A biography for Chuck Berryhasn’t been written yet.
“I directed my music to the teen-agers. I was 30 years old when I did 'Maybellene.' My school days had long been over when I did 'School Day,' but I was thinking of them.”
“What kind of shorts I wear has nothing to do with music.”
“Rock's so good to me. Rock is my child and my grandfather.”
“I've written songs on everything. Menus. Napkins. Little pieces of paper.”
“People don't want to see 17 pieces in neckties. They wanna see some jeans, some gettin' down, and some wigglin'.”
“I grew up thinking art was pictures until I got into music and found I was an artist and didn't paint.”
“Chuck Berry doesn't give interviews.”
“Don't let the same dog bite you twice.”
“There has been a great laziness in my soul. Lots of days I could write songs, but I could also take my $400 and play the slot machines at the riverfront casino.”
“It's amazing how much you can learn if your intentions are truly earnest.”
“My first job at Gleason's Bar in Cleveland was $800 a week, when I was making $92 a week with overtime at the automobile plant.”
“Of the five most important things in life, health is first, education or knowledge is second, and wealth is third. I forget the other two.”
“The music played most around St. Louis was country-western and swing. Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of the country stuff on our predominantly black audience. After they laughed at me a few times, they began requesting the hillbilly stuff.”
“The first thing I heard was spiritual music, which was imbedded. The second thing I heard was swing. And shortly, along with that, I began to hear the blues. And then I began to hear Latin music. Each one left its mark.”