About this episode
Of all the figures who built rock and roll back in the 1950s, Chuck Berry was arguably the most influential and certainly the strangest. In a new biography, which could never have been written when he was alive, R.J. Smith tells a story which is still hard to believe. His conversation with David Hepworth includes: * how the nerd Charles Berry discovered the key to impressing women * How a reckless streak a mile wide saw him put away as a teenager * How a comic turn developed into the greatest act in rock and roll * How he never listened to what his daddy told him about white women * How his record company’s landlord ended up co-writing “Maybelline” * His Mann Act conviction and imprisonment * His rebirth in Britain with the help of the Beatles and Stones * Why he needed a copy of the FT every day * Why he never said thank-you * The part played in his life by Lanchester Poly * His last and most tawdry court case * What was going on in his head all that time Chuck Berry: An American Life by R.J. Smith is out now. https://amzn.to/3IE7K7q Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast ad-free and before the rest of the world!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.