By all accounts he was a massive sleaze in life but putting that to one side for the moment, what a back catalogue of great music he had under his belt.
He was also a real pioneer for the guitar based music which i lean heavily towards and he was one of the few musicians that i lifted above the others when i was learning the guitar as a youngster.
His songs were very formulaic as many musicians tunes are and you could tell almost immediately a Chuck Berry song but so strong was the stencil that he hit upon early on in his career, that he was such a huge success.
The opening lick of Johnny B Goode is musical gold and quite right that it was this song that was the choice to represent humans and be placed upon the Voyager Spacecraft and sent out of the Solar System for any other alien civilisations to discover.
Away from the amazing guitarist and entertainer he undoubtedly was, the other side of him was less pleasant with jail time for armed robbery, carjacking, prostitution and videotaping in ladies toilets.
Berry is placed at number 6 in the Rolling Stone magazine's 'Greatest Guitarist of All Time' list which is deserving as he was at the forefront of that style of music and much copied by those who came after him so such a high placing is warranted even if there was very little variation in what he played.
Johnny B Goode will always be his signature tune but there was so many greats including 'Memphis Tennessee' which was a change from the driving riffs of his usual fare.
He will always be included in the book of music as he should be as he was an amazing guitarist, great lyricist and had an incredible list of songs to his name but as it is hard to separate the man from the music, a morally bankrupt personality.
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