Johnny B. Goode

"Johnny B. Goode" is the Horatio Alger story of rock & roll, a message so basic that the song has become the inspiration for every kid who ever wanted to be in a rock & roll band or become a rock & roll star. Written by Chuck Berry, the original version on Chess was also the first session that Berry utilized overdubbing to play the now famous guitar solos, a fairly new idea for rock & roll back in the 1950s. But as rich and full and inspirational as Berry's original was and is (Keith Richards claimed it was the first rock & roll record he really heard), the song is so irreducible in its simple genius that it has become adaptable in a number of cover versions, from Jerry Lee Lewis to Jimi Hendrix to Buck Owens to the Grateful Dead. No matter what course rock music may take in the next decade or two, as long as there are guitar bands and crowds that want to rock and sing along, somebody will be on-stage playing "Johnny B. Goode" to get a rise out of the crowd.