Hail! Hail! Rock ‘N’ Roll

This is one of the best rock and roll documentaries that’s out there. A great documentary and probably the best that Chuck has ever sounded. He had a hell of a band behind him, and his songs did the heavy lifting. Pure poetry-driven songs about life with a huge backbeat. The band was incredible… Keith Richards, Robert Cray, the great Johnnie Johnson (Chuck’s original piano player), Steve Jordan, Bobby Keys, Chuck Leavell, and Eric Clapton are guests on a few songs. More than Chuck or the band…  It’s a great showcase for those wonderful songs Chuck wrote for all of us. 

This documentary starts off in 1986 with Chuck Berry reminiscing about the Cosmopolitan Club, where he played in the earlier days. The film centers around Chuck Berry’s 60th birthday and Keith Richards assembling an All-Star Band to support Chuck in concert. Chuck had been touring since the 60s by traveling from town to town and playing with any pickup band he found. All he brought was his guitar. He would get paid with cash in a paper bag in many places. That was his motivation more than playing with a good band. Chuck could be very sloppy playing live, but he did keep that great feel.

Chuck could also be difficult, to say the least. Keith was determined that Chuck was going to be backed by a great band for this concert… Chuck was Keith’s idol, but Chuck seemed to want to give Keith as much trouble as possible. Richards says in the documentary that Chuck was the only man who hit him that he didn’t hit back. During the rehearsals for the song “Carol”, you can feel the tension in the air between the two.

Seeing Keith’s reaction to Chuck at times is worth the price of admission, and I’m glad Keith was persistent and patient and got this done. It’s great footage of Chuck playing his classics. The concert at the Fox Theatre ended up a success. Chuck sounded great, and so did the band. I will be forever grateful they did this show, and we get to see Chuck Berry at his best. 

During the documentary, there are some great comments by Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Dixon, and more. Some of the artists that came on and sang were Etta James, Linda Ronstadt, and Julian Lennon. Chuck was a complicated man, but he was a poet as well. I can’t recommend this documentary enough. If you are a music fan you should like it. Chuck Berry may have influenced Rock and Roll more than anyone else.

My favorite story is from Bruce Springsteen. Bruce and the E Street Band volunteered to back up Chuck Berry for a show in the early seventies. Being Chuck’s temporary pickup band must have been nerve-wracking for musicians. Chuck didn’t tell them what songs he was playing or what key…this is Bruce’s quote “About five minutes before the show was timed to start, the back door opens and he comes in. He’s by himself. He’s got a guitar case, and that was it, I said ‘Chuck, what songs are we going to do?’ He says, ‘Well, we’re going to do some Chuck Berry songs.’ That was all he said!”

Below is the video. it’s not extremely clear but watchable.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

46 thoughts on “Hail! Hail! Rock ‘N’ Roll”

    1. I think he was difficult for a while…but for the first time in a long time he had a good band. Plus I love his piano player…he hadn’t played with him for years. He was driving busses…after this show he played for a living the rest of his life and made good money.

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    1. It’s worth it. He is a little cranky but he sounds great. You probably won’t hear him better than hear. Richards put together a great band.

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      2. Yea…Keith is much softer toward him out of respect. It’s like the time Chuck played with Lennon on the Mike Douglas Show….you can see the same look in John as well.

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  4. I think it is impossible to love Rock music and not like Chuck Berry the musician, the innovator, yes, the virtuoso who put the pieces together, giving us the definitive sound and the ultimate example of that sound–Johnny B. Goode. As with so many artists, I have to separate Berry the musician, whom I greatly admire, from Berry the man, who was a creep.

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    1. Yes….I do that with artists myself…many of them. What gets me about Berry is his lyrics Pam…they just flow and tells the story of that time with his music as a vehicle for them. I have a bio I’m about to read about him.

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    1. Someone gave me a VHS copy back in the day and I wore it out. The part that makes me flinch a little is when Chuck calls Julian John…but he corrects himself. Chuck really liked Lennon for some reason.

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      1. My mother has a grudge against Chuck Berry because sometime in the 70s my parents went to his concert and he didn’t show up (apparently something he did a lot). But when he did show you were guaranteed to have an electric performance.

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      2. I can see that with your mom! George Jones had a habit of doing that as well. Berry would have been exciting to watch. Those songs were the key.

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    1. Being in a band Dave…that would have scared the hell out of me. You don’t know which key he was playing in…and what made it even harder is he would play in unusual chords…Flat or sharp chords also…so it would have been exciting and scary.

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  8. Yes Max. You probably like it a little more than I do but it’s well worth a watch. That house band is pretty solid. It even has one of my NRBQ guys laying down the bottom. I like the quote dave pointed out. I’ve caught the movie a couple times. Yu have nudged me to another viewing.
    I knew a guy who backed him up. Said he was a sweetheart. Chuck needs a few in the positive column.

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    1. Thats great to hear from your friend! Everyone has a good/bad side so he was no different than us….just on a larger platform for everyone to see. I know this…the man was a poet.

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  9. Haven’t seen it in quite a while, but I definitely remember the argument, must be during “Carol”, as you said. When they start playing afterward and the camera is on Keith, he kind of sighs and almost rolls his eyes, but not quite, and smiles

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    1. Oh yes…I try to separate the art from the artists…sometimes it’s hard for me…most of all the eagles for me…but I’m not high on their music so that makes it easier.

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  12. He did a show at the Bronco Bowl in Dallas, around 1975. I didn’t know he hired a local band to back him, and I guess he pulled all of the above on them, and then I heard some guys at Arnold and Morgan music shop were in the band, and he skipped out without paying the poor schmucks. The only man who made a career of playing the same lick, in the same key, on every song, and never tuned his guitar, but people dug him. I tried doing his duck walk once, and was in bed for a few days with a back strain.

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    1. Can you imagine Phil…it’s hard to tell this to a non musician…but you are onstage and he doesn’t give you any warning or what song…1234 GO…I’ve read where he would go and start in a piano key….because Johnnie Johnson gave him a lot of those licks…that would be like a nightmare to me.

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      1. The praise band at church that I am playing with is like that. ” Change it to D flat” out of nowhere. I’m old enough to be their grandfather, and they don’t get it. It is a religious nightmare, of sorts.

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      3. i’m not looking forward to today’s service. Two of the songs are at 130 bpm and 4/4 time, literally beating the snot out of my Taylor guitar and none of the parishioners will be able to sing those songs in praise. Feels more like head banging crowd surfing music.

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      4. In that time! Yes it does sound like that! I’ll be around your site today or tonight. I’m sorry to comment on so many at once.

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  13. I guess it’s fair to say Chuck Berry was a complicated character, but there’s no doubt this man wrote some of the best rock & roll songs. His third story album “Berry Is on Top,” which really was a compilation of previous released singles, really could have been titled “The Greatest Hits of Rock & Roll”: “Carol”, “Maybellene”, “Johnny B. Goode”, “Little Queenie” and “Roll Over Beethoven” all on the same album!

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    1. Yes…complicated is a great way of putting it! I do think a lot Keith for enduring all of it just to make him have a good band behind him and not a pickup band.

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  14. Pingback: Hail! Hail! Rock ‘N’ Roll – MobsterTiger

  15. Yeah, this was something else to watch thats for sure. Keef getting told what to do he should have said to Berry “whose got more dough in the bank” haha…than again maybe not as a brawl would have happened.
    Great quote from Springsteen in regards to the songs that were going to be played. haha

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    1. Probably the only time Keith was ordered around. Berry had something against him…I don’t know what…he loved Lennon though. I don’t know what it was about Keith that he frowned on.

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