Though it’s hard to say if Chuck Berry: The Original King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll sheds any new light on the legend of Chuck Berry, viewers will be tickled by widow Themetta Berry’s specific recollections. It’s also good to see Steven Van Zant, Joe Bonamassa, Alice Cooper, Joe Perry, Gene Simmons, George Thorogood, and many more weighing in on the impact that Berry had on their lives.
The film is being touted as the first-ever feature-length documentary devoted to the “Granddaddy of Rock and Roll” Chuck Berry, known for such classics as “Maybelline,” “Rock and Roll Music,” “Johnny B. Goode,” and lots more. It’s all championed by award-winning filmmaker Jon Brewer in a chronological read. For nearly two hours, we ride roughshod over Berry’s 90 years, from the time he met Themetta “Toddy” Suggs (his wife of 68 years) all the way up through his career, his tribulations, his influence and beyond.
Berry enjoyed quite the wild ride, as even the most casual fan knows, and Brewer gives us the full good and the bad, warts and all, including early convictions that led to jail time, troubles with the IRS and the rise and fall of Berry Park. Some of the film’s most poignant segments feature the musician’s early struggles in overly saturated black and white film vignettes. Through family and friends, we also are assured there was the public persona of Chuck Berry and there was Charles Berry, the family man — two drastically different people to be sure. Through it all, he was loved for all sides of his big personality.
Hearing assessments and stories from fellow musicians is the best kind of love there was for Chuck Berry. Van Zandt says he believes Berry invented the idea of the American teenager, as he was so in tune with the lyrics, while Bonamassa, Perry, Nils Lofgren, and Nile Rogers all praise the man’s unique guitar playing. Thorogood calls Berry out for stealing the duck walk from a famous comedian; Simmons talks about how Berry defied racial barriers of the day.
One underlining nugget exposed in Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll (most notably dissected by Keith Richards) and reiterated in Chuck Berry: The Original King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll is piano player Johnnie Johnson’s role in the Chuck Berry story. Indeed, Chuck Berry was a brilliant poet-of-a-lyricist and stylish guitar player, but without Johnson, it’s hard to say if things would worked out the way they did. As it is, things worked out quite well for Chuck Berry.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
