Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry Book

Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry draws on dozens of interviews done by the author himself and voluminous public records to paint a complete picture of this complicated figure. Berry's own Autobiography published in 1986 covers up as much as it reveals; and Berry himself has rarely been forthcoming in either documentary or print interviews. This biography uncovers the real Berry and provides us with a stirring, unvarnished portrait of both the man and the artist. Berry has long been one of pop music's most enigmatic personalities. Growing up in a middle-class, black neighborhood in St. Louis, his first major hit song, "Maybellene," was an adaptation of a white country song, wedded to a black-influenced beat. Thereafter came a string of brilliant songs celebrating teenage life in the '50s, including "School Day," "Johnny B. Goode," and "Sweet Little Sixteen." Berry's career rise was meteoric; but his fall came equally quickly, when his relations with an underage girl led to a conviction under the Mann Act. It was not his first (nor his last) run in with the law. He scored his biggest hit in the early '70s with the comical (and some would say decidedly lightweight) song "My Ding-a-Ling." The following decades brought hundreds of nights of tours, with little attention from the recording industry; meanwhile, more disturbing facts about Berry's life trickled out, reflecting his complicated position as a black performer in a predominantly white musical world. Bruce Pegg has located Berry's friends, lawyers, business associates, and fellow musicians to paint a true picture of a complicated life story. He offers what should be the definitive, though not always pretty, portrait of one of the greatest stars of rock and roll, a story that will appeal to all fans of American popular music.Read More