I GOT A BREAK BABY

Created on 31/12/2001
Latest update on 30/01/2024

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:

1953:

Ray Charles

1958:

Chuck Berry [stuttering guitar like in Johnny B. Goode]

1961:

Teenbeats [as Johnny B. Goode]

1961:

Chaussettes Noires [as Eddie sois bon]

1962:

Rolling Stones [idem; as Little Boy Blue & The Blue Boys, one of their earliest demos]

1964:

Dion [idem]

1964:

Beach Boys [opening riff Fun Fun Fun is identical to Johnny B. Goode; not the first time they borrowed from Chuck Berry]

1969:

Buck Owens [as Johnny B. Goode, n°1 C&W]

1970:

Jimi Hendrix

1970:

Johnny Winter

1974:

Cuby & The Blizzards

1977:

Patrick Topaloff [parody as Ali Be Good]

1979:

Elton John [disco version]

1983:

Peter Tosh

1988:

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".

Contact


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)

info@originals.be

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