JESSE S writes ...
Chuck Berry had this to say about Elvis.
“ Describe Elvis Presley? He was the greatest who ever was, is or ever will be.”
“Blacks didn’t have the air-waves that Elvis had. He delivered what he had beautifully.”
SD writes ..
There was a rumoured rift between them and Chuck did have a few issues with Elvis’ career in comparison. That's where the rumor began. Chuck didn't like how hard Elvis was promoted with massive radio play and tv spots. However that being said Chuck never blamed Elvis for that. It was a time when Rock n Roll was still new and there wasn't a huge amount of radio stations that would play that Devil music. But worse than that even fewer would play music by black artists. The ones that did usually either played all black artists or would play them once or twice a day usually late so they couldn't corrupt all the innocent white women. Fun fact - The Beatles long before they even formed the band were all huge fans of Little Richard and Chuck Berry from Radio Hamburg and neither were really being played played at home. Anyway Chuck recognized the fact that Rock n Roll was on the cusp of exploding in the U.S. all it needed to happen was for someones to light that flame and who better than a church going mamas boy from Tupelo Mississippi that that could not only rock with the best of them but was white and could be played on every station in the country anytime of day. Which kicked open the doors for the rest of them. They couldn't hold it back any longer. Many artists are still to this day angry at Elvis for never publicly giving credit to the black artists he “copied” his style from. But people like Chuck got it. Those people didn't grow up back then he knew how racist things were and even Elvis could have been yanked off the radio for praising black musicians to much. He wasn't the force of nature he became yet either and the door would have shut on all of them again. But I did find a Chuck quote
"I identified a lot with Elvis, yeah. I love his style of singing, he was a very loyal guy - he was a little misled, but in the big picture he was a good guy." "Elvis Presley is like the 'Big Bang' of Rock 'n' Roll. Anyway sorry I rambled on bouncing all over the place. I'm kind of a music nut
