To play with Berry, you better B. Goode
Chuck Berry has achieved two giant reputations since scoring his first hit, “Maybellene,” in 1955:
He’s the most influential rock ’n’ roller in music history.
And, quite possibly, the most difficult.
Now 81, the father of rock comes to Boston for a rare date on Sunday at Berklee Performance Center. It’s a benefit for Arlington’s Right Turn, ex-Del Fuegos drummer Woody Giessmann’s treatment center for creative artists in recovery.
To back Berry, a 15-piece band of stellar sidemen - including Red Hot Chili Pepper Chad Smith, Boston’s Barry Goudreau, Rolling Stones saxophonist Tim Ries and ex-Doobie Brothers guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter - has been assembled by Simon Kirke, former drummer of Free and Bad Company. Most have played with Berry at least once before, and they’re both excited and nervous about repeating the experience.
Berry only works with pickup bands. He arrives with no baggage except his red Gibson guitar and an attache case to stuff with his pay, which he collects in cash before each concert.
Typically arriving mere minutes before showtime, he never rehearses. He even refuses to tell his musicians what song he’s about to play or what key it’s in.
“When you ask him what songs he’ll play, he only says ‘Chuck Berry songs,’ ” Kirke said by phone from Buenos Aires, Argentina, last week. “And they’re all in difficult keys, too.”
For Kirke, the Berry experience began many years ago at the airport in Zurich, Switzerland.
“Chuck talks about himself in the third person, which is disconcerting,” Kirke said. “The promoter went to great pains to find him a vintage Cadillac, but Berry said, ‘Chuck don’t want no damn Cadillac. Chuck wants a Mercedes.’ ”
After their first song onstage, Berry blew the band a kiss.
“Yet when I missed a cue,” Kirke said, “he berated me in front of the crowd, (saying) ‘When Chuck stops, you all stop.’ But the bottom line was he was incredible. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
Chuck Leavell, Rolling Stones pianist for 25 years, played with Berry in the 1987 film “Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll.” In it, the cantankerous Berry criticizes Keith Richards’ guitar playing and crosses up his all-star backing band at his own hometown tribute concert.
“Right after the movie finished, I played with Chuck in New York,” Leavell recalled of a Berry gig with a crack band that included Dave Edmunds, The Who’s John Entwistle and Dire Straits’ Terry Williams. Yet Berry treated them like just another pickup band, refusing to tell them what songs he’d play.
“We did have a great time onstage, and Chuck was smiling,” said Leavell. “But then he gave Terry a slit-throat symbol as if to say, ‘I don’t care how much fun we’re having, I’m not going to go over my contracted time by one second.’ ”
Berry’s guitar work can still dazzle, even if he sometimes plays out of tune. One musician, requesting anonymity, mentioned that he secretly tuned Berry’s guitar before going onstage.
