Poet. Showman. Storyteller. Guitar hero. Founding father of modern music... Stephen Deusner analyses how Chuck Berry embodied rock’n’roll right up until the end of his storied life, with the help of some of his closest collaborators.
Eyes Of Man” is the final song on Chuck Berry’s final album, simply titled Chuck, and it’s a doozy. As his band pounds out a slow and supremely lowdown blues vamp, as his guitar struts with the strong legs of a man at most one-third his age, Berry unspools his own personal philosophy, the sum wisdom of his 90 years, truths he’s been mulling since he was carrying his guitar around in a gunny sack. His language is grandiose, with talk of temples and pillars and empires, perfectly apropos for one of the most joyously self mythologising first-generation rock’n’roll stars. Berry dispenses deep thoughts like Halloween candy: “Those who do not know and do not know that they do not know… are foolish. Avoid them.” Later, as the song is winding down, he adjusts that epistemological statement: “Those who know and know that they know… are wise. Appreciate them.” It’s an easy guess which camp Berry believes he belongs to.
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