Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll

Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll

1987. USA. Directed by Taylor Hackford. With Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, Bo Diddley, Etta James, John Lennon. “I’ve stolen every lick he ever played,” Keith Richards said upon inducting Chuck Berry as one of the first musicians in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. Richards served as musical director for Chuck Berry’s exhilarating 60th birthday concert in Hackford’s documentary film, the portrait of a tough son-of-a-bitch who also happens to have changed the course of music forever. “When I went with Hackford to see Chuck at his home in Wentzville, just outside Saint Louis,” Richards recalls in his memoir Life, “I waited until the second day to slide the question. They’re all talking about lighting, and I just said to Chuck, I don’t know if this is a good question because I don’t know your relationship, but is Johnnie Johnson [Berry’s original piano player and the cowriter of many Chuck Berry hits] still about?....[Could] you two play together? Yeah, he said. Shit, yeah. A tense moment. Suddenly I’ve put Johnnie Johnson back together with Chuck Berry. The possibilities are endless. Chuck rolled right in there and it was a good decision, because he got a great movie out of it and a great band….the best Chuck Berry live you’re every going to get.” Courtesy NBC Universal Distribution. 120 min.