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AFTER SCHOOL SESSION WITH CHUCK BERRY
(Chess/Universal)
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This reissue of Berry’s debut album remains a defining rock-and-roll masterpiece. The songwriting is outstanding, as "Too Much Monkey Business," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," and "School Day (Ring Ring Goes the Bell)" balance wit, teen angst, lust, and racial pride with previously unheard skill. The band, led by Berry’s own guitar but including Chess studio veterans Otis Spann and Willie Dixon and Berry piano discovery Johnnie Johnson, is tight and right, carrying his lyrics with blues-based economy. And the instrumental tracks, like the slow sensitive "Deep Feeling," expand the disc’s emotional range. Fleshed out here with the addition of the classic singles "You Can’t Catch Me," "Thirty Days (To Come Back Home)," and the great "Maybellene," this 1956 disc blended new Berry material and already released hits into a decree of what popular music was to become. After School Session was a fundamental cornerstone for the giants of ’60s rock, including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Many contemporary garage-rock outfits would benefit from studying Berry’s performances, since he was a master of creating both melody and drive with his spare vocal range and basic guitar skills. In fact, everybody needs this CD.
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