Chuck Berry – Picture: Courtesy of Terry Fincher/Day by day Categorical/Hulton Archive/Getty Pictures
“It was a teenage wedding, and the old folks wished them well,” wrote Chuck Berry, setting the scene as vividly as ever. “You could see that Pierre did truly love the mademoiselle.” The rock’n’ roll pioneer was setting out on one other storytelling journey, this time bringing us the romantic story of Pierre and his betrothed.
The report, in fact, was “You Never Can Tell,” produced by the Chess brothers of their Chicago studio within the early weeks of 1964. Launched in the summertime, this superb gem within the Berry catalog made its Sizzling 100 debut on the chart of August 1 that 12 months, at No.83, when this musical pioneer was having fun with a brand new interval of recognition. Again on the scene after his incarceration of 1962-63, he had returned to the American Prime 10 for the primary time in all of six years with the equally indelible “No Particular Place To Go.”
The brand new single was stuffed with the richly imaginative element and characterization for which Chuck had few equals. They detailed the couple’s new-found house life with such magnificent couplets as “They furnished off an apartment with a two room Roebuck sale…the coolerator was crammed with TV dinners and ginger ale.” Right here was the grasp of language creating one other phrase of his personal, as he had executed memorably with “motorvatin.” The stream of the lyrics was a significant a part of his armoury, and “refrigerator” didn’t scan, neither did “icebox.” Therefore, “coolerator” it was.
“I concentrate on the lyrics usually,” Chuck instructed Man Stevens in Report Mirror earlier in 1964, “and then I work out the song on my guitar when I have the lyrics on paper. Then I tape it to get an idea of the overall sound, after which I record it. Most of my songs come from either personal experience or other people’s experiences or from ideas I get from watching people. I would say that I aim specifically to entertain and make people happy with my music, which is why I try to put as much humor into my lyrics as possible.”
The maestro was additionally climbing the US album charts on the time with Chuck Berry’s Best Hits, and “You Never Can Tell” was to take him into the Prime 20 once more. Its No.14 peak can be his greatest exhibiting till “My Ding-A-Ling” gave him a shock, and eventual, No.1 in 1972.
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