Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry

by Pegg; Bruce

• ISBN13: 9780415937481
• ISBN10: 0415937485
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-10-18
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berrydraws on dozens of interviews done by the author himself and voluminous public records to paint a complete picture of this complicated figure. This biography uncovers the real Berry and provides us with a stirring, unvarnished portrait of both the man and the artist. Berry has long been one of pop music's most enigmatic personalities. Growing up in a middle-class, black neighborhood in St. Louis, his first major hit song, "Maybellene," was an adaptation of a white country song, wedded to a black-influenced beat. Thereafter came a string of brilliant songs celebrating teenage life in the '50s, including "School Day," "Johnny B. Goode," and "Sweet Little Sixteen." Berry's career rise was meteoric; but his fall came equally quickly, when his relations with an underage girl led to his conviction. It was not his first (nor his last) run in with the law. He scored his biggest hit in the early '70s with the comical (and some would saydecidedly lightweight) song "My Ding-a-Ling." The following decades brought hundreds of nights of tours, with little attention from the recording industry. Bruce Pegg offers the definitive, though not always pretty, portrait of one of the greatest stars of rock and roll, a story that will appeal to all fans of American popular music.

Author Biography

Bruce Pegg teaches in the writing program at Syracuse University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Prologue: Grand Avenue	1	(4)
The Ville	5	(12)
``De Sun Do Move''	17	(14)
Maybellene	31	(14)
Breaking White	45	(16)
Deliver Me From the Days of Old	61	(18)
Windermere Place	79	(20)
Club Bandstand	99	(20)
The Mask	119	(22)
St. Louis Blues	141	(18)
``Never Saw a Man So Changed''	159	(16)
Mercury Falling	175	(14)
Back Home	189	(18)
The Whole World Knows the Music, Nobody Knows the Man	207	(16)
Wentzville and St. Charles	223	(18)
Johnson V. Berry	241	(10)
Epilogue: Blueberry Hill	251	(8)
Discography	259	(10)
Notes	269	(26)
Works Cited	295	(8)
Index	303