CHUCK BERRY : REELIN' AND ROCKIN' - THE VERY BEST OF CHUCK BERRY

 

Disc One (74:28)

  1. Guitar Boogie
  2. Johnny B Goode
  3. Bye Bye Johnny
  4. Go Go Go
  5. Bio
  6. Maybellene
  7. You Can't Catch Me
  8. Beautiful Delilah
  9. School Day
  10. I'm Talkin' Bout You
  11. I Got To Find My Baby
  12. Memphis Tennessee
  13. No Money Down
  14. Jaguar And Thunderbird
  15. Down The Road Apiece
  16. Run Rudolph Run
  17. I Want To Be Your Driver
  18. Promised Land
  19. Back In The USA
  20. Thirty Days
  21. Havana Moon
  22. Rock And Roll Music
  23. Too Pooped To Pop
  24. Come On
  25. Viva Viva Rock And Roll
  26. I'm A Rocker
  27. Back To Memphis
  28. Check Me Out
  29. Deep Feelin'

Disc Two (79:06)

  1. Liverpool Drive
  2. Roll Over Beethoven
  3. Let It Rock
  4. Sweet Little Sixteen
  5. Nadine
  6. It Wasn't Me
  7. Confessin' The Blues
  8. Too Much Monkey Business
  9. Around And Around
  10. Almost Grown
  11. Brown Eyed Handsome Man
  12. You Never Can Tell
  13. Wee Wee Hours
  14. Little Marie
  15. Little Queenie
  16. Carol
  17. Oh Baby Doll
  18. Jo Jo Gunne
  19. No Particular Place To Go
  20. Dear Dad
  21. Sweet Little Rock 'n' Roller
  22. Ramona Say Yes
  23. Tulane
  24. Festival
  25. Flying Home
  26. Reelin' And Rockin'
  27. My Ding A Ling

Label : Chess

Released : 2006

Review (AllMusic) : This European compilation is the longest double-CD set collection of the highlights of Chuck Berry's recording career yet released, containing 56 tracks in more than two-and-half-hours of music, which makes it more extensive than its American counterpart, the 50-track 2000 release The Anthology (reissued in 2005 under the title Gold). There isn't a great deal of disagreement about what constitutes Berry's best - the two albums share 43 of the same recordings, with only seven tracks appearing on The Anthology that are not on Reelin' and Rockin', while 13 of those on the European release are not on the U.S. one, and the disagreements are over relatively minor songs. One major reason that American consumers might prefer The Anthology or Gold over Reelin' and Rockin' is price; Gold is discount-priced, while Reelin' and Rockin' is a pricey import. Another reason, however, concerns sequencing. The American release is chronologically sequenced, which is a good way to present Berry's music, not only to show his musical development, but also because recording technology changes over the period of his recording career. In contrast, compiler Peter Doggett writes of Reelin' and Rockin' in his liner notes, "Unlike previous anthologies, it's been sequenced for listening pleasure rather than as a chronological history lesson." One may ponder what on earth that's supposed to mean, but it may be that Doggett was concerned, especially because his collection contained a lot of minor material, that there might be a sense of declining quality as the set went on if he sequenced it chronologically, as Berry began to repeat himself on later records. In fact, a subjectively chosen sequence does nothing to obviate such a problem; it just mixes up the great stuff with the merely good. And, contrary to "listening pleasure," it also creates an album in which mono and stereo tracks are interspersed oddly. Strangely enough, after making a point of not using a chronological sequence as a compiler, Doggett the annotator then proceeds to slavishly follow Berry's recording sessions in chronological order in his essay. As the listener reads, there is a natural desire to want to hear the music in the order that it's being described. Instead, the last recorded track to be included, "Bio" (1973), turns up fifth on the first disc, followed immediately by the first recorded track, "Maybellene" (1955). If that's listening pleasure, it is pleasure of a somewhat perverse sort. Nevertheless, no double-disc Berry compilation is as packed as this one.