One Dozen Berrys, by Chuck Berry (March, 1958)

Dad's Take:

We've heard Bill Haley. Elvis. Fats. We've listened to Little Richard and Jerry Lee. But one key part of the foundation of rock and roll is missing, until now.

It's impossible to overestimate Chuck Berry's impact on rock and roll. When you hear a guitar solo by one of today's rockers, you're hearing Chuck Berry. When a lyricist tells a story and plays with the meter of his lines, you're hearing Chuck Berry.

On the excellent rockumentary about Berry, "Hail Hail Rock And Roll," Chuck talks about the blues music he heard in his neighborhood. But then then he'd go with his father to work in the white neighborhoods, and he'd hear country songs. So he figured out that he could make more more money from his music if he combined the two. He wasn't the first musician to mix blues and country, but he was perhaps the first to mix them so seamlessly. Then he played the horn solos from the swing combos on his guitar, and created a sound unlike anything that came before and that has not left us since.

"One Dozen Berrys" is Chuck Berry's second album. Significantly, it was the first to be released in England, where it had a tremendous impact on the up-and-coming British rock and roll scene.

This album contains several hits: "Sweet Little Sixteen," "Oh, Baby Doll," "Reeling & Rocking," and "Rock & Roll Music." But it also shows Berry has a serious musician with blues tunes like the instrumental "Blue Feeling" (and "Low Feeling," the same recording slowed down), the bilingual love song, "La Juanda," and the R&B love song, "How You've Changed." Chuck Berry had ambitions beyond teen dance music, but he also knew what he needed to do to make his money. The result is an album that wears its influences on its sleeves, but also shows how those influences were combined into that unique Chuck Berry sound. "Oh, Baby Doll" is a great example. It has a traditional country rhythm, sped up a bit, with R&B instrumentation behind a story song.

Chuck Berry changed everything.

In addition to being the king of rock and roll guitar, Chuck Berry is one of the great lyricists of all time, moving beyond the usual popular love songs with a kind of folk poetry that is on par with Cole Porter and the Gershwins, but with a straight-from-the-streets twist that makes it so amazingly easy to relate to. It's not just the words that he chose, but also the way he plays with the meter of his lines. I miss that on the many instrumentals on this record (maybe a couple too many), but those instrumentals also show the great musicianship from Chuck Berry and his band, especially his other musical half, pianist Johnnie Johnson, who deserves a bigger share of the credit for Chuck Berry's sound than he is usually given.

One thing that amazes me about Chuck Berry is that, unlike many of the rock and roll pioneers, his best music does not sound dated. A good Chuck Berry song from 1958 is still a good song today. Chuck Berry's music often lacks the trendy, novelty-song feel of so much of early rock and roll.

Brad's Take:


The first time I remember really listening to Chuck Berry was in 7th grade. We had to do a small report on a famous person, and my dad suggested I do it on Chuck Berry so I did. I played a clip of Chuck Berry performing and then read my report to the class. I didn't really listen to Chuck Berry much after that, at least not on my own.

This guy was an amazing performer, which helped him become a classic artist. Like Elvis, Chuck Berry had his own stage moves that people loved to see. On top of just being a great performer in general, he was an amazing guitarist. His guitar playing style stepped up the rock 'n roll game.

One Dozen Berrys has a couple of Chuck's well known songs, including "Sweet Sixteen" and "Rock & Roll Music," as well as some other awesome jams that I have never heard before, like "La Juanda." The lyrics to that song cracked me up for some reason:


I speak only the language of English
I don't understand Espanol

This album is a great record for people wanting to get into Chuck Berry. It's got some hits, some slower songs, and not much filler. If only "My Ding A Ling" was on this one...

Rock And Rollin' With Fats Domino, by Fats Domino (November, 1955)

Dad's Take

You said your arms are empty
And your eyes, full of tears
Haven't had no lovin'
For so many years
Don't blame it on me
I'm not guilty, can't you see?
Don't blame it on me
I'm the same cat I used to be

Fats Domino's classic New Orleans sounds predates rock 'n' roll. He had been playing the same style of music since 1949. In fact, some of the tracks on this album date back to that year, including the first song, "The Fat Man." That was the sound that became rock 'n' roll, and Domino was one of the pioneers.

Like much "race" music of the day, Domino's songs are crudely recorded, with a single microphone in the studio and the music played live through primitive equipment. But the result is a cool old-school blues sound, with Domino's smooth singing and bangin' piano triplets playing over a heavy backbeat, inviting young fans of the emerging rock 'n' roll to do dances like the stroll.

Most of the songs have classic blues themes, like heartache and broken relationships, played by a simple combo of piano, drums and guitar. Add a stand-up bass and a tenor sax and you have the recipe that changed popular music. Fats had a definite sound and he stuck to it, and he was copied by most other early rock 'n' rollers over the next few years.

The big hit here is "Ain't That A Shame," which became an even bigger hit for Pat Boone, who had an easier time getting airplay on white radio. It's hard to believe now that the three pioneers of rock, Fats Domino, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry had a total of zero number one hits, until Berry hit the top of the chart with his 1973 novelty song, "My Ding-A-Ling."

"Rock and Rollin' with Fats Domino" was his first album, and was one of the first of rock 'n' roll. In the 56 years since it was initally released as "Carry On Rockin'" very few people have done it better. This is an album full of Fats Domino rockers that you won't hear on the 1950's compilations. You should seek this one out and put it in regular rotation. It's an amazing record, not just for its day but for the entire rock and roll era.

Brad's Take:

This is my first time listening to a full Fats Domino album. I know that I've definitely heard "Ain't That A Shame" played in our house many times before though, but I didn't know that was actually a Fats Domino song until now.

I love the fact that it was all recorded live with just a single microphone in the studio. This is the kind of music that I have always felt would be the best experienced in a live setting so this helps show me what it would have sounded like if I was a 50s era Brad.

The instrumentation at times is pretty sloppy, but it almost had to be. Bands back then probably couldn't afford much when it came to recording in a professional studio, so they probably had only a few hours to record the album. I've recorded hundreds of songs on my own, and I know that it's almost impossible to get a perfect recording on just a one-take recording, especially with an entire band playing on the same track. Also, with this style of recording, they would have had to mix all of their instruments through their actual amplifiers and by standing in different areas of the room, rather than just moving the slider on the soundboard up and down. The quality of this album isn't good by today's standards, but it's as good as they could get at the time, and that is really interesting and cool to me.

This is an album I can see myself putting on again when I'm feeling like listening to something classy and fun. When I'm in these kinds of moods though, they typically don't last for very long so the fact that there aren't any songs over 3 minutes long makes this an album that is very easy and enjoyable to listen to.