(Credits: Far Out / Tidal)
Mon 13 October 2025 21:30, UK
Chuck Berry, AKA the ‘Father of Rock and Roll’, spent his life refining and developing rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll what it is, and for that he needs to introduction.
His path toward eventual greatness has long been studied. To name a tiny portion, Berry was influenced by Carl Hogan’s guitar riffs, Nat King Cole’s smooth vocals, Hank Williams’ country east and Louis Jordan’s guitar licks. You might already know all this, hence, might we focus our microscope elsewhere to unlock what were his all-time favourite songs?
In 1973, he picked not one, but two, songs he couldn’t get enough of, and his first choice has a fascinating history trailing it. It wasn’t The Everly Brothers’ first hit, but ‘Wake Up Little Susie’ was their very first chart-topping number one, achieving that title on October 14th, 1957. However, before the gold medal accolade came ‘Bye Bye Love’, peaking at number two on the charts in the summer of ’57.
The sweet doo-wop jangle of the track stirred a healthy amount of controversy, with lyrics that kick off with the refrain, “Wake up, little Susie, wake up” before going onto the first verse, “We’ve both been sound asleep, wake up, little Susie, and weep / The movie’s over, it’s four o’clock, and we’re in trouble deep”.
While seeingly harmless in the liberating light of 2025, all those years ago, the lyrics rang alarm bells in conservatives by hinting at teenage promiscuity. The happy-go-lucky song, which was even banned in Boston at one point, for the most part, innocently depicts two teenagers who have fallen asleep at the movies and have woken at four in the morning, afraid of what their friends and family might assume.
It might be a risky choice but Berry revealed that he knew all of this lore in the explanation of why the song is one of his all-time favourites, sharing, “That song has terrific lyrics, I used to ponder on it for hours, it was a wonderfully put together song”, and he’s not wrong.
His next pick wasn’t just a favourite, but it also acted as a key influence on Berry’s sound, or he at least wanted to emulate some of the greatness he found in the track, but admitted it was an uphill battle. Highlighting Marty Robbins’ ‘El Paso’ as another one of his favourites, he shared in 1973, “I’ve been trying to work something out on that song, it has such a beautiful storyline, and that Mexican influence in the music. I love it.”
Robbins’ 1959 single tells a dizzying tale of a singer falling in love with a Mexican girl, but in a fit of jealous rage, he is led to murdering a guy and escaping on horseback. However, his love compels him to return to the scene of the crime, and therein he meets his end. With a tale so compelling told in mere minutes, it’s easy to see why it netted the first Grammy ever awarded for ‘Best Country and Western Performance’ and was one of Berry’s all-time faves.
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