Chuck Berry

New Juke Box Hits Chuck Berry

This essential collector's edition includes the largely forgotten yet outstanding LP New Juke Box Hits, which was originally released by Chess Records in March 1961. Although the album was recorded in the midst of the legal difficulties that would put him in jail the following year, that distraction did not prevent Berry from composing top-flight material. It features him celebrating the work of contemporaries B. B. King, Nat "King" Cole, and Little Richard, alongside nine of his own tunes. There's a quaintness to early rock & roll's lyrics, but Berry's guitar work (his distinctive, trebly licks and the straight forward single coil chords atop that driving shuffle rhythm) shows us why he was such a great influence. All of the songs boast the classic Berry guitar sound, yet each tune is unique. The immortal "Route 66" was a big hit for Nat "King" Cole in the mid-'40s, and has been a semi-standard ever since. One of the highlights of the album is Berry's cover of Little Richard's "Rip It Up," because the song has been pared down from the heavy brass of the original to its rock & roll essence: guitar, bass and drums.

New Juke Box Hits is a perfect album to delve a little deeper into Chuck Berry's superlative legacy. In addition to this original masterpiece, we have included 4 bonus tracks, consisting of sides from the same period: "Come On" (which would be covered by The Rolling Stones for their debut single two years later), "County Line," "Go Go Go," and "Back in the U. S. A."