Songs That Made Rock ‘n’ Roll: Chuck Berry, Marty McFly and the Birth of “Johnny B. Goode”
In 1977 two space probes, Voyager 1 and 2, were launched to explore the outer solar system and, in the words of Star Trek, go where no man has gone before . Aboard those crafts are two golden records filled with information about Earth, including images, sounds and musical selections meant to represent our world to any intelligent life out there in the universe who may come across them.
Among all the classical and folk music included, there’s just one rock song: “Johnny B Goode,” the classic tale of a young boy who dreams of success with his guitar, by one of the most influential guitarists of all time and one of the greatest rock ‘n’ rollers: Chuck Berry.
The fact that NASA chose Berry’s signature song speaks volumes of his importance in the history of rock music. Often called the father of rock ‘n’ roll, Berry not only was one of the first black artists to cross over to mainstream radio but also was a major influence on some of the defining rock bands of the ‘60s such as the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones, as well as rock giants from the ’70s like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Prince. And, partly thanks to its use in an iconic scene in the classic time travel adventure movie Back To The Future, it’s a song that still resonates with kids today 60 years after it was first released.
Berry later said that “Johnny B. Goode” was partly autobiographical, but unlike the country boy from Louisiana in the song “who never ever learned to read and write so well,” Berry was born into a middle class family, the fourth of six children, his mother one of the few black women of her generation to have a college education.
Despite this, Berry was uninterested in school, dropping out at just 17 to join two friends on a road trip from his home town of St. Louis, Missouri to California. Unfortunately the trio only managed to get to Kansas City when the teens found a pistol in a parking lot and foolishly decided to rob three stores and a steal a car at gunpoint. Berry was sent to the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men and eventually released three years later on good behavior on his 21st birthday in 1947.
Putting his brief life of crime behind him, Berry married the following year to Themetta “Toddy” Suggs and the pair would eventually have four children together. He supported his new family by working various blue collar jobs and even trained and worked as a beautician.
It was only when his old high school friend Tommy Stevens invited him to join his new band in 1951 that Berry took up the guitar again for the first time since his teens. He accepted hoping to make some extra money for his growing family and soon was wowing crowds in the local nightclubs.
This led to him joining the band of successful local jazz pianist Johnnie Johnson – the Sir John Trio – as a last minute replacement when long time band member Alvin Bennett had a stroke. It wasn’t long before Berry’s showmanship helped bring the trio to a wider audience and set the young guitarist on the road to stardom.
Johnson would continue to be an important figure in Berry’s life and it’s no accident that “Johnny B Goode” bears his name. In 1998, Johnson told monroenews.com: “I played no part in nothing of “Johnny B. Goode”. On other songs, Chuck and I worked together, but not that one. We were playing one night, I think it was Chicago, and he played it. Afterward, he told me it was a tribute to me. He did it on his own. I didn’t know nothing about it. It was never discussed.”
By 1955, his success in the Sir John Trio led to Berry traveling regularly to Chicago hoping to get a record contract. It was there he went to see his favorite musician, the legendary Muddy Waters. After the show he managed to talk to his hero, asking his advice on how to become a recording star.
Berry later remembered, “It was the feeling I suppose one would get from having a word with the president or the pope. I quickly told him of my admiration for his compositions and asked him who I could see about making a record.” Waters suggested that Berry try his luck at blues label Chess Records.
Berry went the next morning and amazingly managed to gain an audience with boss Leonard Chess. Impressed with his unique adaptation of the Bob Wills country tune, “Ida Red,” which Berry had written new lyrics and renamed “Ida May,” the label offered him a record contract. Leonard Chess didn’t like the country-sounding name of the song though and changed it to “Maybellene,” inspired by the popular makeup line (although with a different spelling) and within months the single had sold over a million copies.
With his newfound success Berry decided to go solo but Johnson and Ebby Hardy from the Sir John Trio became his backing band. With his friends in tow, Berry quickly followed “Maybellene” with a slew of hit singles that would become rock ‘n’ roll classics: “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” “School Days,” “Rock And Roll Music” and “Sweet Little Sixteen.”
Berry was already in his 30s at this point but had a knack of relaying the teenage experience in his songs. This coupled with his brilliant guitar-playing, his natural showmanship and his signature and iconic “duck walk,” Berry became one of the biggest stars of the new rock ‘n’ roll movement.
Although “Johnny B. Goode” was written in 1955, Berry didn’t record it until 1958 and surprisingly the man who inspired the title of the track didn’t play on the song. Instead it featured regular Chess Records musicians Lafayette Leake on piano, Fred Below on drums and the legendary blues musician Willie Dixon on bass.
Berry had intended the song to be about Johnson but he admitted it ended up “more or less about myself.” In a time of terrible racial segregation, he also decided to change the lyrics so not to alienate white audiences, telling Rolling Stone in 1972; “The original words [were], of course, ‘That little colored boy could play.’ I changed it to ‘country boy’ – or else it wouldn’t get on the radio.”
The incredible opening riff, that rock critic Greil Marcus once described as “the most deliciously explosive opening in rock ‘n’ roll,” influenced a whole generation of future guitar legends. “What Chuck did with “Johnny B. Goode” is just beyond belief for any other musicians around in their day,” Jimmy Page later told the BBC.
Released on March 31, 1958, the song proved another big hit for Berry, reaching #8 on the Billboard charts and #2 on the R&B chart but the song really found its success in the years after, its enduring popularity 60 years later is its true legacy.
Long before the song appeared in 1985’s Back To The Future, its success inspired the name of a 1959 rock ‘n’ roll movie called Go, Johnny, Go! starring legendary DJ Alan Freed (who had played a big role in Berry’s success by regularly playing “Maybellene” on the radio in return for a now-removed writing credit on the song.) Berry of course appears in the film performing the song and even has a small speaking role (although sadly the Johnny in the film is a white guy called Johnny Melody played by pop singer Jimmy Clanton.)
Years later when Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale were writing the script for Back To The Future they had only one song in mind for one of the most important scenes in their new movie and throughout many edits and cuts, the song they wanted never changed. “We didn’t have an alternative,” Gale told Uproxx. They were so determined to have the song in the film they paid as such as $75,000 for the rights: a huge amount of money for song rights at that time. Played by Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and the Starlighters and overheard by Chuck’s fictional cousin Marvin Berry (“Chuck, it’s your cousin Marvin Berry. You know that new sound you’re looking for? Listen to this.”) it’s probably the film’s most iconic scene and a nod to Berry being one of the creators of the rock ‘n’ roll sound.
Berry himself never commented on the scene but was obviously aware of it: his backing band at his 60th birthday concerts in 1986, which included huge fan Keith Richards and Julian Lennon, were dressed in the same suits worn by the Starlighters in the film.
It’s also notable that the same year Berry was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, backed by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, he performed “Johnny B. Goode” at the induction ceremony.
As for Johnson, he parted ways with Berry in the early ‘70s, seeming to fade into obscurity as he battled an alcohol problem. That is until 1987 when the Keith Richards-produced Chuck Berry documentary Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll! highlighted his contributions to music and helped resurrect his career. Johnson went from driving a bus in St. Louis to performing on stage with the likes of Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and, of course, Richards himself.
Johnson later tried to unsuccessfully sue Berry for songwriting royalties, but Berry apparently didn’t hold a grudge and their friendship continued with Johnson still popping up now and again with Berry on stage until Johnson’s death in 2005.
Chuck Berry passed away last year at the age of 90 and his final album, Chuck – his first in 38 years – was released just two months later. The record included a sequel to “Johnny B. Goode” called “Lady B. Goode.”
Despite his success and influence, Berry did not lead a charmed life. He served two more prison terms, the first at the height of his fame for transporting a girl across state lines for “immoral purposes”(after the 20 months spent inside, friends said he was never the same again) – a charge he always disputed – and later in 1979 he served four months for tax invasion, due to his insistence on being paid cash for his live performances (stemming from being cheated by promoters during his early years.)
But not many men could say that the Beatles covered so many of their songs, in fact they performed more songs by Chuck Berry than any other artist, including of course, “Johnny B. Goode” (as heard on Live At The BBC.) Paul McCartney later explained, “Chuck Berry was another massive influence with “Johnny B. Goode”. We’d go up to John’s bedroom with his little record player and listen to Chuck Berry records, trying to learn them.” Lennon himself famously gushed: “If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry’.”
Not surprisingly, Berry was one of the first artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. “It’s very difficult for me to talk about Chuck Berry,” Keith Richards said in his induction speech, “cause I’ve lifted every lick he ever played. This is the man that started it all!”
Chuck Berry will always be one of the innovators of rock ‘n’ roll music and every kid that watches Back To The Future in years to come will discover “Johnny B. Goode” and 
hear Berry’s guitar lick that sounds “just like a-ringing a bell.” No wonder then that the NASA scientists behind the Voyager spacecraft decided that the song should be extraterrestrial life’s first introduction to the wonders of rock ‘n’ roll.
Not long after Voyager launched, Steve Martin appeared on Saturday Night Live joking that the first message from another world had actually been received and would be published on the next issue of Time Magazine. Holding it up it read simply: “Send more Chuck Berry.“
