MIKE BLACK/SPRINGSTEEN CENTER
From left, Vini Lopez, Sonny Kenn, Stevie Van Zandt and Chris Plunkett perform at the “Chuck Berry at 100” event at The Pollak Theatre at Monmouth University in West Long Branch.
Little Richard “embodied the spirit of liberation that would be infused throughout the entire art form (of rock ‘n’ roll),” said Stevie Van Zandt at the “Chuck Berry at 100” symposium presented by The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music at Monmouth University’s Pollak Theatre, Oct. 10.
And Elvis Presley “popularized it for the white people,” Van Zandt continued, with a laugh. “But Chuck Berry was the indisputable king of rock ‘n’ roll.”
And not just because of his titanic guitar playing, Van Zandt said. Because of his lyrics, as well.
“He made our art form a storytelling art form,” Van Zandt said.
MIKE BLACK/SPRINGSTEEN CENTER
Charlie Giordano performs at “Chuck Berry at 100.”
Berry has not always received the respect that someone of his immense musical influence deserves. But the Springsteen Center, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Berry’s birth (on Oct. 18, 1926), devoted a full day to the man, with panel discussions, film clips, a day-ending 10-song concert and more.
As to be expected, the concert (see setlist and video below) was mostly fast-paced and ferocious, with just one ballad, “Wee Wee Hours,” among the rollicking teen anthems that were Berry’s forté. Van Zandt and Jersey Shore guitar hero Sonny Kenn provided the six-string brawn, while E Street Band keyboardist Charlie Giordano took frequent solos and played restlessly inventive fills in the style of Berry’s longtime collaborator Johnnie Johnson.
Original E Street Band drummer Vini Lopez — who was in Kenn’s band The Starfires in the ’60s — played drums on one song, “Nadine,” and sang lead on two, including the grand finale, “Johnny B. Goode.” Joe Bellia of The Weeklings did most of the drumming, and Chris Plunkett rounded out the band on bass. (Van Zandt and Plunkett played together in the ’60s Jersey Shore band The Shadows; a vintage Shadows photo, presumably from the Springsteen Center’s archives, was shown, to underscore that point.)
MIKE BLACK /SPRINGSTEEN CENTER
Springsteen Center founding executive director Bob Santelli in a panel discussion with Stevie Van Zandt.
The symposium offered additional music in the form of three short films, shown right after lunch.
First, there was footage of Springsteen and The E Street Band playing Berry’s “Carol” at The Monmouth Arts Center (now The Count Basie Center for the Arts) in Red Bank, in 1975, complete with a glimpse of Springsteen and Van Zandt’s duckwalking across the stage, as Berry used to do.
Then, the viral YouTube clip of Springsteen and The E Street band in Leipzig, Germany, in 2013, figuring out how to play Berry’s “You Never Can Tell” onstage, with the audience watching, and then executing a long, joyous version of it, with lots of horn solos.
Finally, there was black-and-white footage of Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau, in some downtime during the Darkness on the Edge of Town recording sessions, talking about Berry and illustrating some of his points on guitar, with Clarence Clemons sitting at the drum kit and playing some basic beats.
Berry may have grown up feeling like an outsider, but he connected to the mainstream as few others have ever done. R.J. Smith, author of the 2022 biography “Chuck Berry: An American Life,” gave the symposium’s keynote address, and said that Berry “assembled so much of the musical, lyric, rhythmic vocabulary for rock ‘n’ roll. The man who wrote ‘Johnny B. Goode,’ ‘Roll Over Beethoven,’ ‘Too Much Monkey Business,’ ‘Maybellene,’ ‘Brown Eyed Handsome Man.’ He wrote the song called ‘Rock and Roll Music.’ ‘School Days,’ ‘Little Queenie,’ ‘Tulane.’ That guy loved being here in this American stream. He had fought his way to get in, and then he made it sound like he was thankful for the invitation. … He left us feeling so many things, and he left us with so many complications.”
The cover of R.J. Smith’s “Chuck Berry: An American Life.”
Away from the stage, Smith said, Berry “had a deep supply of anger (and) resentment.”
The dark side of Berry’s life was not ignored in this symposium, getting attention in the day’s last panel discussion, “The Complicated Legacy of Chuck Berry,” but at other points, too, like when Springsteen Center founding executive director Bob Santelli told a personal story about booking Berry for an event, back when Santelli worked for The Experience Music Project in Seattle. Berry got bizarrely angry over something trivial, when Santelli went to meet him at the airport: Santelli was instructed to meet him “at the gate,” and though Santelli was standing near the gate, he wasn’t standing right at the gate.
Both Giordano and Van Zandt shared some memories — not all good — of performing with Berry, and various symposium participants made it clear that Berry was very uneven as a concert performer, especially in his later years.
And there was some discussion about whether Berry’s personal failings should change our view of his music. Van Zandt gave an emphatic no to this idea.
Despite the darkness in his own life, Berry offered an optimistic view of The United States. Smith, in his keynote address, tied his music to the present moment by reciting a line from “Back in the U.S.A.” — “Anything you want, we got it right here in the U.S.A.” — and then saying, “Those words land funny now, perhaps. And we can’t give up on them.”
In addition to the “Complicated Legacy” panel, the others were titled “The Birth of Rock and Roll: How Chuck Berry Changed American Music,” “Cars, School, Girls, and Guitars: Chuck Berry as America’s Storyteller,” “Crossing the Color Line: Chuck Berry, Race, and American Popular Culture” and “Inventing Rock Guitar.”
The Springsteen Center building opened in June of this year, but it has been presenting events, mostly Springsteen-oriented, for years. In his welcoming speech, Santelli said that “now that we are open, and now that we are up and running as a museum and our public programs are gaining traction, you can expect more from us in the way of (events about) American music. And we couldn’t think of a better way to start that kind of strategy … who better than Chuck Berry? Not only the architect of rock ‘n’ roll, but one of the great architects of American popular music.”
MIKE BLACK/SPRINGSTEEN CENTER
Sonny Kenn performs at “Chuck Berry at 100.”
Unrelated to Berry, but of interest to Springsteen fans: Springsteen Center director Eileen Chapman, who produced the symposium, mentioned that film clips from Springsteen’s legendary shows at The Bottom Line in New York will be shown at the Center, later this month. The official announcement will be made soon.
For more on The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music, visit springsteencenter.org.
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Here is the concert’s setlist, with lead vocalist(s) in parentheses
“You Can’t Catch Me” (Sonny Kenn)
“Rock and Roll Music” (Sonny Kenn)
“Back in the U.S.A.” (Sonny Kenn and Vini Lopez)
“Nadine” (Sonny Kenn)
“Wee Wee Hours” (Sonny Kenn)
“You Never Can Tell” (Sonny Kenn)
“Around and Around” (Stevie Van Zandt)
“Little Queenie” (Stevie Van Zandt)
“Sweet Little Rock ‘n’ Roller” (Stevie Van Zandt)
“Johnny B. Goode” (Vini Lopez)
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