It’s Gotta Be Rock and Roll Music: Bear Family Unveils Ultimate 16-CD Chuck Berry Box Set

This fall, Bear Family Records is releasing the ultimate tribute to perhaps the ultimate rock and roll artist. On October 17, the label will unveil Chuck Berry’s Rock and Roll Music – Any Old Way You Choose It – The Complete Studio Recordings Plus! –and its title isn’t the only mammoth thing about it. The 16-CD box set is even lavish by Bear Family’s gold standard, containing within its 28 x 28 x 6 cm clothbound box every single and LP track recorded in the studio by Chuck Berry, starting with a rare pre-Chess single with Joe Alexander from 1954 and continuing with:

• All of Berry’s Chess singles and album cuts from 1955 to 1966 and from 1969 to 1974;
• All of his Mercury recordings from 1966-1969, and lone Atco album from 1979;
• Every surviving alternate take;
• Bonus live recordings from 1956 to 1972 including BBC performances;
• Two hardcover books totaling 356 pages and including an exclusive introduction by Sir Paul McCartney!

All of Berry’s classics, needless to say, are here – some in multiple versions – on this set containing over 21 hours of music and 20 full studio albums. When assessing the single-disc anthology The Great Twenty-Eight back in 2011, I wrote, “’Maybellene,’ ‘Roll Over Beethoven,’ ‘Rock and Roll Music,’ ‘Sweet Little Sixteen,’ ‘Johnny B. Goode,’ ‘No Particular Place to Go.’ If you ever have to explain rock and roll to an alien, you might as well hand the little green man a copy of The Great Twenty-Eight and go to town. The otherworldly creature would get it right away!” Indeed, Berry played an almost incalculable role in developing rock-and-roll, from its sound to its lyrical content to its style. Ironically, his sole No. 1 hit was “My Ding-a-Ling” – a double entendre-laden Dave Bartholomew novelty that’s hardly worthy of his legend.

This massive box goes even further than Hip-o Select’s acclaimed three-volume series which presented Berry’s complete Chess recordings by continuing the Kennedy Center Honoree and first class Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s story with his Mercury and Atco recordings. 1979’s Rock It, for Atco, remains Berry’s last studio album to date, but the 87-years young rocker still performs one Wednesday each month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bar in St. Louis, Missouri.

Bear Family’s Rock and Roll Music tells the Chuck Berry story in words and music. The label explains, “Expatriate British photographer Bill Greensmith lives in St. Louis and a few years back he found the photo archive of Chuck Berry’s uncle, Harry Davis. Included are many previously unseen images of Chuck performing in St. Louis and hanging out with friends and family. In these images, Chuck is unguarded and relaxed. We also see him performing at blues nightspots in and around St. Louis before he was famous. These photos, included with this set in a high quality 104-page hardbound book, will open your eyes to Chuck Berry as you’ve never seen him.” The Bear team adds, “Plus, there’s a second 252-page hardbound book with a definitive essay from Chuck’s biographer, Bruce Pegg, additional texts by Mike Snow and Roger Fairhurst, a comprehensive discography by Fred Rothwell, [and] hundreds of published and unpublished photos, including several images made by respected French photographer Jean-Marie Perrier in 1964.”

We have more details, including the full track listing, after the jump!