EDITORIAL CHUCK BERRY, RACE MUSIC IN APARTHEID AMERICA, AND BERRY DYING A VERY BITTER MAN BY Phil Seahorn th March 24 , 2017 philseahorn@gmail.com
“Seahorn Epublishing” and “Phillip Seahorn”
@PhilSeahorn
I PURPOSELY SAT ON THIS EDITORIAL UNTIL TODAY, WEDNESDAY, FOUR DAYS AFTER CHUCK BERRY DIED. I HAVE BEEN MONITORING THE INTERNET REACTION TO THE MAN THAT SINGLEHANDEDLY CREATED ROCK AND ROLL, AN INDUSTRY THAT WHITE AMERICAN
GUITARISTS AND ENGLISH GUITARISTS HAVE MADE BILLIONS OVER THE LAST FIVE DECADES. YET, ONLY A HANDFUL OF ONLINE POSTINGS MARKS THE DEATH OF THE MAN WHO CREATED MODERN AMERICANA AND ENGLISH ROCK AND ROLL. MORE POSTS APPEARED FOR WEEKS
ABOUT DAVID BOWIE, A WHITE ENGLISHMAN WHO STOLE FROM CHUCK BERRY.BOWIE WAS EVEN ACKNOWLEDGED A FEW WEEKS AGO, MONTHS AFTER HIS DEATH. AND YET, ONLY A FEW POSTS ABOUT BERRY. THE INTERNET INITIALLY, FOR THE TWO DAYS OF THIS PAST
WEEKEND, ERUPTED AS USUAL WITH POSTS. NONE OF THE POSTS COVERED HOW ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WHITE GUITARISTS STOLE FROM BERRY FOR DECADES. AND STEAL FROM BERRY THEY DID. WHICH IS WHY BERRY DIED MOST ASSUREDLY AN EXTREMELY BITTER MAN.
BECAUSE BERRY WAS VERY, VERY AWARE OF THE THEIVERY. AND THERIN LIES THE FUCKED UP AND TRAGIC TALE OF RACE MUSIC IN APARTHEID AMERICA AND BLACK FOLKS INVENTION OF ROCK AND ROLL. AND THE VERY REAL OMMISION OF THIS FACT IN AMERICAN HISTORY.
is the
It’s that simple. However, American historical revisionists have put Berry and
LITTLE RICHARD in the annals of history most comfortable for them: by keeping Berry and Richards in the category and
THE ORIGINATORS AND CREATORS OF ROCK AND ROLL IN AMERICA. not what they SHOULD be recognized for:
For over thirty years, I have had to deal with the
PROFOUND IGNORANCE OF SUPPOSED EDUCATED BLACK AND WHITE AMERICANS on the argument that black folks in Apartheid America invented EVERY motherfucking detail that evolved into modern day American rock and roll music. Ignorant black folks retort: THAT’S (ROCK MUSIC) WHITE BOYS MUSIC.NIGGERS AIN’T GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH ROCK MUSIC!!!” Ignorant racist and supremacist white folks in America: “NIGGGERS GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH ROCK AND ROLL.”
And of course the INFAMOUS remark made by the “true” King of Rock and Roll,
on black folks in America
“the only thing a nigger could ever do for me was shine my shoes”. and rock and roll:
DIRECT QUOTE. So, it is no wonder that Chuck Berry ( a cousin of my mother’s) HATED cats like
Keith Richards and Eric
Clapton. His famous rant for more decades than should have been:” These white rock and roll motherfuckers steal EVERYTHING from me!” Chuck would rant. Some folks heard his rant, and would back that up in articles and stories over the years in America and the world on how criminally Berry and black performers during
Apartheid America
are completely overlooked in the annals of American rock and roll history. In the last 20 years, the Internet has provide historical proof that white American and British rock and roll did indeed spring from black Americans. But it still took rants like the ones
Little Richard would
ALWAYS have at music award shows to point this out to Americans.
Richard would literally SCREAM at the top of his voice at these music award shows: “
I AM THE ORIGINATOR!�
Because the motherfucking truth to all this? Little Richard and Chuck Berry WERE the originators of rock and roll in Apartheid America. And yet, in 2017, that American music historical fact is STILL debated. Chuck Berry personified every aspect of Apartheid America and American black folks being completely omitted from rock and roll history.
Only NOW is Chuck Berry, Little Richards,
Bo Diddley,
and all the blues guitarists that white boys in England and America got high as a motherfucking church mouse and listened to and jammed to on the guitars they bought with their last pennies. These white boys would jam for hours and hours, listening to all the American blues music.
APARTHEID AMERICA (America before 1980), a period of time in which Even during
white folks would get beaten , socially castigated, or worse for even LISTENING to nigger music, white boys in America and England copied note for note, gesture for gesture, posture for posture, and stage presence for stage presence every aspect of cats like Chuck Berry and Little Richards.
Back in Apartheid America, this was called
RACE
MUSIC. Rock and Roll, with its interpretations by black guitarists in the early 20th century using blues guitar techniques but with bigger and more chord progressions and much faster playing, gave birth to modern American rock and roll. But it was the black guitarists like chuck Berry who put the showmanship into rock guitarists that are copied and stolen even in today’s 2017 music. Flamboyant costumes, risqué lyrics, and wild stage and physical performances of the guitarist himself ALWAYS put attention to the rock guitarist in any rock act or band in the last fifty years. And where did that originate from?
CHUCK MOTHERFUCKING BERRY. But let tell any white American rock music “historian” and “critique” have anything to say, write, or post about black folks and rock and roll, and hear tell a COMPLETELY different story. It was only in 1987, after 25 years of white and British rock guitarists becoming billionaires off of black musician’s styles of blues playing was accolades made to Chuck Berry and his ilk. It was, oddly enough, St. Louis, Missouri, my hometown, that produced the DVD
“HAIL, HAIL ROCK AND
ROLL” which was Keith Richard’s GUILTY AS A MOTHEFUCKER tribute to the man who made him and some of his fellow Englishmen rich beyond belief.
And for all that, Chuck Berry STILL hated Richards and
The
Rolling Stones until the day he died. And Chuck Berry’s protégée,
BILLY PEEK?
The white guitarist from St. Louis who made a public “FUCK
‘WHITE BOYS CAN PLAY THE BLUES?” YOU” to Chuck Berry with his hit:
Chuck was LIVID when just months after leaving the tutelage of Chuck Berry, Peek went on to not only get work with
ROD
STEWART, but to also become part of music history with Stewart’s classic “HOT LEGS” and the ‘”HOT LEGS TOUR” becoming one of the most successful rock tours of all times. Peek became a millionaire and famous. Chuck still played occasionally in St. Louis digs and stayed on
Berryland, his ranch/farm in Wentzville, Missouri. Still unnoticed, and underestimated by the world. That fact alone, that Peek would just go out and be handed millions of dollars in money and worldwide rock and music recognition, just made all the decades of white folks profiting off of something he alone invented that much more acidic and painful.
And rightly so. I stayed off the net all day Sunday because of all the motherfucking bullshit that would be posted about “Uncle Chuck” as we called him in my family (Berry was a cousin of my mother’s) who would always complain about white boys ripping him the fuck off. So, I hope that some of the posts I will be looking at today reflect how black musicians in America have been given the “FUCK YOU” from the American
Rock and Roll Diaspora for
decades. Maybe NOW, instead of being viewed by some (and practically ALL white St. Louisans back home today in 2017) as a sexual pervert (Chuck took an underage girl over state lines, did prison time, and was busted 25 years ago for putting cameras in his restaurants’ bathrooms) he can be looked upon for his SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND HISTORICAL relevance instead of being “the pissed off nigger from St. Louis who was also a pervert.” This whole omission of Berry’s contribution and creation of American Rock and Roll will continue until people of color like myself and other writers and students of American history set straight the bullshit of race music in Apartheid America (still seen at the
VMA Awards and the MTV Music Awards
in 2017) and how people like my cousin have been undervalued or not valued at all in the creation of American Rock and Roll. And how EVERYBODY, not just white males, can play and love rock and roll.
p
eace