PRIVATE CHUCK BERRY STILL CALLING TUNES AT 60

Chuck Berry looked thankful for the break during rehearsal at the old, ornate Fox Theatre. It was four nights before his 60th birthday and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member was tired.

He had been going through grueling 12-hour-a-day practice sessions all week in preparation for two concerts at the Fox--concerts that were being filmed by director Taylor Hackford for a documentary due in theaters next summer. Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards was heading an all-star backing band.

As the rehearsal dragged out this night, the breaks became increasingly frequent. Berry’s voice was so hoarse that he was reduced to whispering some of the songs.

But Johnny Johnson, Berry’s original piano player, remained on stage through it all. Johnson, who played on such classic Berry hits as “Roll Over Beethoven,” is two years older than Berry, but he was too excited to be back amid the glamour of big-time rock ‘n’ roll to feel the fatigue.

Waiting for Berry’s return, Johnson began fiddling with the opening notes of “Wee Wee Hours,” a blues tune that was one side of Berry’s first record. Eric Clapton, one of the musicians on hand to salute Berry in the film, picked up the cue and began singing it in a soulful blues style.

“You know . . . I always thought that was going to be the hit song for Chuck because it was a blues thing, which was real popular with black people at the time, but it was the other side of the record that caught on,” Johnson said later.

The “other” side of the 1955 record was “Maybellene,” a novelty that was geared to the white teen-age rock audience. It was a reworking of an old country tune, “Ida Red,” that Berry frequently played around St. Louis in the mid-’50s while a member of the Johnny Johnson Trio.

If Johnson guessed wrong on which song would be the hit, he was definitely on the mark in predicting that his pal would become a star. In fact, Berry was such a draw with the trio that the group’s name was eventually changed to the Chuck Berry Trio.

Johnson added: “Chuck came to me one day and said, ‘Johnny, what do you think about changing the name to the Chuck Berry Trio?’ I said, ‘Hey, you got it because you are a go-getter and I think we will go much further with you out front.’ Yes sir, Chuck was a real go-getter.”

Berry may rival Elvis Presley as the most influential of the ‘50s rock pioneers, but he’s also a thrifty businessman whose eye for the buck has caused his shows in recent years to be woefully uneven--occasional moments of inspiration offset by some nights when he seems to simply be going through the motions. Instead of carrying a well-rehearsed band with him, Berry has tended to use whatever musicians the local concert promoters hire for him.

But these Fox shows were to be different. He hadn’t worked this hard in years. One reason Richards agreed to be involved was to “repay some dues,” but he also said he wanted “Berry to have a good band.”

Because Richards’ vision of how he wanted Berry to sound clashed at times with Berry’s thinking, there were tense moments during rehearsals.

The two men tried their best to be cordial. They would frequently embrace or clasp hands during the Fox rehearsal, but they also kept their distance. Richards’ expression at times said unmistakably: I wouldn’t go through this for anybody else.

Charles Edward Anderson Berry ranks with Bob Dylan as arguably one of the two most influential songwriters in rock history--and he has been even more private offstage than Dylan.

Berry has been described as moody and evasive in his brief encounters with the press, usually insisting that he will tell all in an autobiography which he has been working on for years.

The outline of his career is clear: He was born in San Jose, but his father, a carpenter, moved the family to a middle-class black neighborhood in St. Louis when his son was 6. Berry sang in the church choir and began playing guitar and piano in his teens. But his career was slow in progressing. Berry was 27 by the time he joined Johnny Johnson on stage at the Cosmopolitan Club in East St. Louis. Things began moving quickly after that.

“Maybellene” was a smash in 1956--the first of Berry’s nine Top 40 singles over the next three years. Berry’s special gift, aside from his inviting guitar style, was that he was a marvelous songwriter who virtually defined the youthful themes of rock ‘n’ roll.

Though he’s had only had one Top 10 record (“My Ding-A-Ling”) in the last 20 years, he has constantly toured, appearing on both oldies packages and in clubs.

But there are also several dark moments in his past: reform school, a prison term in 1961 for violating the Mann Act (transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes) and further time in jail in 1979 after pleading guilty to evading payment of nearly $110,000 in federal income taxes.

Some suggest that his reluctance to talk about himself is due to shyness. Others say it’s a bitterness and suspicion that lingers from the early days in the business when he was victimized by greedy promoters and harassed by white law enforcement agencies who resented a black man becoming a hero to young whites.

Even in a week when he was being saluted by the film project, he kept to himself. While Clapton and others spoke of their respect for Berry, the star kept his distance. He left it to others to speak for him: people like Johnson or Berry’s daughter Ingrid, or the folks in Wentzville who are Berry’s neighbors. They were all willing to talk, but, it turned out, even they didn’t know a lot about Berry.

Wentzville is a sleepy little town of 3,200 about 35 miles west of here. Its only importance in Berry’s story is that it’s the closest community to Berry Park, a spacious, country club-like setting that has been Berry’s refuge from the controversy and turmoil of the outside world since the late ‘50s.

Berry tried to operate the park as a sort of social club, complete with dances, for a while in the ‘70s, but it is just his home now. The park is on a quiet country road about three miles from the heart of Wentzville.

On the morning of the Fox Theatre concert, there was a “Happy Birthday, Chuck” banner tied to the barbed wire fence across the road from Berry Park.

A marble marker at the entrance to the spacious grounds says, “Welcome to Berry Park . . . Founded Aug. 15, 1957 By the Family for the People.” But a sign on a nearby fence carried a different message, “No trespassing.”

Through the wire fence, you could see a large two-story main house and several smaller buildings, a lake with ducks in the front yard, some tractors around the side, a satellite dish and three cars parked in the driveway.

In town, people say they often see Berry, especially at the Crossroads Cafeteria. Owner Steve Viggers, 31, said Berry was having some coffee with a secretary there the afternoon before the Fox concert.

“He often comes in, but usually keeps to himself,” Viggers added. “He doesn’t draw attention to himself. No big fuss or anything. But he did leave a $10 tip once.”

A cook in his mid-20s who lives a quarter-mile from Berry Park says he often sees Berry and described him as a “pretty nice guy.” Patrick Card, who works at the Golden Corral Restaurant in Wentzville, added, “I was talking to him just the other day. He bought that house down the road and he was out cutting the grass. He owns three more houses at the top of the road.

“I think people around here are proud of him. I know I’ll be in town and I’ll say I stay out by Chuck Berry’s house and people go, ‘Wow, do you really stay out there?’ But he keeps to himself. Even some people who live (in the area) don’t know exactly where he lives.”

Lots of small towns are so excited about being associated with a celebrity that they erect a “Home of . . . “ sign on the highway. Yet there is no road sign that tells a visitor that Wentzville is the home of Chuck Berry. There has never been a “Chuck Berry Day” in town and there is no mention of him in the Chamber of Commerce brochure.

“I don’t think (his living here) really means anything to the people here,” said a woman who works at the local newspaper. “He keeps very low key. He’s been asked to perform at different things, but for one reason or another, he has declined.”

Mike Roscoe, 43, has been city coordinator for six years, “I’m kind of an outsider and if I can be very frank, there is an element in town that probably doesn’t like Chuck Berry.” Roscoe pointed to Berry’s problems with the Internal Revenue Service and the law.

“But I think, by and large, this town is endeared to him. . . . I think the people in town know Chuck pretty well. His get-togethers out on the farm are legendary. He is a star of international magnitude and everyone realizes that.”

Asked why there is no sign or other token of recognition, Roscoe said, “I don’t know. . . . We have been (concerned) with the General Motors plant the last six years and we hadn’t thought about it. It’d be up to the city council or mayor to decide (to honor him). . . . Never heard any talk of it.”

Johnny Johnson still remembers the night a member of his original trio got sick and he needed a replacement for a show.

“The contract called for a three-piece group and I thought immediately of Chuck,” Johnson said, waiting for the film crew to get ready during the Fox rehearsal. “We had met at a club and exchanged phone numbers. I called him and he came right over.”

Johnson is a beefy man with a gentle disposition and a deep-rooted respect for Berry and his accomplishments. Johnson was a fine boogie and blues keyboardist, but Berry brought a commercial dynamic to the group. He also brought a burning ambition to the group.

“First thing I knew, he made a tape of ‘Ida Red,’ this old country song he used to do in the show, and he was off to Chicago trying to get a record contract. He got turned down a lot of times, but finally Leonard Chess, of Chess Records, said he’d record the song, which Chuck had given some new lyrics.

“But Chess wanted a new title for the song so that disc jockeys wouldn’t confuse it with the country song. There was this mascara tube over in the corner and Chess said, ‘That name (Maybelline) would be as good as any.”

Johnson toured with Berry for four years, but he was afraid of flying and finally decided to stay home. However, Berry would call Johnson for recording sessions and he sometimes speaks of the two working together again permanently, Johnson said.

But he has no regrets about the past.

“No use in lying,” Johnson said. “I was young and I never thought of making music a career. I just thought of playing locally. I was working in the steel foundry at the time. But Chuck didn’t want music to just be a side deal. He wanted it to be a career. I think he’s a genius. He’s into so many things . . . photography, a mechanic, an architect. If he had to stop playing music, he wouldn’t have suffered financially. He would have found something else.”

After the two Fox concerts, Berry agreed to come out briefly and meet the press at a cake-cutting ceremony in the theater lobby. But his heart wasn’t in it. It was 3 a.m. and he seemed to be thinking only of getting back to Berry Park.

As Berry began cutting the birthday cake, his daughter Ingrid stood behind the TV cameras. Ingrid, 36, sang a couple of songs in the show with her father, and the pride she feels for him was obvious in her eyes.

“He’s a dear man inside, through he doesn’t often let (outsiders) see it,” she said. “He’s very private, but very generous and I can tell he is touched by what is happening to him now even if he won’t say it himself.”

What about the future? Does she ever see Chuck Berry retiring?

“I don’t think any artist ever (willingly) retires,” she said. “They’ll take a few days . . . or weeks off, but sooner or later, they’ll want to come back. Being on stage is like an addiction. I can’t picture my father ever not making music.”