Bowie, Meat Loaf, 38 Special, Maureen Tucker (Velvet Underground), the Germs, Guided By Voices, and many others.

At #19 is Back in the U.S.A.: Whatever mixed feelings Berry may have had about his native country were wiped away, at least temporarily, when he toured Australia for the first time, playing shows in Melbourne and Sydney in January and February of 1969. Witnessing firsthand the mistreatment of Aborigines clearly rattled Berry, since 10 days after he returned to the States, he cut this unabashedly grateful homage to the States. Backed by, among others, Johnnie Johnson on piano and Willie Dixon on bass, Berry salutes skyscrapers, drive-ins, burgers, freeways and major cities from New York to L.A. to Baton Rouge (it's as close to a National Anthem as Berry would ever write); even the uncredited backup singers sound pumped. 

Released as a single in June 1959, the song only hit Number 37 on the charts, but it didn't go unnoticed by the next generation of rockers. The MC5 and Linda Ronstadt each offered up faithful covers (Ronstadt's version was bigger than Berry's), and it was, of course, the inspiration behind the Beatles' cheeky Back in the USSR. "Chuck Berry once did a song called Back in the U.S.A., which is very American, very Chuck Berry," Paul McCartney said in 1968. "Very sort of, you know, you're serving in the army, and when I get back home I'm going to kiss the ground. It's a very American sort of thing, I've always thought. … In my mind [the Beatles' song] is just about a spy who's been in America a long long time... It concerns the attributes of Russian women." Sorry for the interruption, sir Paul, but Back in the USSR also owes a lot to the Beach Boys' California Girls.

Sitting pretty at #18 is Carol. In this hard-grooving 1958 gem, inspired by the high-school-age daughter of a woman the singer-songwriter was involved with, Berry blends protective advice ("Oh, Carol, don't let him steal your heart away") with good-natured innuendo ("Come into my machine so we can cruise on out").

Berry's assistant, Francine Gillium, looked after the girl, and as he wrote in his autobiography, the situation helped him greatly in the writing of the song. "Discussing her teenage environment with Francine was much help in putting 'Carol' together," he wrote. "Details from my schooling like meat-loaf and potatoes costing only 5 cents and a notebook with paper for 12 cents were far outdated. Whereas some guy stealing another boy's girl was a thing that hadn't changed any."

The song was covered by just about everybody; it was one of the rare songs recorded by both the Beatles and the Stones. Other artists who have covered the song include the Bobby Fuller Four, Charlie Daniels, the Doors, the Guess Who, Flamin' Groovies, Peter Gammons, the Yardbirds, Groovie Ghoulies, AC/DC (live only), the Milkshakes, Jim Miller, Tommy Roe, Doug Sahm, Status Quo, Backbeat Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Stereo Nation.

At #17 we find 1964's No Particular Place to Go. Further proof of the transportive powers of Chuck Berry's imagination: He wrote this 1964 comeback single, a beguiling tale of teenage idyll, freedom and sexual frustration, while he was locked in prison (for transporting a 14-year-old girl across state lines, but that's another story). The song was the first of his own recordings to benefit from his post–British Invasion visibility, with the Beatles and Rolling Stones covering his songs and touting his genius. Musically, it's just about identical to 1957's School Days, but the rhythm section hits harder and Berry finds a pleasing new vocal growl. And then there's his guitar solos, which positively crackle: The slashing second break seems downright angry, as if Berry was letting his real post-prison feelings slip out through his amp.

At #16 is a song from 1959 called Almost Grown. It was released as a double A-side with Little Queenie. The song is featured in the 1973 film American Graffiti. The background vocals on Berry's recording are by Etta James and Harvey & the New Moonglows, featuring the young Marvin Gaye.

The song was covered by many, among them The Ivy League, The Lovin' Spoonful, Syndicate of Sound, and David Bowie.

Before we hear the next five, here's a photo of Chuck Berry as a boy. He never lost that mischievous grin, did he?

At #15 is Chuck Berry's only #1 single, in the US, the UK and Canada. My Ding-a-Ling was originally recorded by Dave Bartholomew in 1952 for King Records. When Bartholomew moved to Imperial Records, he re-recorded the song under the new title, Little Girl Sing Ting-a-Ling. In 1954, the Bees on Imperial released a version entitled Toy Bell. Berry recorded a version called My Tambourine in 1968, but the version which topped the charts was recorded live during the Lanchester Arts Festival at the Locarno ballroom in Coventry, England, on 3 February 1972, where Berry – backed by the Roy Young Band – topped a bill that also included Slade, George Carlin and Billy Preston. Boston radio station WMEX disc jockey Jim Connors was credited with a gold record for discovering the song and pushing it to #1 over the airwaves and amongst his peers in the United States. Billboard ranked it as the No. 15 song for 1972.

On a personal note, I was in my pre-teen years when the song came out, and, being at the height of my sexual awakening, I naturally loved it. I remember spending countless hours with my schoolmates analyzing the song's lyrics.

At #14 is Reelin' and Rockin', one of Berry's great boogie-woogie numbers. Reelin' and Rockin', with its cascading piano lines and stop-on-a-dime verses, is a simple ode to dancing to Rock & Roll music 'til the break of dawn. "I'm gonna keep on dancin' 'til I get my kicks," Berry sings on what was originally the B-side to Sweet Little Sixteen. He recalled in his autobiography sneaking into a Chicago club as a teenager and seeing Big Joe Turner sing Rock Around the Clock. "If ever I was inspired as a teenager, it was then," he wrote. "What I then heard and felt, I tried to reprovoke in the song I then entitled, Reelin' and Rockin'." He captured a feeling with staying power; the tune was reissued as an A-side in 1972 and charted at #18 in the UK, #21 in Canada, and #27 in the US.

At #13 we find Havana Moon. Berry's story of a Cuban woman missing an American woman came from playing Nat King Cole's Calypso Blues when Berry was still slugging it out at St. Louis' Cosmopolitan Club at a time when Latin rhythms were popular. He decided to write his own song after a gig in New York City, where he met Cubans for the first time. "It is the differences in people that I think gives me a tremendous imagination to create a story for developing a lyric," he wrote in his autobiography. "I had read, seen or heard in some respect all the situations in the Havana story. Certainly, missing the boat and surely missing the girl had been experienced many times by me." The Rolling Stones recently paid tribute to the song by naming a concert film, shot in Cuba, after the song.

At #12 there is a song called Too Much Monkey Business: Berry wasn't just too cool for school, he was above just about everything, as he wrote in the lyrics to Too Much Monkey Business. In his mind, everything was a hassle – work, shopping, dating, school, war, work again – and he laid each nuisance out smartly in concise proto-raps before kicking into the song's memorable chorus. "I realized I needed over a hundred verses to portray the major areas that bug people the most," he wrote in his autobiography. "I was even making up words then like 'botheration' to emphasize the nuisances that bothered people. … I hadn't received any kickback about using 'motorvating' in Maybellene, so why not compete with Noah Webster again?" His lexicon lived on in covers by Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Hollies and the Yardbirds, among others.

Finally for today, at #11, we find Little Queenie. With a guitar intro that echoes Johnny B. Goode and another "go! go!" chorus, Little Queenie – released a year after "Johnny" – shows how deftly Berry could make a variation on the theme, since he sings the second verse ("Meanwhile, I was thinkin'/If she's in the mood no need to break it") with a brand-new swagger. In his autobiography, he wrote that the song was a fair depiction of how he was as a teenager. "That was typical of me in high school, to stand around thinking instead of acting during occasions when I'd have the opportunity to get next to a girl by dancing," he wrote. "It's just like me even today to wait around 'til it's too late to latch on to the chance to meet a person I favor." It went on to become one of Berry's most covered songs – by everyone from the Beatles and Stones to Bruce Springsteen and the Velvet Underground – even though it peaked at 80 on the charts.