Today Is...The Day Chuck Berry Died

Music history is littered with rebellious figures who courted controversy and while some of the more troubled of these souls succumbed to their respective demons and left us with just the tales of their badassery, others got slammed into prison for a while and then carried on regardless and on all accountants Chuck Berry was and massive sleazeball and not the easiest person to get along with and his list of criminal indiscretions shows that he wasn't a particularly great human being but if you can separate the man from his music, what an amazing musician he was even if all his songs had a similar sound to them.
You never got variety with Chuck Berry, one song was very much like any of his other songs and the lyrics would not win any poetry competitions but he found a winning combination early on and stayed with it for almost everything he did.
The start of 'Johnny B Goode' is as good as an intro gets and the song was quite rightly chosen to represent Humans on the Voyager Space Mission so if any alien life finds it they will think those funny looking humans can't be all bad and not obliterate us.
Berry's influence on rock music is undeniable, he was also a real pioneer for the guitar based music which i lean heavily towards and Johnny B Goode is his signature tune and the character turned up in other Berry songs although none had the impact of Johnny B Goode which was voted the top Guitar Songs of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine and more importantly made it into Lucy's Museum of Musicians who deserve entry to Lucy's Museum of Musicians.
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 using the money he earnt from being a musical legend to buy a few restaurants, then buy some video cameras and install those cameras in the 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 with the exception of ding-a-ling which included the Pavlovian line 'Every time the bell would ring, You'd catch me playing with my ding-a-ling'.
He died today aged 90 in 2017 but i bet he was worried there might be a bell to ring on the Heavenly Pearly Gates, try explaining that one to St. Peter.