Chuck Berry's Meridian Visit. (updated)

Photo courtesy of Charles (Buddy) Broome.

TKO Leadout: 1959

Hail, Hail, Rock and Roll !!!
I would anxiously await his every release. Chuck was Rock and Roll to many of us. Lee Arthur Rhodes, a disc jockey from WQIC — " th' Black spot on yo' dial" — would come by and load that Student Activities building jukebox with Chuck Berry's latest and it would play almost non-stop for days.


Chuck Berry provided his teenage fans with an outlet to express the feelings and desires that 1950's society taught them they were not supposed to have.

Want some more? I do!

Roll Over Beethoven

Brown-Eyed Handsome Man

Maybelline

History courtesy of Charles (Buddy) Broome: John Harvey, Fred Ross and I signed Chuck at Fred Ross's mobile home on Hwy 80 in Jackson. Chuck was very polite and looking sharp in his silk suit and bebop cap. He drank a beer with us and didn't seem at all troubled about doing business with juveniles. (I believe John was 18, Fred was 17, and I was 16.) My last image of Chuck was someone leading him out a side door at the Key Field Officer's Club to hide him after the problem arose. Ross had proudly assumed the mantle of Chuck's roadie; drove him to the Country Club for intermission, and when they of course told him that people of the Negro race were not admitted socially, cut a deal for Chuck to pay his way by performing a couple of songs there. Then, during a break in the latter stages of the dance, he responded to Chuck's request for a little female company by recruiting the girl to visit the break room. What happened there we may well imagine, but she left distraught, and probably told her friends straightaway. Police officers escorted Berry out of the parking lot and straight to the jailhouse where they fined him for disturbing the peace. A couple of days later, a police car took the Prince and I to the County Attorney's office for depositions. We of course knew nothing.

There were a lot of "good ol' days".

And, there were also a few "bad ol' days".

I think I remember the girl. I'm sure some of you do, too. If you do, keep it to yourself. Going on Medicare automatically absolves us of all our youthful impulsiveness.