Musical Legand Chuck Berry Is Still Rocking

08/26/2013

Chuck Berry did not exactly invent rock and roll, but he was the first person to put all the important parts together.

Welcome to This Is America with VOA Learning English. This week on our program -- the music of Chuck Berry. Faith Lapidus and Doug Johnson tell about the man who is often called the father of rock and roll.

One of Chuck Berry's first releases was "Brown Eyed Handsome Man." The last verse goes like this:

Two, three count with nobody on

He hit a high fly into the stand

Rounding third he was headed for home

It was a brown eyed handsome man

That won the game; it was a brown eyed handsome man

The song came out in 1956, less than 10 years after major league baseball began to accept black players. The first was Jackie Robinson.

Rob Sheffield at Rolling Stone magazine wrote about baseball songs on his blog and had this to say: "The guitar speeds up as Chuck Berry heads into the climactic final verse, when that brown-eyed handsome man (Willie Mays? Hank Aaron? Jackie Robinson?) wins the game with a home run. Chuck would've made a lousy sportscaster ('two-three the count'?) but that just adds to the excitement."

On stage, he became known for his wild performances, and his "duck walk" that many musicians copied. But his songwriting skills -- some call him a rock and roll poet -- and his guitar work really set him apart.