St. Louis to Liverpool CD

In 2004, rock ‘n’ roll celebrates its 50th anniversary (the 1954 release of Bill Haley & His Comets’ Rock Around The Clock). The year also marks the 40th anniversary of St. Louis To Liverpool, one of the greatest albums from the true Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Chuck Berry. Now a special edition, St. Louis To Liverpool (Geffen/Chess/UMe), released March 23, 2004, has been digitally remastered from the original stereo and monaural masters and expanded with three rare bonus tracks.

Along with such enduring hits as “You Never Can Tell,” “No Particular Place To Go,” “Promised Land” and “Little Marie,” St. Louis To Liverpool adds the contemporaneous recordings of the country-tinged “Fraulein” (previously unreleased in the U.S.); the instrumental “O’Rangutang” (the previously-unreleased-on-any-U.S.-album b-side of “Nadine (Is It You)”) and “The Little Girl From Central” (a vault discovery which debuted on the 1990 Chess collection Missing Berries: Rarities, Volume 3).

What is astonishing about St. Louis To Liverpool beyond the songs themselves is that it was truly a comeback album. St. Louis native Berry had already laid down a series of major hits in the ‘50s and already secured himself a place in rock history. While on an involuntary sabbatical (20 months in prison) in the early ‘60s, The Beatles, Rolling Stones and other emerging British bands appropriated his trademark guitar style and recorded reverent cover versions. In Southern California, The Beach Boys based “surf music” on his archetypal guitar riffs. By the time he was released in late 1963, fans were once more ready for the rock ‘n’ roll original.