Chuck Berry-The Chess Box (1988)


 

Artist: Chuck Berry

Title: The Chess Box

Label: Chess/MCA Records

Format: 3CD Box

Cat #: CHD3-80001

Year of Release:  1988

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US BMG Record Club Edition Box Set, Remastered?

Listed Condition: VG+/VG+

Sell Date: 1/30/21

Sell Price: $19.99

Discogs Last Sold: 10/16/20 $25.00 VG+/VG+

Low: $15.99

Median: $18.99

High:  $42.02

Current low price: $15.00 M/G+ missing booklet

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 5

Have/Want: 72/26

Where Sold:  Edison, NJ

Time it took to sell:  6 years

Where and When Bought: BMG Record club mid to late 90's

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A+

Sad To See It Go: No

Pretty much everything you could ever need by Chuck Berry, the architect of Rock 'n Roll is on The Chess Box.   It's all there for you.  Once you have this, you can quibble about mono mixes, original singles, the third 1964-1973 disc being sub-par and you can even rail about "My Ding-A-Ling" being Chuck Berry's only number one hit.  Box sets from the pre-internet CD era are like that.  

None of it matters.  Formatting can be complained about elsewhere.

For me, I was indoctrinated into the land of "Johnny B. Goode," and from 1955-1958 (disc 1) nobody else is better.  In my mind it is Chuck Berry and everyone else.  The Beatles codified this.  So did the Stones.  It's that simple.  Dylan has to bow to Chuck Berry with "Subterranean Homesick Blues."  Hendrix? Johnny Winter? ELO? Peter Tosh? Sex Pistols?  The whole punk rock genre was nothing new to Chuck and he could cut it to size with loving credibility.

Berry nods to Muddy Waters in the "Bio" track, hitchhiking to Chicago just to hear him play.  So yes, Berry is part of a Chess Records Blues continuum.  They sped up his voice with tape trickery to make him sound like a teenager for "Maybellene." Even then he was not a juvenile.  In 1965, on Fresh Berry's, he made this an anthemic assertion with "It's My Own Business."

I got to see him live in a theatre (Worcester 1985), a stadium (a Foxborough Sullivan Stadium 1987 Rock n Roll Revue) and a nightclub (late 90's NYC at Tramps).  In the 80's after the show I saw, the Worcester Telegram reviewer likened him to a cracked liberty bell.  Well, he keep crackin on the road without a record until the posthumous final statement Chuck from 2017 came out.

Meanwhile, I was still thinking......

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