Written
in 1955 while Chuck Berry was working as a beautician in St. Louis,
Missouri, and performing with various groups, this ground-breaking rock and
roll song was written for, and partly inspired by, the pianist Johnnie
Johnson, who would sometimes co-write songs with Chuck Berry and has been
recognised as contributing to his individual style of music.It was also partly based on Chuck
Berry's own life, and includes reference in the name to the fact that he
was actually born in Goode Avenue, St. Louis, but not Louisiana as the song
says, and describes the rags to riches journey of a guitar playing
"colored boy" which he would later change to "country boy"
to ensure its being played on radio.He wasn't down and out either in reality as he was a graduate of
beauty school in cosmetology and hairdressing.The song was released in 1958 and became a classic of
the rock 'n' roll era, reaching No. 8 in the Billboard chart, and still
remains so today with Rolling Stone listing it as No. 7 in their 500
Greatest Songs of All Time.It
was not Johnnie Johnson who would appear on the recording of it though as
pianist, but Lafayette Leake.Alongside Berry and Leake on the original recording was Willie Dixon
on bass and Fred Below on drums.Such is the recognition of the song's achievement in the music of
the 20th century it was attached to the spacecraft Voyager when
it was launched into space on the Voyager Golden Record so that any
other alien being that may find it would get a taste of the life on earth.
The song, the music, or sometimes just its name has been featured in the
movies Back to the Future, Back to the Future II, American Graffitti and
Threads, in the television series Kingdom Hospital, Histeria,
and Misfits of Science, in the musicals The Buddy Holly Story
and Return to the Forbidden Planet, on the computer games Earthbound,
Animal Crossing: Wild World and Theme Park, and in Terry
Pratchett's Discworld novel, Soul Music.Mentioned in many songs,
parodied, or the music being sampled, it can be heard on the Beach Boys
"Fun, Fun, Fun", Bobby Bare's "The All American
Boy", "Garden Party" by Ricky Nelson, Big Bopper's
"Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor", Devo's "Come
Back Jonee" and the band TISM record on the Genre B. Goode label with
one of their songs being "The Ballad of Johnny To B. Or Not To B.
Goode".Other times the
song has been used in the public eye are when the NASCAR driver Johnny Benson
is spoken about by television commentators and it as the song used by John
Kerry when he ran for the US presidency in 2004.Other artists that have covered it are numerous and too
many to mention, but they include ACDC, Aerosmith, Buddy Holly, The Beatles,
Julian Lennon, Twisted Sister, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin, The
Carpenters. Jimi Hendrix, Elton John, Huey Lewis & The News, The
Coronados, Freddie & The Dreamers, Bill Haley & His Comets, Jerry
Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley. Status Quo, The Sex Pistols, The Tornadoes, Stray
Cats, Slade, Johnny Winter, Carlos Santana, The Ukulele Orchestra of Great
Britain.Strangely enough, it
was never released as a single in the UK and it didn't appear there until
it was the B-Side of the live recording of "My Ding-a-Ling" in
1972, which was his only UK No. 1 hit.Chuck Berry later wrote the sequels "Bye Bye
Johnny" and the instrumental
"Concerto
in B. Goode".
Chuck Berry recordings
Chess
CH 2131 (CH 2228-E) (US 45)
This
is the 1972 version, which is the B-Side of the live recording made in
Coventry, England, with the backing group being The Roy Young Band.
