1955: Chuck Berry and the story of "Maybellene"

Chuck Berry has a very special place in the history of rock.  He is one of the legendary composers and guitarists.     Where would rock be without Chuck Berry?

On this day in 1955, Chuck Berry recorded ”Maybellene” and the rest is history:

John Lennon once famously said that “if you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry.’”

That’s how foundational Berry’s contributions were to the music that changed America and the world beginning in the mid-1950s.

Even more than Elvis Presley, who was an incomparable performer, but of other people’s songs, Chuck Berry created the do-it-yourself template that most rock-and-rollers still seek to follow.

If there can be said to be a single day on which his profound influence on the sound and style of rock and roll began, it was this day in 1955, when an unknown Chuck Berry paid his first visit to a recording studio and cut the record that would make him famous: “Maybellene.”

Berry went on to have many more hits.   He also influenced The Beatles and The Rolling Stones of the next generation of rock.    

It all started for Berry with the wonderful “Maybellene”: