Excerpts from the book, BROWN EYED HANDSOME MAN: THE LIFE AND HARD TIMES OF CHUCK BERRY -- The Beautiful Chris Isaak

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Date Posted: 02:04:27 11/19/02 Tue
Author: Zena
Subject: Excerpts from the book, BROWN EYED HANDSOME MAN: THE LIFE AND HARD TIMES OF CHUCK BERRY

By Bruce Pegg

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards was just trying to be friendly when he bumped into his idol, Check Berry, backstage after a concert. "Hey Chuck, don't rush off without saying hullo," he said.

Berry's response wasn't so friendly-without warning, he punched Richards full in the face. "I"m very proud of the fact I didn't go down. He's the only guy that hit me that I never got back," Richards said later.

The rivalry between the two guitarists began after they first met in 1964 and simmered in 1972 when Berry kicked Richards off the stage at a Hollywood concert because he played too loudly.

Then in 1983, Berry and the Rolling Stone crossed paths at Los Angeles airport. And Berry's reaction to encountering Richards again was to light a match and throw it down his shirt! "Everytime he and me got in contact I end up getting wounded," Richards said.

But incredibly, the Stone remained such a devoted fan of Berry that he later inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Richards wasn't the only Rolling Stone to get the Berry "treatment."

During a tour in England in 1964, the starstruck group sent messages to Berry, asking to meet him. At first he refused. Then when he finally allowed them into his dressing room, the Stones found him cooking his dinner on a portable stove and behaving "weird, uncomminicative."

Later Mick Jagger and band member Charlie Watts were in a hotel elevator when the door opened-and there stood Chuck Berry.

They gave him a friendly "hello"-but Berry simply truned his back on them and when the elevator stopped, walked out without a word.

Berry was insecure and naturally suspicious of anyone he didn't know. And his life has been marked by trouble.

He formed his first band while he was serving a 10-year sentence for armed robbery in Jefferson City, Mo., and he went to jail agoin at the hight of his fmae for a violation of the rarely enforced Mann Act (transporting a woman across state lines for "immoral purposes").

He also served time in 1976 for tax evasion-going behind bars just three days after singing for President Carter at the White House.

Early in his career he found himself threatened with a large knife-after reacting angrily to an insult from rocker Jerry Lee Lewis.

They were on tour together in Columbus, Ohio when they got into an argument. Lewis called Berry the n-word, and Chuck stood up to defend himself, yelling, 'Don't you call me that.'

As the two stars faced each other, Jerry lee's father jumped in-lunging at Berry with a large knife. A bystander had to tear the two of them apart to save him.

One of the married Berry's numerous lovers was Texas millionairess Candace Mossler, 12 years his senior, who claimed that she and Chuck wrote his hit, "Memphis Tennessee."

Their affair was rudely interrupted in 1964 when the vivacious blonde was charged, along with here nephew, with the murder of her husband.

The were eventually acquitted in a sensational trial, and Candy's romance with Berry lasted until she died in 1976.

When Keith Richard visited Berry's home for the first time in 1986, he was surprised to find that Berry's living room contained, according to Richards, "two video screens. One played whatever he selected, the other ran constant footage of naked white girls throwing pies at each other and falling over!"

To this day, Chuck Berry has millions of fans around the world-but singer Linda Ronstadt is likely not one of them.

She agreed to appear at Chuck's 60th birthday tribute concert in St. Louis, along with rock legend Eric Clapton and John Lennon's son Julian.

Linda came out to sing her huge hit, "Back in the U.S.A.," accompanied by Berry.

They had rehearsed the number in the key of C -- but instead of C, Chuck played it in G.

The show was filmed, and one soundman said, "Linda Ronstadt's such a pro, you really don't hear her strain or muff it.

"But she was so pissed off that when she walked off that stage she went right through the Green Room, right out of the stage door, climed in her limo -- and never came back for the second show. @

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