September 2, 2017

Chuck Berry on Belgian television in 1965.

I enjoyed watching this:



Then YouTube fed me this: Chuck Berry (and Little Richard) at the Bill Clinton inauguration (in 1993). Shots of Clinton and Gore in the audience are hilarious:

22 comments:

Fernandinande said...

"Objective proof[sic] that modern pop music has degenerated, and the reason why it happened"
Scroll down a bit for video.

tcrosse said...

How did those Belgians manage to keep their feet still ? Too many waffles ?

Ann Althouse said...

Yes, the difference between the 2 audiences is great. The Belgian ladies keep their ankles crossed and their hands in their lap.

Darrell said...


How did those Belgians manage to keep their feet still ?

Manners and etiquette? You listen intently, then applaud at the end. You are not the performer.

Ralph L said...

Nothing says rock and roll like tuxedos and perfect teeth.

Ralph L said...

I like the way the MC ran off the stage. Why can't they all?

Ann Althouse said...

The MC was Jack Lemmon.

Narayanan said...

Chuck Berry ever do a full split in his bell bots.?

Ann Althouse said...

I mean the mc in the second video.

Now, I'm remembering the mc in the first video. That was not Jack Lemmon, and, yeah, he did scurry -- hilariously, Belgianly.

tcrosse said...

Yes, the difference between the 2 audiences is great. The Belgian ladies keep their ankles crossed and their hands in their lap.

Those Flemish are so phlegmatic.

Now I Know! said...
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Now I Know! said...

It was nice when we had a president who could laugh and give the appearance of having a good time. It was nice also to have a President who could lead in common celebration without constantly engaging in critical recriminations towards others. Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama were all good in these ways.

Donald Trump is just ugly and weird.

tim in vermont said...

One of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, bar none, If you ask me.

cf said...

I loved that first one, althouse, berry in belgium, thank you for the romp!
The piano player was right in there with mr. Man, master Chuck, so fun,
and say, i defend the audience, saw later the girls and guys whoopin it to the extent they could while staying in their seats. I will bet they were exploding in their own way.

On the second one, meh. I look at them this particular day and think: These are the guys that burned white children alive because their parents had the wrong beliefs about our government.

I am awful glad they aren't prowling around again in our whitehouse.

David said...

For a moment, I thought that Chuck had died again.

Kassaar said...

The difference between those audiences is 28 years. And they aren’t Flemish, they are Walloons and Bruxellois.

Kassaar said...

By 1965, rock ’n’ roll and “beat” were immensely popular in Scandinavia and the Netherlands. A little less so in Flanders and Germany, much less in Wallonia and France, almost unheard of in Spain. The divide between Germanic and Romance languages plays an important role here. The French didn’t speak a word of English, the North Europeans were quite fluent.
Contacts between Flemings and Walloons were, and still are, sparse. Belgium is not really a country. The two language groups had their own TV stations, BRT and RTB.

Earnest Prole said...

Al and Bill are like Steve Martin getting the rhythm in The Jerk.

maherlaw said...
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maherlaw said...

Caught a glimpse of Steven Still at the end of the Clinton inauguration concert. Who was that on harmonica?

Scott said...

I rode my bicycle through Luxembourg, Belgium, and Holland in 1976. On part of the Belgian leg, I met up with a couple of Belgians and one Dutch guy at a youth hostel and rode with them. It seems to me that the Belgians are absolutely the most culturally conservative people on the planet. They probably invented dull. I would love to go back and see if they are still that way.

The sound is great. The microphone Chuck sings into looks like a Neumann U87. That single microphone recorded the entire session, I'm guessing.

David said...

Somebody earlier wrote, "Those Flemish are so phlegmatic." They were not Flemish. They were Walloons, French-speaking Belgians. The Flemish speak Dutch.