"Rock and Roll Music" is a song by American musician and songwriter Chuck Berry, written and recorded by Berry in May 1957. It has been widely covered and is one of Berry's most popular and enduring compositions.
"Rock and Roll Music" was met with instant success, reaching the top 10 in the United States. The Beatles' 1964 recording topped singles charts in Europe and in Australia, and the Beach Boys had a U.S. top 10 hit with the song in 1976.
The sessions for "Rock and Roll Music" took place in May 1957 in Chicago. The session was produced by Leonard Chess and Phil Chess. Backing Berry were Lafayette Leake (piano), Willie Dixon (bass), and Fred Below (drums). Chess records issued the song as a single in September 1957 on both the 45 and 78 rpm formats. It reached number six on Billboard magazine's R&B Singles chart and number eight on Hot 100 chart before the year's end.
In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Berry's version number 128 on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The song is also included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
The Beatles performed the song in many of their early Hamburg shows, and also played it on the BBC program Pop Go the Beatles. In late 1964, with limited time to record a new album before embarking on a UK tour, in addition to original material, they recorded several covers of their rock and rhythm & blues favorites to fill out their next LP release Beatles for Sale, which was due out in December in time for Christmas.
John Lennon provided the vocal, employing more dynamics in contrast to Berry's original, even-toned rendition. In the U.S., it was released on the LP Beatles '65. The song was played during the group's final tour in 1966, and the performance from their show of June 30 at the Nippon Budokan was included in 1996's Anthology 2and was also performed during the Get Back/Let It Be Sessions in January 1969. It also served as the title song to the Beatles' 1976 compilation album Rock 'n' Roll Music.
Credits for the piano vary. The original Beatles for Sale liner notes, by Derek Taylor, state that "George Martin joins John and Paul on one piano", implying an overdub by all three that was added after the basic take. In the 1988 book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn described the recording as a single take with no overdubs, with "all The Beatles on their familiar instruments" and Martin on piano. On the other hand, Geoff Emerick recalls that the song was recorded with McCartney on piano and George Harrison on bass.
In some countries, "Rock and Roll Music" was released as a single, with "I'm a Loser" as the B-side, in early 1965. It topped the charts in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Australia. The single peaked at number two in Germany and the Netherlands, and number three in Belgium.
The Beach Boys' version includes the use of backing vocals which repeat the phrase "Rock, roll, rockin' and rollinâÂÂ.â There is a difference between the LP version and the single version in that the single version has more synthesizer. Their version reached No. 5 on the US chart and No. 11 in Canada during the summer of 1976.
Personnel per 2000 liner notes.
Album cover, art direction and logo was done by Dean Torrence and Jim Evans.
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Australian band Mental As Anything covered the song Rock and Roll Music. It was released as the first single from the band's seventh studio album Cyclone Raymond. The song was released in November 1988 and charted at number 5 on the Kent Music Report and it stayed on the chart for 22 weeks.