He started it. All of it.

RIP Chuck Berry, arguably the most important figure in popular music and by extension, popular culture. He more than anyone else invented the sound of rock and its vocabulary. It’s easy to assume that his songs were as old as the hills and had always been there. But no, he actually sat down and wrote them. There was a huge rock n roll revival in the 70s and that’s when I bought Motorvatin’ – a compilation of his greatest songs. It was instantly apparent that this is where everything I had heard before had come from. Track 2 on Side One was this. And – here’s a measure of his influence – I immediately thought “I must find out more about this Beethoven”.