SHG: Chuck Berry: "Sweet Little Sixteen"

Chuck Berry: “Sweet Little Sixteen”
Entered the chart on: 2/24/58
Peaked on: 3/17/1958
Weeks at #2: 3 weeks
Song at #1: “Tequila” by the Champs

I’m just going to bask in the Golden Age of Rock & Roll while it still lasts. Because, blessed/cursed with the gift of foresight, I know what happens in 1959.

Chuck Berry, for me, is rock & roll. When I think the early days of rock, I think of Chuck strumming his guitar and doing his duck-walk. He is the quintessence of the early rock & roll sound. And this was his biggest hit (Yes, I know, fourteen years later, he went all the way to #1 with a crummy live recording of a hideous novelty number that’s little more than a litany of crude penis jokes. Leave me my illusions.).



My God, this song has been imitated so many times, and almost never has anyone come close to touching the original. The song isn’t super-complex, which means it was pretty easy to imitate. Berry gets the easy part on guitar, but since he has to accompany himself while singing I’ll let it slide. The piano player gets the juicy part. I’m not sure who played piano on this, but man, that cat is wild. For a rocker, Berry has a lighter, thinner voice than I remember, but it works for some reason. Probably as it reminds me of later vocalists that followed in his wake that I also like (Prince, for example).

This might be the first song that seeks airplay by name-dropping US locales (and he even gets in a mention of American Bandstand in there). The song is the tale of a teenaged girl who’s obsessed with rock & roll and wants to go to a show. Actually, it might be the most complex and intricate lyric to a rock song I’ve covered thus far, since it tells a story with a beginning, middle and end (by the end, our nameless female protagonist has to sleep off her partying weekend lifestyle and get back to the dull grind of high school). Maybe not as poetic a story as “Blueberry Hill,” but I was nonetheless entertained and compelled by it.

In short, it’s as good as you remember it being, and is still worth a listen after all these years.

Rating: 5

SHG: Fats Domino: "Blueberry Hill"

Fats Domino: “Blueberry Hill”
Entered the chart on: 10/13/1956
Peaked on: 1/19/1957
Weeks at #2: 3 weeks
Song at #1: “Singing the Blues” by Guy Mitchell

And finally, we make it to 1957. Sorry for the delay in getting back to reviewing the #2s but I’ve been busy cooking recipes from dusty old ads and posting cartoons inspired by the Dingley Tariff. Such is life.

Fats already had a string of classic singles under his belt when he was cruelly cheated out of a #1 hit by Pat Boone and those clowns at Dot Records back in ’55. This enduring classic is as close as he’d ever have to a number one hit. And here it sits in pole position behind Guy Mitchell’s watering down of a classic Marty Robbins song. Such is life.



Allow me to say right out of the gate that I’m extremely envious of Fats Domino and performers like him. The ease with which he applies his distinctive piano style to a song WHILE singing is a real skill. Love that intro he bangs out at the start that says, “Fats is here!” I mean, it’s a pretty basic 12-bar blues, but his piano playing and thick, meaty voice make the tune.

Appropriate that this should come right after Elvis bumping and grinding his way through “Love Me.” The sexual connotation of this song, too, cannot be denied. It’s pretty obvious when he sings that he “found his thrill,” he’s talking about sex. Why else would the opening line be used as a G-rated euphemism for Richie Cunningham getting a teenage boner on 1970s family-hour TV? The 50s old guard must have been up in arms.

Fats keeps it tasteful though, even poetic. “The wind in the willow played love’s sweet melody”? You could imagine Prince scribbling down notes as he listened to this.

I really can’t deny this one’s classic status. I could listen to stuff like this all day.

Rating: 5