(Credits: Far Out / Peter Tosh / Alamy / Public Domain)
Fri 9 January 2026 0:00, UK
There’s a reason NASA sent Chuck Berry’s ‘Johnny B Goode’ beyond the solar system on their Voyager space mission in 1977.
While rock and roll was in full bloom by 1958, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis were already the poster boys of the new pop explosion. Berry’s immortal snapshot of the poor, illiterate country boy from Louisiana chasing his musical dream proved an indelible template for scores of disparate future artists eager to bask in its beguiling R&B energy.
Written as early as 1955 and lyrically half-autobiographical, ‘Johnny B Goode’ beckons any budding musician, no matter what the background, to pick up the guitar and go for gold. It’s easy to see how such a song can take a powerful hold on the kids eagerly lapping up its rock and roll swagger, the entirety of the future stars of rock and pop likely forging a unique relationship with Berry’s burning surge of joyous call to arms.
With it now 70 years since its first recording in January 1958, we sift through the voluminous litany of ‘Johnny B Goode’ covers and select five takes that illustrate both the undying love the rock and roll gem commands, as well as the vibrant X-factor that still gifts Berry’s number its undimmed energy.
The five greatest covers of ‘Johnny B Goode’:
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