Chuck Berry has died(bbc.com) |
Chuck Berry has died(bbc.com) |
He was arrested for transporting a 14-year-old girl across state lines for immoral purposes, set up hidden cameras in his restaurant bathroom, and was accused of a bunch of some other stuff that makes Trump look like a feminist by comparison.
I think it's worth mentioning that his music was selected to represent earth on "Music from Earth" [1] which is a pretty great honour in my opinion. Whether or not any other extra-terrestrials get to groove out to some Chuck one time is another thing, but I sure hope they do.
Rest in peace Chuck Berry, thanks for all the great music!
Also, major props for putting out a new studio album almost 40 years after his previous one.[1]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_(Chuck_Berry_album)
As I went through school his music was never far behind. Even in his eighties he could still rock the joint. Hoping I could see him do it in his nineties but I guess not.
He was supposed to have a new album in the works so you might at least still get to hear that.
Even if lots of people today aren't aware of him, they're probably aware of the uncountable number of artists he directly influenced. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bruce Springsteen [0] immediately come to mind.
[0] Coincidentally, I was watching a video of a Springsteen concert where he was arranging a cover of a Chuck Berry song for his band on the spot yesterday: https://youtu.be/L-Ds-FXGGQg
I'll leave this here as a consolation for you:
Chuck Berry teaching Keith Richards the lick in "O Carol"[1]. Keith had probably 40 plus years experience at that point and still didn't get it right the first time, and not the second and third...
this is one of those people whose influence and impact will be felt for decades to come (like les paul, hendrix and many other icons)
So I did. That was in 1987.
Unlike standard rock concerts, Chuck Berry came on stage at exactly the time printed on the tickets. He played exactly one hour, then he went off again. No encores, no banter.
It was great, though. RIP.
Spoiler: The guitar also traveled through time
[1] http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/music.html?linkId=356...
EDIT: This is currently the top comment, which likely isn't fair either. These things are a part of the story of his life but they also probably shouldn't be the top line. My point is simply we should be talking about his entire life and this is a poor obituary for not even mentioning it. The New York Times has a better obituary available at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/arts/chuck-berry-dead.htm...
Thanks!!! She is awesome!
Now free of his corporeal confines, Ghost Chuck Berry can watch you pee wherever he wants. Roll Over Beethoven.
The same way that every balanced programmer (or scientist for that matter) has always been.
And it's difficult to be an entrepreneur of any major scale if one doesn't understand the society they live in, its culture, and its roots. Selling socks, maybe.
I know that at least in my case, that is true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJWWtV1w5fw
One of my favorite things about this clip is the historical context: pre-iPod, pre-iPhone, pre-Apple revival.
Rock 'n Roll used to be dangerous music performed by minorities before the Civil Rights Movement, and listened by rebellious teenagers, before it was co-opted, watered down, and packaged up. If you're not listening to Chuck Berry, and you don't pick out innuendos, you're not listening hard enough.
The Sex Pistols covered Chuck Berry - the bassist was a heroin addict that killed his girlfriend, then himself.
The Beatles covered Chuck Berry - John Lennon is not looked upon with a positive light given how he treated his son and first wife.
The Rolling Stones covered Chuck Berry. People have been murdered at their shows.
Rock 'n Roll is filled with the causalities of unstable, chemically dependent, suicidal people. Chuck Berry was Rock 'n Roll.
Maybe you should ask the question in a different way, such as was MJ the victim of a which hunt to frame him for a crime he never commuted. In that case the answer is undoubtedly, YES.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEqiWTb-UWA
Edit: Fixed link
Not quite the same boat as Chuck Berry.
In any case, I'm a "separate the art from artist" kind of guy. There are no saints.
If some painter has suffered from depression and does amazing paintings about it, the guy's bio should reflect that.
If Chuck Berry has has a tumultuous life, leading him both to those convictions as well as this new form of music, that should be part of his story. It might not be that way, I don't know enough about him to know, but his biographers will decide.
There's also the personal question of whether you want to support a criminal. Say Roman Polanski does a new movie. It might be a great movie not concerning underage sex, but I would still have a think about whether I wanted to pay a guy who is a fugitive from justice. I don't think I should compel anyone else to decide one way or the other; I think it's perfectly legal to watch his movies, so up to everyone to decide.
In particular I might argue that society might be better off if we were collectively more offended by bad art than by good art made by bad people.
Also I've read MJ caved in settling because the constant lawsuit exposure was a career death sentence. No matter how just or unjust it would be, settling was the only liveable option for him.
The oddest part of MJ's defense on the subject were the few interviews were he would appear quite confused. But there's his personality under pressure, after a time it's quite possible he was just stuck into a corner and couldn't express himself.
For such a celebrity under so much scrutiny I'd side with him, nobody managed to find sufficient proof.
EDIT: I mean the comment thread, not the post.
It could be because Chuck Berry isn't nearly as much of a trigger for pop-cultural nostalgia and trivia as Carrie Fisher, and so the thread simply isn't as popular, or it could be that I'm not entirely wrong.
I used to be fine with these threads but over time they've gotten more and more grating to me.
Does humanity keep it on display in a museum and continue his legacy in the vicinity of works such as Rembrandt's? Even though it would undoubtedly offend millions? Does the fact that it's great art outweigh the social negativity surrounding the whole predicament?
So, the boring rejoinder is that, yes, his work ought to be recognized on its merits. Sculpture as a discipline shouldn't be punished for Hitler's sins.
Hung next to Rembrandt? Probably not, but then again how much do we know about Rembrandt? There are plenty of great artists whose personal life we know little about (see Shakespeare for instance. We don't know where he went to school or what he looked like!) If we found out tomorrow he peeped on women in the bathroom should we burn all our copies of Hamlet?
Anyway, regarding Hitler, a more interesting answer (to me) is that I'm not convinced great art and the will to extinguish an entire people really exist in the same soul. We know Hitler to be a failed artist. I wonder if good art requires a sensitivity to the world that sociopaths simply do not possess.
This is somewhat different from what you were discussing, but it genuinely is interesting looking at his paintings. There is a penchant to read into them as coming from the mind of one of humanities worst, but I am intrigued by the fact that they are almost all paintings of architecture with some landscapes mixed in. Any human that is depicted is just happenstance. There is also the fact that Hitler's signature seems to be different in every painting that I have ever seen of his. Do these facts suggest the painter is a man that never identified with other people and constantly was in search of his own consistent identity? Who knows. But it is at least a worthy discussion.