Chuck Berry
There had to be a market in order for you to be successful in a business. The market had to need your business, or the product of it.
If you're going to be mad, at least let the people know what you're mad about.
I used to work at Kroger's. When the store opened, you were there. When I worked in an automobile plant, you punched in. So it showed if you were a minute late. If you have a paid job, you show up.
I have lots of ambition!
I wanted to be a comedian. And I did that so much in high school, I couldn't get a girlfriend.
I just feel I got my inspiration, education and all from others that came before me. And I added my... I don't even know if I added anything. I played what they played, and it sounded different, I guess.
Elvis' songs will always be there, and I hope mine will be after I'm gone.
I don't want the bottom, so I have to sacrifice the top.
Rather than have joy, I would rather be absent of pain.
I didn't connect with the kids. I was in the studio. I never saw the kids. I hoped they liked it, of course. And then I'd go write some more. And then I'd go buy me a home. Very American.
Maybe it is true what they say, that playing these Chuck Berry songs is easy. But try singing them. The words come out hard, like bullets.
Chuck Berry doesn't give interviews.
Had I been pushed like Colonel Parker pushed Elvis, had I been a white boy like Elvis, sure, it would have been different.
People said I was king, but I was never king, and I say I'm the prime minister.
It's not me to toot my horn. The minute you toot your horn, it seems like society will try and disconnect your battery. And if you do not toot your horn, they'll try their darnedest to give you a horn to toot, or say that you should have a horn.
I think my interviews were much better than what some of the writers wrote. I just wanted the truth out.
I always want to play the songs that people want to hear.
Everything I wrote about wasn't about me, but about the people listening.
What kind of shorts I wear has nothing to do with music.
The media dresses things up. There's a lot of inaccuracy.
The first thing I heard was spiritual music, which was imbedded. The second thing I heard was swing. And shortly, along with that, I began to hear the blues. And then I began to hear Latin music. Each one left its mark.
The Man Upstairs is taking care of me.
I added and deleted according to the audiences' response to different gestures, and chose songs to build an act that would constantly stimulate my audience.
It's gotta be rock and roll music, if you wanna dance with me.Collection: Rocks
It used to be called boogie-woogie, it used to be called blues, used to be called rhythm and blues...It's called rock now.Collection: Rocks
The gateway to freedom...was somewhere close to New Orleans where most Africans were sorted through and sold. I had driven through New Orleans on tour and I'd been told my great grandfather had lived way back up in the woods among the evergreens in a log cabin. I revived the era with a song about a coloured boy named Johnny B. Goode. My first thought was to make his life follow as my own had come along, but I thought it would seem biased to white fans to say 'coloured boy' and changed it to 'country boy'.Collection: Country
Roll over Beethoven, tell Tchaikovsky the news.Collection: Tchaikovsky
Music is an important part of our culture and record stores play a vital part in keeping the power of music aliveCollection: Play
I'm a millionaire, but I cut the grass. And each time I cut it, it's my grass. And that is satisfying.Collection: Cutting
Rock is my child and my grandfather.Collection: Children
Sometime we'll try and reach for things we know we each want and don't deserve.Collection: Trying
He could play the guitar just like ringing a bell.Collection: Guitar
Music is music; you can't change rock and say well this is punk rock and this is acid rock or rockabilly.Collection: Rocks
Hail, hail rock and roll / Deliver me from the days of old.Collection: Rocks
He never ever learned to read or write so well, but he could play his guitar like he was ringing a bell.Collection: Writing
Prejudice doesn't make me mad. It just - I guess 'pisses me off' is the word.Collection: Mad
When I was a kid I used to scoot under the table, and whenever company would come around you know or my sisters or parents would tell me, go under the table and I'd do it because it was entertainment for the family or aunts or whatever. And one time at the Paramount when I first did it, you know, Brooklyn Paramount, I did it in the act during an instrumental and it got a big ovation and so I coined it as one of the things I should do in the act. And since I've been doing it.Collection: Kids
Back in the class room, open your books, keep up, the teacher don't know how mean she looks.Collection: Education
Don't bother me, leave me alone. Anyway, I'm almost grown.Collection: Leave Me Alone
There have been so many empires, kings are kinda going out of style.Collection: Kings
Rock is rock, and, rock and roll, rock is just short for rock and roll.Collection: Rocks
This is my 1963 Ford. It was the only car I could A-Ford.Collection: Car
A song is a song. But there are some songs, ah, some songs are the greatest. The Beatles song Yesterday. Listen to the lyrics.Collection: Song
I have so many entities now as grow older you gain responsibilities, you know, real estate, and I like video, and you know I want to live a little you know, because time is passing, its not as long as it has been.Collection: Real
They're drinkin' home brew from a wooden cup. The folks were dancin' there got all shook up.Collection: Home
All I want for Christmas is a rock n roll electric guitar.Collection: Rocks
Rock 'n' roll accepted me and paid me, even though I loved the big bands I went that way because I wanted a home of my own. I had a family. I had to raise them. Let's don't leave out the economics. No way.Collection: Home
Actually I'm writing as best I can, in order to keep the momentum and the career there, but I want to live.Collection: Writing
Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering "who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?"Collection: Country