Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter who pioneered rock and roll.

[2] Born into a middle-class black family in St. Louis, Berry had an interest in music from an early age and gave his first public performance at Sumner High School.

By early 1953, influenced by the guitar riffs and showmanship techniques of the blues musician T-Bone Walker, Berry began performing with the Johnnie Johnson Trio.

With Chess, he recorded "Maybellene"—Berry's adaptation of the country song "Ida Red"—which sold over a million copies, reaching number one on Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart.

However, these did not achieve the same success or lasting impact of his 1950s songs, and by the 1970s he was more in demand as a nostalgia performer, playing his past material with local backup bands of variable quality.

His father, Henry (1895–1987) was a contractor and deacon of a nearby Baptist church; his mother, Martha (1894–1980) was a certified public school principal.

[18] He was convicted and sent to the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men (now the Algoa Correctional Center) in Jefferson City, Missouri,[13] where he formed a singing quartet and did some boxing.

[20] Chuck supported his family by taking various jobs in St. Louis, working briefly as a factory worker at two automobile assembly plants and as a janitor in the apartment building where he and his wife lived.

[21] He was doing well enough by 1950 to buy a "small three room brick cottage with a bath" on Whittier Street,[22] which is now listed as the Chuck Berry House on the National Register of Historic Places.

[30] On May 21, 1955, Berry recorded an adaptation of the song "Ida Red", under the title "Maybellene", with Johnnie Johnson on the piano, Jerome Green (from Bo Diddley's band) on the maracas, Ebby Hardy on the drums and Willie Dixon on the bass.

"[33] When Berry first saw a copy of the Maybellene record, he was surprised that two other individuals, including DJ Alan Freed had been given writing credit; that would entitle them to some of the royalties.

"[36] In late 1957, Berry took part in Alan Freed's "Biggest Show of Stars for 1957", touring the United States with the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and others.

[43] But in December 1959, he was arrested under the Mann Act after allegations that he had had sex with a 14-year-old Apache waitress, Janice Escalante,[44] whom he had transported across state lines to work as a hatcheck girl at his club.

[54] In 1964 and 1965 Berry released eight singles, including three that were commercially successful, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard 100: "No Particular Place to Go" (a humorous reworking of "School Days", concerning the introduction of seat belts in cars),[55] "You Never Can Tell", and the rocking "Nadine".

Even "My Ding-a-Ling", a fourth-grade wee-wee joke that used to mortify true believers at college concerts, permitted a lot of twelve-year-olds new insight into the moribund concept of "dirty" when it hit the airwaves ... Berry returned to Chess from 1970 to 1973.

[43] In March 1972, he was filmed, at the BBC Television Theatre in Shepherds Bush, for Chuck Berry in Concert,[65] part of a 60-date tour backed by the band Rocking Horse.

Rock 'n' Roll that Berry did not give the band a set list and expected the musicians to follow his lead after each guitar intro.

Facing criminal sanction for the third time, Berry pleaded guilty to evading nearly $110,000 in federal income tax owed on his 1973 earnings.

[69] Eric Clapton, Etta James, Julian Lennon, Robert Cray, and Linda Ronstadt, among others, appeared with Berry on stage and in the film.

[72] In 2008, Berry toured Europe, with stops in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Poland, and Spain.

[75] When Berry performed he often required payment up front in a paper bag which he transferred to an attaché case, PBS on In Their Own Words, relates.

[76] He regularly performed one Wednesday each month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bar located in the Delmar Loop neighborhood of St. Louis, from 1996 to 2014.

[77] His first new record in 38 years, it includes his children, Charles Berry Jr. and Ingrid, on guitar and harmonica with songs "covering the spectrum from hard-driving rockers to soulful thought-provoking time capsules of a life's work" and dedicated to his wife Toddy.

[79][80] TMZ posted an audio recording on its website in which a 911 operator can be heard responding to a reported cardiac arrest at Berry's home.

Gene Simmons of Kiss gave an impromptu, unadvertised eulogy at the service, while Little Richard was scheduled to lead the funeral procession but was unable to attend due to an illness.

[86] In September 2017, Dualtone, the label which released Berry's final album, Chuck, agreed to publish all his compositions in the United States.

[2] Thus Berry, the songwriter, according to critic Jon Pareles, invented rock as "a music of teenage wishes fulfilled and good times (even with cops in pursuit).

"[93] Berry contributed three things to rock music: an irresistible swagger, a focus on the guitar riff as the primary melodic element and an emphasis on songwriting as storytelling.

"[106] When asked what caused the explosion of the popularity of rock 'n roll which took place in the 1950s, with him and a handful of others, mainly him, Berry said, "Well, actually they begin to listen to it, you see, because certain stations played certain music.

"[121] Kevin Strait, curator of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, said that Berry is "one of the primary sonic architects of rock and roll.