Ben Greenman on Chuck Berry

"In 2007, Hip-O released a four-CD set of Berry’s complete Chess recordings from the fifties. The sequel, 'You Never Can Tell: His Complete Chess Recordings 1960-66,' is available now, and it’s at once more uneven and more fascinating than its predecessor. The reasons are as biographical as they are artistic: in the late fifties, Berry transported (by car, of course) a young woman from Texas to Missouri and was subsequently convicted of violating the Mann Act. The original sentence was five years and a five-thousand-dollar fine; upon appeal, Berry went away from February, 1962, until October, 1963. The prison sentence sidetracked one of the most successful careers in rock and roll, but it also served to cook it until it was hot. While Berry was away, new acts like the Beatles and the Beach Boys recorded his songs so often and with such enthusiasm that his audience grew, even as he sat still. And he wasn’t exactly sitting still: he was reading up on business and law and also writing songs. … Berry … tears through 'Dear Dad,' one of his shortest, finest car songs. Elsewhere on the set, there are pleasurable oddities … and buried-treasure originals ('You Two,' 'Trick or Treat')" ("Pop Notes," New Yorker, 3/16/09).