It goes to show you never can tell

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Q.� How important is Chuck Berry in the evolution of rock and roll < xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

A.� Without Chuck Berry, rock and roll would not�exist. Sure Elvis brought the whole thing to a mass audience, defined its visual image, and gave it sex appeal, but before Elvis, Chuck Berry was welding the twin carbs of poetry and hillbilly tunes to put an engine in the limousine that became modern popular music.

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Q.� Why is he so important

A.� Chuck Berry was shrewd and far-sighted enough to create music that black people enjoyed�- story-telling that transcended race and class, and then place it before a white audience, with spectacular results. As early as 1954, Chuck had mastered the electric guitar and taken over pianist Johnny Johnson's club combo and re-christened it the Chuck Berry Trio. His early demo for Chess Records, a rocker called Ida Mae was re-named Maybellene, and rock and roll for the masses was off and running.

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Q.� So did Berry enjoy his success

A.� Not as much as he would have liked, mainly due to the corruption that already infected the music industry, enhanced by white authority's view of a black man succeeding with a clever business brain to match his song-writing genius.

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Q.� OK, one at a time�- why is Chuck Berry a song-writing genius

A.� Berry's songs, almost without exception, tell stories. The lyrics are a masterful use of verbal shorthand to tell the tales of youngsters growing up, driving cars, dating girls, and trying to succeed at keeping out of trouble. Most importantly, they are not songs about black people, or white people, they are songs about people, and that is why Chuck Berry's songs were so popular, and lasted so well. Check out the back catalogue of any singer or group that has meant anything over the last fifty years and Chuck Berry songs are there. Elvis added Maybellene to his live set as soon as he heard it. The Beatles were rocking Hamburg with Berry songs way before they became 'Mersey Beat'. The Stones likewise were honking and belting out Berry classics at the Crawdaddy before their own Berry-influenced writing skills took over.

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Q.� And the downside

A.� Berry was to find that success came at a price�- one of which was sharing writing credits, and royalties with Alan Freed, in return for radio plays on Freed's hugely influential rock and roll radio shows. If it had stopped there, maybe Berry could have adopted a pragmatic approach, but worse was to come.

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Unlike most black artists of that time who were content with simple rewards and recognition - a smart wardrobe and a Cadillac, Berry invested his considerable monetary returns in real estate, virtually unheard of for a black man in 1950's America. When Berry brought in a young girl to work at his club as a cloakroom attendant, and she set up shop as a prostitute in the nearby hotel, it was Berry who was prosecuted under The Mann Act, which made the transportation of a minor across a state line for immoral purposes an imprisonable offence�- and Berry was duly imprisoned, for two years.

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Q.� Hang on, Berry brought the girl to work, did he know she was under age, or working as a prostitute

A.� Such minor details didn't matter�- with a legal zeal that borders on obsessive, the powers that be managed to stop Berry in his tracks, and he emerged from prison a bitter man, bitterness that has never really left him.

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Q.� So was Berry able to resume his career

A.� He was. Unlike Elvis who was unable to resume at the same level on return from the army, Chuck Berry found that rock and roll had taken off like a rocket, and he was hailed as a returning hero, selling out huge tours, and having hit after hit, although his attitude to his chosen craft slowly deteriorated.

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Q.� What happened

A.� Berry soon realised that people saw him as a legend, and would put up with what ever he turned in as a live show. He would tour from town to town alone, picking up local musicians as backing bands, and expecting them to know his material based on his reputation. Most did, but some, with no idea of which song was next, or what key it would be in, struggled along as the great man went though the motions.

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Q.� You can't really blame him for his approach, given his treatment.

A.� Well, you can�- taking authority's ills out on his fans and audiences was not really acceptable, but Berry took what he saw as his, and gave the agreed amount for it.

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Q.� What's the 'agreed amount'

A.� Stories of Berry's concerts are legend. Most often, he would arrive at the stage door minutes before he was due on stage, demand, and receive his fee in cash in advance�- no cash, no show. Having stashed the money in his car, he would take the stage, and play for the allotted hour, or how ever long, and the minute, literally the minute the time was up, even if it was in mid song, Berry would leave the stage, get in his car and drive.

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Q.� Wow! that's some bitterness!

A.� It is, but Berry was not slow to see how people were making more money off his talent than he was, and he took necessary steps to redress the balance.�

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Q.� Wasn't there further trouble with the law

A.� There was, ending in a second prison sentence for tax evasion in 1979, but Berry was realistic enough to take his punishment, and return again to concerts and running his real estate, and various business interests.

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Q.� Should people be put off by Berry's music by aspects of his personal life and business dealings

A.� No reason why. It is possible to view an artist's work in isolation, and as a musician and musical innovator, Chuck Berry has few equals. As John Lennon once memorably said, "If you were looking for another name for rock and roll, you could call it Chuck Berry." Not for the first time, Mr Lennon put his finger on the truth, and left it for the world to contemplate�- tapping�its feet to some rock and roll.

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Andy Hughes