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Sunday Music: Chuck Berry, Gold
Dec. 1st, 2013 06:14 pmAlbum Title: Gold (the one by Chuck Berry)
Why I Bought It: Well, it's Chuck Berry; no collection of rock can possibly be complete without him, and in particular without "Johnny B. Goode".
What I Like (Classic): "Johnny B. Goode". An essential song, one of the best of the (very many) songs about being a singer. Also one of the (much rarer) songs with sequels, in the far inferior "Bye Bye Johnny".
What I Like (Unexpected): "Havana Moon". Written back in the days when traffic between Florida and Cuba was a simple matter; a song about missing an assignation by getting drunk. File it alongside Gordon Lightfoot's "Steel Rail Blues".
What I Like (Revivalistic): "Downbound Train". Not to be confused with Springsteen's song of the same title, this one's about a drunken bum having a vision of That Hell-Bound Train. Not what you'd expect from the singer of, say, "My Ding-A-Ling".... And while I'm at it:
What I Don't Like (Eye-roll): "My Ding-A-Ling". Was that really necessary?
Overall: This is a big album - two disks, fifty songs. It has a lot of classics: "Maybellene", "Roll Over Beethoven", "School Day", "No Particular Place to Go", "Sweet Little Sixteen". Among the other songs I like are "Nadine" (recommended to me by a colleague of that name), "You Never Can Tell" (I also have Bob Seger's cover, called "C'est la Vie"), "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" (kind of silly, but fun), and his version of "Promised Land" (though I like Elvis' better). Berry's a little prone to reusing tunes, "School Day" and "No Particular Place to Go" being a notorious but not solitary example, and some of his stuff I could do without ("Too Pooped to Pop", "Sweet Little Rock & Roller"), but there's enough good stuff on the album to make it a keeper.
Why I Bought It: Well, it's Chuck Berry; no collection of rock can possibly be complete without him, and in particular without "Johnny B. Goode".
What I Like (Classic): "Johnny B. Goode". An essential song, one of the best of the (very many) songs about being a singer. Also one of the (much rarer) songs with sequels, in the far inferior "Bye Bye Johnny".
What I Like (Unexpected): "Havana Moon". Written back in the days when traffic between Florida and Cuba was a simple matter; a song about missing an assignation by getting drunk. File it alongside Gordon Lightfoot's "Steel Rail Blues".
What I Like (Revivalistic): "Downbound Train". Not to be confused with Springsteen's song of the same title, this one's about a drunken bum having a vision of That Hell-Bound Train. Not what you'd expect from the singer of, say, "My Ding-A-Ling".... And while I'm at it:
What I Don't Like (Eye-roll): "My Ding-A-Ling". Was that really necessary?
Overall: This is a big album - two disks, fifty songs. It has a lot of classics: "Maybellene", "Roll Over Beethoven", "School Day", "No Particular Place to Go", "Sweet Little Sixteen". Among the other songs I like are "Nadine" (recommended to me by a colleague of that name), "You Never Can Tell" (I also have Bob Seger's cover, called "C'est la Vie"), "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" (kind of silly, but fun), and his version of "Promised Land" (though I like Elvis' better). Berry's a little prone to reusing tunes, "School Day" and "No Particular Place to Go" being a notorious but not solitary example, and some of his stuff I could do without ("Too Pooped to Pop", "Sweet Little Rock & Roller"), but there's enough good stuff on the album to make it a keeper.
