The Arts
Rock musician and composer. “If you tried to give rock ‘n’ roll another name, you might call it [Chuck Berry],” John Lennon of the Beatles once said. At the height of his popularity in the last half of the fifties, no one had more influence than Berry. During the sixties, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones played a dozen of his songs note for note, and Bob Dylan acknowledged his debt to Berry as a lyricist.
Berry was born in St. Louis into a lower-middle class black family. He served three years in reform school on a robbery conviction, earned a certificate in hairdressing and cosmetology, and then took a job on an auto assembly line to support his wife and children. By 1953, he was leading a three-piece blues group, which played on weekends. In 1955, his first hit, “Maybelline,” reached the top ten after being plugged by New York disc jockey Alan Freed, who earned royalties on it by listing himself as the song’s co-author–an example of whites exploiting black musicians and of the pervasive corruption in the music industry at that time.
Berry’s greatest hits recounted teenage experiences and frustrations, but also conveyed the fun of adolescent rebellion. “School Day” (which reached the No. 3 spot on the Billboard charts in 1957) complains about teachers and, in retrospect, seems to prophesy the student rebellion of the sixties: “Close your books, get out of your seat/Down the halls and into the street.” “Sweet Little Sixteen” (No. 2 in 1958) presented the breathless world of a young rock fan. The autobiographical “Johnny B. Goode” (No. 8 in 1958) provides a classic treatment of the small-town-boy-makes-good theme-in this case, as a rock ‘n’ roll star. The Voyager I spacecraft, heading out toward distant galaxies, includes among its messages to other worlds a recording of “Johnny B. Goode.”
In 1959, at the peak of his creativity and popular success, Berry was convicted under the Mann Act and went to prison for two years. He had few hits after that. In 1972, touring as an “oldies” act, he finally reached No. 1 on the charts with “My Ding-a-ling,” a forgettable novelty song. Its success only underscored the fact that none of his classic records ever sold as well as those of white crooners like Pat Boone.
As a rock lyricist, Berry was among the best. His lyrics convey an immense, childlike delight in linguistic play, cataloging the fun and frustrations in the lives of white teenagers. That these lyrics were the work of a black man in his thirties makes them especially remarkable. As a guitarist, wrote Robert Christgau, Berry’s style featured a “limited but brilliant vocabulary of guitar riffs that quickly came to epitomize rock ‘n’ roll. Ultimately, every great white guitar group of the early sixties imitated Berry’s style.”
In 1987, Berry published a widely praised autobiography entitled Chuck Berry: An Autobiography. A 1988 feature film, Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll, documents his career.
The Arts
1903 – 1946
Countee Cullen was one of the strongest voices associated with the Harlem Renaissance, the flowering of black art and literature in New York City in the 1920s. Not. much is known about his early childhood except that he was born Countee Porter and adopted by Rev. and Mrs. Frederick Cullen, who provided him with a fine education. He excelled in his studies, receiving honors in Latin, mathematics, English, history, and French. In 1925 he graduated phi beta kappa from New York University and published his first book of poems, Color.
After receiving his master’s degree from Harvard University, Cullen became an editor and critic and later wrote plays and novels, but it was his poetry that singled him out as a voice to be listened to. Though he wrote on universal themes such as love, religion, and death, Cullen believed in the richness and importance of his African American heritage and deftly applied traditional forms of verse, using melodic meter and rhyme, to African American themes.
The Arts
Born in 1917, John Birks Gillespie began playing the trumpet as a child. He formed his own band at the age of 14. He garnered a music scholarship to Laurinburg Institute, but he left before his senior year. He moved to Philadelphia and began his professional career. He began developing bebop while jamming with such names as Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk. After playing for different bands for several years, he formed his own label, Dee Gee Records.
When the company folded he continued to play with other jazz greats including Charles Mingus, Max Roach and Charlie Parker. In 1953, someone fell on his trumpet, bending it skyward. He kept it that way, liking the sound it produced. After winning several Grammy Awards and writing his autobiography, Gillespie died in 1993..still touted as one of the greatest jazz musicians ever.
The Arts
Born Edward Kennedy Ellington in 1899, “Duke” was a tour de force in the world of big band jazz. Pianist-composer-bandleader, he used his band like an instrument and the sounds he made with it were revolutionary to jazz. He studied music theory and harmony at an early age and he wrote his first composition “The Soda Fountain Rag” when he was 17. During the 20s he spent 4 years at the famous Cotton Club, building his popularity.
Ellington used only the very best musicians and understood completely that it was their talent that focused his. In the 50s when money problems closed down many of the big jazz bands, he used his composing royalties to keep his own afloat. More than most bandleaders, Duke wrote with his musicians in mind. It was part of his genius and it was the reason that many of his musicians stayed with him for over 20 years. His sound characterized the big band jazz sound until he died in 1974.
Duke Ellington won Springarn Medal for his musical achievements, 1959
The Arts
1845c. 1890
Details of her early life are uncertain. Her father was a black American and her mother an Ojibwa Indian who named her Wildfire. Lewis changed her name to Mary Edmonia while studying at Oberlin College. At the school, Lewis was accused of theft and of trying to poison two classmates. Although she was acquitted of both charges, she was not allowed to graduate.
In 1863, Lewis moved to Boston and became a sculptor, specializing in abolitionists and Civil War heroes. Forever Free (1867), a marble sculpture now at the Howard University Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, is her most famous work. Lewis reached the peak of her fame when The Death of Cleopatra was presented at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. It is now in the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC. The end of her life remains a mystery. Lewis was last reported living in Rome in 1911.
The Arts
Born in 1920, John Lee Hooker owns one of the most distinctive voices in blues. Known as the father of the boogie, his sound is deep, sexy and layered with innuendo. His sounds inspired an entire generation of blues-rockers like the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac and the Animals. Unlike many other Blues musicians, Hooker made his mark in Detroit. He was from Clarksdale, Mississippi but left at the age of 15 for Memphis where he worked as an usher in a theater and played his guitar on the corner for spare change. Later, he made his way to Detroit where he worked as a janitor, playing in clubs and house parties in his spare time. His recording career began in 1948 and hasn’t let up since. He remains one of the seminal ambassadors of the Blues.
