Chuck Berry - Johnny B Goode 1959 Live At Beat Club 1972 HD
"Johnny B. Goode" is a 1958 rock and roll song written and originally performed by Chuck Berry. The song was a major hit among both black and white audiences peaking at #2 on Billboard magazine's Hot R&B Sides chart and #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.[1]
The song is one of Berry's most famous recordings, has been covered by many artists, and has received several honors and accolades. It is also considered to be one of the most recognizable songs in music history.
Written by Berry in 1955, the song is about a poor country boy who plays a guitar "just like ringing a bell," and who might one day have his "name in lights." [2] Berry has acknowledged that the song is partly autobiographical, and originally had "colored boy" in the lyrics, but he changed it to "country boy" to ensure radio play.[3] The title is suggestive that the guitar player is good, and hints at autobiographic elements because Berry was born at 2520 Goode Avenue in St. Louis.[2] The song was initially inspired by Berry's piano player, Johnnie Johnson,[4][5] though developed into a song mainly about Berry himself. Though Johnnie Johnson played on many other Chuck Berry songs, it was Lafayette Leake who played piano on this song.[2]
The opening guitar riff on "Johnny B. Goode" is essentially a note-for-note copy of the opening single-note solo on Louis Jordan's "Ain't That Just Like a Woman" (1946), played by guitarist Carl Hogan.[6]
Berry has written thirty more songs involving the character Johnny B. Goode, "Bye Bye Johnny", "Go Go Go", and "Johnny B. Blues"; and titled an album, and the nearly 19 min instrumental title track from it, as "Concerto in B. Goode".
Berry's recording of the song was included on the Voyager Golden Record, attached to the Voyager spacecraft as representing rock and roll, one of four American songs included among many cultural achievements of humanity.
When Chuck Berry was inducted into the first Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 23, 1986, he performed "Johnny B. Goode" and "Rock and Roll Music", backed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.[7] The Hall of Fame included these songs and "Maybellene" in their list of the 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll.[8] It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, for its influence as a rock and roll single.[9]
In the 1985 film Back to the Future, Marty McFly performed the song with Marvin Berry and the Starlighters during the "Enchantment Under the Sea" high school dance, which took place in November 1955. Mark Campbell[disambiguation needed] (of Jack Mack and the Heart Attack fame) sang the vocals for Michael J. Fox. This scene was revisited in Back to the Future Part II (1989). During Marty's Berry-esque rendition of the song, Marvin telephones his cousin Chuck, to have him hear what might be the new sound Chuck was looking for.
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