Who Is Chuck Berry?

On October 18th, 1926, a person was born who would change the face of the music industry for decades to come. Chuck Berry, born Charles Anderson Edward Berry, was considered to be one of the most popular and influential performers of the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s. Even more so, he would go on to be known by many as the father of Rock n’ Roll. He had a new distinct sound that people really enjoyed as well as his clever lyrics that made people connect to the songs on a deeper more personable level. Throughout this essay I will show the early stages of his life leading up to his prominent dent in the music world, and the lasting impact he had for decades to come afterwards. Born to Henry and Martha Berry, Chuck was born and raised in a north St.
Louis to look for employment during World War I. His father became a carpenter and a deacon at a Baptist Church while his mother was one of the only black women in her time to earn a college degree. At the time of his birth and most of his time growing up, St. Louis was a very segregated city. So much so that he never met a white person until he turned 3. He said “I thought they were so frightened that their faces were whitened from fear of going near the big fire. Daddy [then] told me they were white people, and their skin was always white that way, day or night.” As he grew up, Chuck picked up on a lot of different hobbies as a child. He liked to do carpentry work with his dad and learned photography from his uncle Harry Davis. Besides those things however, he showed a real affinity and thirst for music, so he began singing in the church choir at age 6. At his high school talent show, he sang Jay McShann’s “Confessin’ the Blues” while being accompanied by his friend on guitar. Even though it was a somewhat controversial song, it was such a huge hit with the student body. Because of the success he encountered with that, he started taking guitar lessons and
While he was somewhat of a music prodigy, he also turned into a troublemaker/ bad student. In 1944 when he was 17, Berry and two of his friends dropped out of high school and set off for a road trip to California to pursue their dreams of playing and recording music. However, they had only gotten to Kansas City when they found a gun in a parking lot and decided to rob places nearby. They successfully stole from a bakery, a clothing store, and a barbershop in the area with the gun, then proceeded to steal a car. After this however, they were arrested by highway patrolmen and Berry was sentenced to 10 years in jail for their crimes. Berry served three years in the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men outside of Jefferson, Missouri before getting out early for good behavior on his 21st birthday. After this stint, he came back to St. Louis to work for his fathers construction business and as a janitor at a local auto plant. Things started to go uphill for Berry, and in 1948 he married Themetta “Toddy” Suggs, and would start his life as a husband and father to his (eventual) four children with Toddy. He also began to play the guitar again in 1951 when his former high school