Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry was the guitarist and songwriter who helped invent rock and roll, and he wrote "Johnny B. Goode," "Maybellene," "You Never Can Tell" and "Roll Over Beethoven." How did a young troublemaker produce songs that reshaped American popular culture? And why, after he became famous, did he repeatedly endanger his career through reckless personal conduct? Berry never explained either his genius or his lapses, so this biography sets out to examine the complexity behind both.

R. J. Smith draws on interviews, archival research and legal documents, and gives close attention to St. Louis, where Berry was born and where he died in March 2017. Smith places Berry's life against the American culture he helped shape and later stepped away from. The book shows how he broke down racial barriers in music, wove subtle political commentary into his work, and paid heavily for his success.

The book credits Berry's accomplishments without avoiding the troubling sides of his public and private life. It asks whether, and how, we can separate an artist's work from the person who made it. Berry did not think of himself as an artist and said only that he was good at what he did. Smith argues that his achievement nonetheless carried social and political weight and had an unusual power to move audiences.