CREEMEDIA

CREEMEDIA

PAID UP EVERY BODY�S TAB

THE FILMING OF CHUCK BERRY�S HAIL, HAIL, ROCK 'N' ROLL

by

Daniel Brogan

Don�t worry if you missed Chuck Berry�s 60th birthday concert in St. Louis last fall. The film version—coming soon to a theater near you— will be a lot better.

Things went so badly during the first of two shows that Keith Richards had but one thought as he left the stage: "I wanted to kill him.�

Backstage after the show, Richards would opfy smile when asked who he meant but there was qifj| doubt he was referring to one of two people.

, One possibility was Berry," himself, The idea for the evening had been for the father of ropk �n� roll guitar to ' celebrate in his hometown"' with some of his best-known heirs. But despite the .. presence of Richards, Eric 1 Clapton, Julian Lennon, Lin■>da Ronstadt and Etta James, Berry�s performance in the first show had been flood of missed cues, sloppy solos and fumbled lyrics;

Keith�s other probable target: Taylor Hackford.

£ The director of An Officer And A Gentleman and Against AH Odds was filming the shows for a $3 million screen biography of Berry to be called Hail! Hail! Rock �n� Roll. In Hackford's eyes, though, the evening was less a concert than a location shoot at which the audience was simply a prop. So when his cameras needed reloading, Hackford had no qualms about stopping the show. Nor did he hesitate to order retakes of songs missed because of technical foulups,^ or to join Berry and Richards for frequent onstage conferences.

But whomever Richards meant/ there was no hiding the huthSwha! should have been a historic evening was becoming an embarrassing fiasco. Fans—some of whom had spent three days waiting in line for tickets and were still smarting from the previous week�s announcement that the evening would be split into two shows so that the film crews would have .two chances to catch the action—were walking out and many more were booing.

In the hour-long break between shows, Richards took charge. First he won a promises from Hackford that there would toe nomorethan three technical breaks in the second show. Then he got Berry to concede their weeklong battle for control of the band.

. The second set began and the difference was like night and daygFueled by Richards �s incendiary guitar, classics like �Roll Over Beethoven,� �Monkey Business,� end "Nadine� cruised like the hot-rod Fords and custom Coupe de Villas Berry so often sings about.

Robert Cray, the rising star of the blues scene, turned in a solid rendition of �Brown Eyed Handsome Man,� and even Julian Lennon—the obvious lightweight among such a stellar lineup—was able to improve upon his first take of �Johnny B. Goode."

Some of the best music came during the breaks, such as when Richards and Etta James—who had repossessed �Rock �n� Roll Music��—wound through an impromptu �Hoochie Coochie Man.^P

But the show�s far and away highlight was Clapton�s slow, bluesy �Wee Wee Hours.� With Richards supplying a raunchier counterpoint, Clapton laid . down some exquisitely sweef ticks - a blonde,., hollow-body Gibson

"That guitar is exactly like the one Chuck played on all those early records and in that famous duck-waik picture,� Clapton had explained the night before. �Tve been looking for one for 20 years. Literally. My agent finally found one in Minnesota. I think there are only about five of them in this good of shape left. I got it just in time for this show."

Clapton was just 13 when he heard his first Chuck Berry record ("School Days.� And shortly thereafter, �Memphis.�), but the impact was immediate.

�4 was hooked from word one. The thing, though, was that no one knew a'thing about this guy. We all desperately tried to get information about who he*was, but in England there weren�t any fan clubs or magazines or anything like that. Just the odd record that would show up in the record store." -V

Clapton didn�t even know what his new hero looked like. �He could have been Egyptian, for all I knew,� he said. �When I finally saw a picture, it was something of a shock: at that point in my life; I hadn�t seen too many blacks �

BeforeW'Jptbg'' Berry�s records had introduced the English teenager to a whole new world of black American music. rOn the back of his records; there would be a little, catalogue with all the other artists on the label;� Clapton said.

' �So I started trying to track down all, those records. That�s how I discovered Muddy Waters, Howlin� Wolf and all the other Chess artists. But Chuck Berry was the guy who started it ail.�