CBJBG Long distance information

Credit: picture courtesy of the www.BlueberryHill.com website

When Chuck Berry sang…

"Long distance information
Give me Memphis, Tennessee"

…he had probably dialed 4-1-1 for that service. The United States, being not very united—c'mon, it's the place where unless there is a majority of the majority a few crackpot right hand threaded wingnuts can shut down the government over legislation that is unstoppable whatever they do—the exact details are more complex, as Wikipedia will explain in both cases. In the UK 'long distance information' was known as 'directory enquiries'—formerly free calls to 192 (domestic numbers) or 153 (foreign) were switched off on 24 Aug. 2003 following the introduction of competition to directory enquiries. Presumably it is now known as something like the 'pay up and we'll tell you the number (PUWTYN)' service. However, what in the USA is called DDD (direct distance dialing) was innocently christened in the UK as STD (subscriber trunk dialing), an acronym that was wrong-footed by later events.

I mention these matters because I have received three long distance invitations in the last ten days. The first was for coffee at a location in a neighboring state: twice I declined the grounds on the grounds that it would have been a grind to drive the 700 miles round trip by road, although the proffered companionship, exotic location, and brewing expertise were all tempting. The second invitation was a 2,170 miles round trip by air to see my in-laws: stop the jokes before you start; they are lovely people, but I declined the vacational temptation on vocational grounds because I am a full time dog sitter. The third invitation required a 5,650 miles round trip flight to a tropical country during the rainy season AND before the hurricane season ends: seeing my daughter for the first time in 12 years was another temptation, but some things are just not meant to be.

I do not know how far Charles Edward Anderson 'Chuck' Berry (b. 18 Oct.1926) was from Memphis when he made that 4-1-1 call, but in mid 1959 when the track was released—the B side of 'Back in the USA' on the Chess label—he was touring from his Bandstand Club base in St. Louis, Missouri, a mere 283 miles cock stride from Memphis, Tennessee.

In December of that same year Berry was on the road in his new, red Cadillac, and made a bad decision at the end of a late gig to drive 316 miles through the night from El Paso, Texas, to Tucson, Arizona. Sometime after 9:00am the following morning, he booked into Room 257 of the Sands Hotel in the company of Janice Norine Escalanti, a 14 years old Apache waitress who had twice been arrested in El Paso, TX, for vagrancy and prostitution. Berry and his companions had met her the day before for a tour of Juarez, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande bridge and border. Right there is another thing about travel: it may broaden your mind, but it also skews your perception and judgement.

The details of the circumstances that led to Berry's later travails and incarceration are from the book 'Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry' by Bruce Pegg. A less detailed summary is available from the Chuck Berry entry on Wikipedia. Recommended listening is a four CD set covering Berry's first stint at Chess Records: 'Chuck Berry-Johnny B. Goode-His Complete '50s Chess Recordings', which includes 'Memphis, Tennessee'.

It is a timeless track, by which I mean it transcends the styles of the times in which it was written, so much so that I can't imagine anybody who had never heard it being able to put a date on it. To my ear, notwithstanding the location clues, it might have been recorded somewhere in the Caribbean earlier this year by the next big thing in the popular music world and I champion it as one of the greatest popular music songs ever written and played. 'Johnny B. Goode' is on the copper records aboard the Voyager Space Probes, launched into outer space in 1977. I think 'Memphis Tennessee' would have been a better choice.

Credit: Bill Griffiths / Smithsonian

Visit the STL Public Radio website in St. Louis, Missouri, for a story about Chuck Berry's candy-apple red 1973 Cadillac Eldorado on its way to the Smithsonian Museum for an exhibition due to open in 2015 at the NMAAHC (National Museum of African American History and Culture) in Washington, DC. Visit the New York Times for an entertaining profile of Berry from 2003, which includes a collection of facts and anecdotes.

 

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