Chuck Berry

Trivia

• He made his national TV debut on November 8th 1957 on American "Bandstand" (1952) performing "Rock and Roll Music" twice in a row, by demand for the teenage dancers in the studio.
• He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 1777 North Vine Street in Hollywood, California.
• He owns a warehouse full of old Cadillacs, one from every three or four model-years, all the way back to the mid-1950s, which he claims to be trying to get rid of, but says that nobody will give him a fair price, so he just stores them away.
• Has served three jail terms for armed robbery in the 1944, the Mann Act in 1959 and tax evasion in the 1970s.
• Chuck Berry received a John F. Kennedy Center Honor in 2000.
• He originally wanted to be a professional photographer and started singing and playing in a band to buy cameras and photography equipment. Some of his photographs of the famous and near-famous are hanging in galleries around the world today.
• He worked as a janitor, carpenter and hairdresser.
• He was arguably the most important figure in rock in the 1950s, besides Elvis Presley. Although Presley had much more explosive record sales and greater commercial longevity, Berry was equally influential and had the satisfaction of knowing that he, unlike Presley, had written all of his own classics.
• He was voted the 5th Greatest Rock & Roll Artist of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.
• One of his daughters, Aloha, went to the same high school (University City Senior High school) as actor Edgar L. Davis and rapper Nelly.