Artist: T-Bone Walker
Author: Aron Walker
Label: Capitol
Year: 1942
While the session was held under pianist Freddie Slack's name. T-Bone Walker was just his (electric) guitar player. With Mean Old World on the B-side (see there). Electric guitars were still considered a novelty in '42, still it became T-Bone's very first recording as a frontman, with all his trademark licks, including the Chuck Berry stutter as part of a one minute intro. The riff also borrows from Louis Jordan's Ain't That Just Like A Woman (Decca), covered by Fats Domino.
Covers:
Chuck Berry [stuttering guitar like in Johnny B. Goode]
Teenbeats [as Johnny B. Goode]
Chaussettes Noires [as Eddie sois bon]
Rolling Stones [idem; as Little Boy Blue & The Blue Boys, one of their earliest demos]
Dion [idem]
Beach Boys [opening riff Fun Fun Fun is identical to Johnny B. Goode; not the first time they borrowed from Chuck Berry]
Buck Owens [as Johnny B. Goode, n°1 C&W]
Patrick Topaloff [parody as Ali Be Good]
Elton John [disco version]
Judas Priest [all as Johnny B. Goode]
Johnny B. Goode deserves its own history: there was a Goode Street in St. Louis. The whole place is boarded up now but that's where Chuck Berry was born. Besides, he had a greatgrandfather who as a runaway slave had to hide himself "way back in the woods among the evergreens". Initially Chuck wanted to sing about a "coloured boy" but the record company preferred "country boy".
If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:
Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)