The definitive biography of Chuck Berry, legendary performer and inventor of rock and roll Best known as the groundbreaking artist behind classics like “Johnny B. Goode,” “Maybellene,” “You Never Can Tell” and “Roll Over Beethoven,” Chuck Berry was a man of wild contradictions, whose motives and motivations were often shrouded in mystery. After all, how did a teenage delinquent come to write so many songs that transformed American culture? And, once he achieved fame and recognition, why did he put his career in danger with a lifetime’s worth of reckless personal behavior? Throughout his life, Berry refused to shed light on either the mastery or the missteps, leaving the complexity that encapsulated his life and underscored his music largely unexplored—until now. In Chuck Berry , biographer RJ Smith crafts a comprehensive portrait of one of the great American entertainers, guitarists, and lyricists of the 20th century, bringing Chuck Berry to life in vivid detail. Based on interviews, archival research, legal documents, and a deep understanding of Berry’s St. Louis (his birthplace, and the place where he died in March 2017), Smith sheds new light on a man few have ever really understood. By placing his life within the context of the American culture he made and eventually withdrew from, we understand how Berry became such a groundbreaking figure in music, erasing racial boundaries, crafting subtle political commentary, and paying a great price for his success. While celebrating his accomplishments, the book also does not shy away from troubling aspects of his public and private life, asking profound questions about how and why we separate the art from the artist. Berry declined to call himself an artist, shrugging that he was good at what he did. But the man's achievement was the rarest kind, the kind that had social and political resonance, the kind that made America want to get up and dance. At long last, Chuck Berry brings the man and the music together.   **Shortlisted for the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award (2023)** ** Rolling Stone , "Best Music Books of 2022"** ** Fresh Air ’s rock critic Ken Tucker, "Best Music Book of the Year" (2022)"** **Amazon, "Best Books of the Month" in Biography/Memoir (November 2022)** ** St. Louis Post-Dispatch , "10 of the year’s top books about St. Louis or by local authors"** “[An] unsparing but revelatory account of an American original... as smart and punchy as a mono Berry 45.” ― Wall Street Journal “To some degree, all rock bios are about sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, yet the biggest takeaway from Chuck Berry has to do with a fourth element: sheer force of personality... Berry liked to compose with other musicians, throwing words and riffs out and moving slowly till a critical mass that had been long in making seemed to arrive out of nowhere. RJ Smith writes in much the same manner, taking a song like ‘Nadine’ from a sketchy beginning to its masterful completion.”  ― Washington Post “Just a lot of fun….Rollicking, befitting its subject.”  ― Los Angeles Times “RJ Smith brings Berry to vivid life, doubly impressive given his subject’s legendary caginess. He lays the terrain so adroitly — from Berry’s St. Louis youth to his multiple imprisonments — that when tiny bombs go off, he doesn’t have to explain that they’re bombs; they resonate. Smith is also first-rate on the electric guitar’s galvanic effect on music and the culture at large.”― Rolling Stone “Here are both the feathers and talons of Berry. The inside of things and the outside….Smith somehow manages to negotiate these oily, turbid waters with amazing grace, surefootedness, and acuity. He is not forgiving of Berry’s crimes, but neither is he a self-righteous prig or martinet. Over the course of his excellent book, it becomes clear that Berry is an ideal case study for a moment relentlessly preoccupied with the chasm between the artist and the art.”― Harper's “[A] big new biography.”  ― CBS Sunday Morning "[A] rollicking bio ripe with the thrill of mythology."― Chicago Tribune “The best music book of the year is RJ Smith's spellbinding biography of Chuck Berry.”― Ken Tucker, rock critic , Fresh Air “Definitive, highly readable, and unusually revealing, this biography gives us the remarkable Chuck Berry in full.”― New York Journal of Books “Chuck Berry  gives readers background on those songs and his music, of course. But where it really succeeds is plumbing the psychological depths and driving forces of its subject in a deeper and richer way than ever before… Chuck Berry’s music will likely never pass away. And with  Chuck Berry: An American Life , there’s finally a multi-faceted biography for an even more faceted man.”  ― Houston Press “Few rock biographies rise to the level of their subject. In CHUCK BERRY , author RJ Smith offers a detailed study of the rock ‘n’ roll pioneer; portraying a shrewd, implacable trickster who wrote an ingenious catalog. At cru