Blues CD

Chuck Berry’s Blues (MCA/Chess/UME), released August 12, 2003, is special even for such a massively anthologized artist not just for what it includes but for what it does not. There’s no “Maybellene,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Johnny B. Goode” or “Rock & Roll Music.” What the new collection does offer is 16 rarely heard recordings of blues classics and originals, each digitally remastered, from the man who first rocked the blues. In fact, three selections--“I Just Want To Make Love To You,” “Still Got The Blues” and “All Aboard”--make their U.S. CD debuts minus the overdubbed crowd noise which distracted their premieres on the less-than-truthful 1963 “live” album On Stage. Spanning 1955 to 1965, each track produced by the legendary Leonard and Phil Chess, nearly every one recorded in Chicago, and all issued on Chess, Blues reveals the too often overlooked bedrock upon which Berry duckwalked his way to immortality as one of rock ‘n’ roll’s founding fathers.