The most comprehensive and useful documentary about rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry since Taylor Hackford’s 1987 Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll, filmmaker Jon Brewer’s Chuck Berry: The Original King of Rock ‘N’ Roll in some ways has an advantage on the earlier work. Said bluntly, Berry is now dead. Where Berry proved a little bit of an obstacle to Hackford probing some of the darker corners of the subject’s past, that problem doesn’t exist here.
In fact, Berry’s widow, Themetta “Toddy” Suggs Berry, married to Berry 68 years and well aware of his past jail time, troubles with the IRS, and a bizarre scandal involving a camera in a women’s restroom seems to be fully cooperative with Brewer’s chronological narrative. Brewer indeed takes a biographical approach, beginning with Berry’s childhood and teenage crimes that landed him in prison the first time. His rise to stardom as a songwriter-performer, achieved in no small part through a musical alliance with pianist Johnnie Johnson, is well covered.
The artistic side—many other musicians and critics regard Berry not only as a chronicler of adolescent experience but as a poet—is movingly described by such musical luminaries as E Street Band members Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren, plus George Thorogood, Nile Rodgers, Alice Cooper, and guitarist Joe Bonamassa.
Brewer employs a now-standard documentary technique of reenacting certain events in Berry’s life, albeit in deeply saturated colors to suggest the actions we’re seeing are emerging from a now dreamlike past. Brewer also generously taps Hackford’s footage of rehearsals and concert footage from a 1987 tribute to the master, including a notorious scene of Berry and Keith Richards nearly coming to blows. Most touching is a point made by his widow and children, that when Chuck Berry came home from the road, he was Charles Barry, husband and family man. Strongly recommended. Aud: J, H, C, P.