Chuck Berry was 31 0r 32 years old when he made this appearance on American Bandstand in late 1957 or early in 1958, old for a rock and roll star. But he was at the top of his game, having had four top ten records in the previous year. In 1959 he would appear, as himself, with Alan Freed in a movie “Go Johnny Go,” in which he plays this song over the opening credits.
Watch this video of Chuck and then go to the one showing Sister Rosetta Tharpe. To see where Chuck learned to play that guitar like ringing a bell.
As promised, I am returning to Louis Armstrong tonight. This film short from 1932 “Rhapsody in Black and Blue” was made to show off Armstrong’s musical talents but displayed many racial stereotypes and has offended audiences of later decades. Here he is thirty years old, a rising star, and given his first opportunity to appear in film. Armstrong does his best to follow the directors instructions and gives a great performance, unapologetic for the silly things he is asked to do.
Armstrong is the centerpiece of a dream sequence and is dressed in a nonsensical costume, part rags part glitter and part leopard skin. He sings “Ill Be glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You” a popular novelty song which he had recorded the year before, and “That’s Why They Call Me Shine,” which was written by Cecil Mack in 1910, a few bars of “Chinatown My Chinatown” are featured in a trumpet solo. He mugs for the camera, fakes some unrecognizable accent for a moment and mumbles some of the lyrics unintelligibly. The mumbling actually became part of Armstrong’s regular act and may have already been so. When he starts to play his trumpet, Louis Armstrong is the man in charge. He is a masterful entertainer, enjoying his job and sharing his joy with his audience.
Last night I made the 160 mile trip to New York to see Les Paul perform at the Iridium Club. Les has been playing a regular Monday night gig at the Iridium for years. This video was made back in December of 2006, so Les is a spring chicken of only 91 years here. He is accompanied by his regular band, Lou Pallo on guitar, Nicki Parrot on bass and Jon Colliannis on piano. This is the same lineup that I saw last night.
There are some segments of the PBS special Chasing Sound available on YouTube, but they don’t include complete songs. I recommend seeing Chasing Sound, however, if you are interested in music, history, the electric guitar as an artifact or Les Paul as a person. It’s a worthwhile 90 minutes.
If you click on Les Paul’s name in the tag cloud on my sidebar you will find some more video of Les and Mary Ford, from 1950’s television. I also have a couple of photos on my personal blog, here.
One day I was cruising YouTube, playing videos of various guitarists and I said to my wife " I'm just amazed that I can be sitting here watching Doc Watson's fingers for free." It dawned on me that it would be a valuable service to share these gems with other people. The videos posted here are the ones that really caught my eye.
