No. 398: Chuck Berry

"Chuck Berry" by Tom Wills, pencil/graphite, January 2018

It's been said that Chuck Berry wrote one song a couple hundred times.
That's not exactly so: He did pen one really shitty song, to which I was introduced as a lad by my grandpa: "My Ding-A-Ling."

When I was a little bitty boy
My grandmother bought me a cute little toy
Silver bells hanging on a string
She told me it was my ding-a-ling-a-ling, oh

Now I don't know exactly why this little Chess Records 45 rpm was tucked inside of the Roger Miller and Lawrence Welk records in the ol' Sylvania cabinet, and I can't imagine that my grandmother had anything to do with it.
I suspect he bought it for me, and my brother -- a ditty about ringing a bell, right?
Grandpas and grandsons are silly like that.

My ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling
I want you to play with my ding-a-ling
My ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling
I want you to play with my ding-a-ling

Just. A. Horrible. Song.  But it made Chuck a ton of cash at a time in 1972 when his star was beginning to dim. And the kids memorized it.
This song is so dumb that Chess left the big money-maker off of the excellent compilation "The Great Twenty-Eight," which indeed does hold 28 absolute gems that do not -- for the record -- all sound the same.
Perhaps Chess did not want that song to remind people of Chuck's lousy reputation as a lothario, a cheap-ass and just a weird guy.

He was a product of his time and to a large extent stayed stuck in it. After his really hot streak from 1955 to 1958, things got creepy. He spent three years in prison for taking a 14-year-old girl across state lines. When he got out there were a few more big hits into the early 1960s.  He wanted paid in cash and would pick up local bands when he toured. He was back in jail briefly in 1979 for tax evasion, And then there was that expensive 1980s business with a camera in the women's restroom of a restaurant he owned.

I do not defend his behavior but nevertheless have come to appreciate his musical legacy, as did many other performers including The Rolling Stones and The Beatles.  "Come Together" is a direct nick from "Can't Catch Me" and John Lennon paid for that with an entire album, "Rock And Roll."

And yes, I was sad when Chuck Berry died in March 2017, and I whipped out the Great Twenty-Eight (without My Ding-a-Ling), and also the sloppy-great St. Louie to Frisco to Memphis with the Steve Miller Band. (The song is called "My Tambourine" here, in its original version.)
Chuck Berry indeed did change lyrics, as well as the the direction, of rock and roll.