Review Summary: A swan-song where the artist is clearly having the time of his life; could you really ask for anything more?
Chuck Berry's passing in March of 2017 reminded music fans that, as sad as it is to admit, the forefathers of rock 'n' roll are a rapidly dying breed. And as much as still-living artists like Little Richard and Fats Domino have impacted the music landscape and should be shown as much appreciation as possible in the time they have left, Berry was royalty, occupying an importance in modern history that few artists could ever hope to have. So the fact that we have an entire album of new music from him in 2017 is really something to treasure, if for no other reason than the sake of it having come to light at all. Not a swan-song in the traditional sense (although the timing of the release may make one wonder whether this wasn't a bit of an opportunistic move on the part of his family),
Chuck is actually a compilation of songs recorded from 1991 until Berry's retirement in 2014. To put everything in perspective, this album took 23 years to record and an additional three years to release, and the initial recordings started 12 years after Berry's previous originals-only studio album
Rock It was released in 1979 (an unfortunate fire having wiped out all of Berry's studio work from that 12 year period).
Having said that, if you're looking for any sort of grand artistic statement from Berry to close off his career a la Bowie or Cohen, you'll be setting yourself up for disappointment. Even calling this music particularly stimulating would be too much praise; on the contrary, the music is so formulaic that Berry uses the legendary "Johnny B. Goode" guitar/drums intro on multiple songs, for lack of coming up with even the slightest rhythmic differentiation. This isn't a shortcoming of Berry specifically, considering 50's popular music relied heavily on a play-it-safe "wash-rinse-repeat" style of songwriting that played up the same few traits/characteristics to appeal to the audience. (Yes, this type of songwriting is commonplace in today's popular music as well, but experimentation is much more acceptable in today's culture than it was in the 50's, where jazz music was the primary source of musical progression/innovation.) And indeed, Berry plays up his strengths well enough; the guitar-playing isn't what it used to be and he's speak-singing a lot more than actually singing, but for as aging a rocker as he was at the time, it's perfectly acceptable from a performance standpoint. Originality is where this album lacks massively. If you've heard any Chuck Berry song from the 50's or early 60's, you've heard the type of stuff that's on here and there's really no reason for you to absorb more of it unless you're a diehard fan.
Yet it seems silly to define an album such as this by how original its content is. Say what you will about Chuck Berry as a person, and there's a lot of negative things that could be said: the fact that he was able to play until age 88 is a hell of a feat, and to enjoy himself while doing so is even better. It's evident by the tone of his voice that Berry is having an absolute blast in the studio, and we even get to hear a live clip of him on the track "3/4 (Enchiladas)", where he's energizing the audience and in turn is feeding off their energy, making it one of the most enjoyable tracks on the record. In that way, I greatly respect this album and the work that Berry put into making these songs. Technical analysis of albums is all well and good, but too often those of us who go in depth into the technical elements sacrifice the emotions of the performers as a result. At the end of the day, does anyone really care that Berry ripped off "Johnny B. Goode" multiple times on here; he's an old man and he was clearly having a great time writing the songs, if that's what made him happy then more power to him. As such,
Chuck is an album that's really hard to criticize; anyone who's not a Berry completist would probably be best served listening to his greatest hits and leaving it at that, but at the same time, it serves as a relatively lightweight, pleasant send-off to one of the defining figures in music over the last century.
