Some stories don’t need words. Chuck Berry knew that. And he was such a master wordsmith that Bob Dylan referred to him as “The Shakespeare of rock’n’roll.” For those of us who weren’t alive in the 1950’s, that time is more fantasy than reality, a suburban and rural dreamscape (occasionally in black-and-white) shaped by music, television, art, photography, and cinema. (Oddly enough, Generation X’s main impression of the post-WWII, pre-Beatles era came from ‘70’s and ‘80s films set during this period, such as Diner, Animal House, American Graffiti, and Back to the Future.) Berry’s instrumental “Deep Feeling” encapsulates this phantom Americana in just two minutes and twenty-one seconds. While other stellar instrumentals from the Eisenhower administration radiate menace (Link Wray’s “Rumble”) or romance, loss, and dreams (Santo & Johnny’s “Sleep Walk”), Berry’s mini-masterpiece emits all of those qualities and more.
It’s from his full-length debut After School Session, which came out 60 years ago this month, and features classics like “School Days” and “Too Much Monkey Business.” Yet “Deep Feeling” is the true standout. The barrelhouse piano by Johnnie Johnson and Willie Dixon’s steady bass groove give it a bluesy, seductive feel. Both musicians were titanic figures in their own right. Johnson made indispensable contributions to Berry’s songs, with some claiming he was the main musical driving force, Billy Strayhorn to Berry’s Duke Ellington. But that’s another story.
Dixon wrote “Back Door Man,” “I Ain’t Superstitious,” “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” and countless other songs that would help define rock’n’roll. Another one is “Bring It On Home,” sung by Sonny Boy Williamson II, which has the same bassline Dixon used for “Deep Feeling.” On Led Zeppelin’s version, they also replicate his bass for the mellow first half, before going nuclear.
However, it’s Berry who dominates, conveying humor, lust, and desolation with each squeal of his lap steel guitar, bringing to mind everything from Edward Hopper’s mid-20th century paintings on solitude to the horny hijinks featured in the Porky’s trilogy. (Another group of ‘80s films which took place in the late ‘50s/early ‘60s beloved by Generation X.) Your perspective might be completely different, which is the beauty of an exceptional instrumental. Without the guidance of lyrics, instrumentals are essentially a collaboration with the listener, allowing their imagination to fill in the gaps. You could describe much of Jerry Garcia’s work the same way, so it’s fitting that this was a favorite of his. Garcia probably appreciated as much as anyone that on “Deep Feeling,” Chuck Berry, the most venerated storyteller in rock’n’roll, lets you tell the story.
While not as celebrated as his other material, it had a stealth impact. Fleetwood Mac’s 1968 “Albatross” was like “Deep Feeling” for the “Swinging London” era, but with a more sorrowful tone befitting a year of war, riots, and assassinations. “Albatross” ended up being an inspiration on the following year’s “Sun King” by The Beatles, who retained the meditative blues of Berry’s and Mac’s instrumentals, while adding swirly psychedelic guitar, celestial vocals, and an overall cathartic ambiance.
Around the same time “Albatross” came out, The Rolling Stones released Beggars Banquet. After the Carnaby Street phantasmagoria of 1967’s Their Satanic Majesties Request, Beggars Banquet was more rooted in folk/country blues, but still had an atmosphere of drowsy psychedelia. At times, “Deep Feeling” haunts this album like a spectre, especially the lonesome slide acoustic guitar by Brian Jones on “No Expectations,” and the raggedy, swaggering slide work of Keith Richards, the world’s most famous Berry disciple, on “Jigsaw Puzzle” and “Salt of the Earth.”
Ronnie Wood would not be outdone. Like the previous examples, his slide guitar on the Faces “Around the Plynth” from 1970 owes a lot to Berry’s lap steel work on “Deep Feeling.” But Wood took that influence to a whole other, much darker stratosphere. At one point, with Rod Stewart’s soulful, sandpaper screaming in the background, Wood’s deranged, possessed slide solo repeatedly goes up and down like a demonic seesaw, matching the pain and desperation of lyrics such as “Water down the drain, I’m wasting away.” Stewart then shouts “Slow down there!” Wood complies, ending the solo by briefly quoting the aforementioned “No Expectations” from his future band. This was more than likely a tribute to the then-recently deceased Jones.
It’s difficult to imagine music advancing the way it did without Chuck Berry. “Deep Feeling” is just one his many contributions to its evolution. Leonard Cohen once said about Berry, “If Beethoven hadn’t rolled over, there’d be no room for any of us.”
Hallelujah.
Matt Leinwohl