Chuck Berry: An American Life

By RJ Smith

The definitive biography of Chuck Berry, legendary performer and inventor of rock and roll

One of the 'Best Music Books of 2022' selected by Rolling Stone

A MOJO Book of the Year 2023

"[A] rollicking bio ripe with the thrill of mythology." Chicago Tribune

"This account may become the standard biography that may appeal to general readers. Smith lauds Berry’s accomplishments in music but also characterizes him as a lonely, self-destructive, moody, and aggressively sexual man." Library Journal

'RJ Smith’s powerful and passionate portrait of Chuck Berry reveals the troubled man behind the iconic swagger and blazing guitar. To know Chuck Berry is to know racial conflicts in America. Smith makes sure you know both.'

- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, NBA Legend & New York Times bestselling author

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 behaviour? 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.


Praise for Chuck Berry: An American Life

'To some degree, all rock bios are about sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, yet the biggest takeaway from Chuck Berry: An American Life has to do with a fourth element: sheer force of personality'

- The Washington Post

'A persuasive new biography explores musical innovation, racism and toxic masculinity. The great strength of this thought-provoking biography is not just that it's a thorough chronicle, nor even that it fascinatingly explores Berry's musical, cultural, social and political contexts, but that is addresses head-on and builds into a persuasive psychological thesis the troubling, toxic aspects of a man who was also one of the great innovators and giants of the music we love.'

- MOJO, 5*

'Richly detailed and informative biography.'

- Classic Rock, 8/10

'RJ Smith’s Chuck Berry is a brilliant deep dive into the life of the true King of Rock & Roll. The irascible Berry shaved with a blow torch and played guitar like a possessed wizard from the Great American Highway. In unexpected ways Berry was a civil rights revolutionary with songs as his artillery. Smith’s fresh anecdotes, musicologist erudition, and page-turning prose are awesome. This is a must-read!'

- Douglas Brinkley, author of Silent Spring Revolution

'Chuck Berry was one of the first people I knew that was true to life. Just like this book showing the truth to his life. I knew him from the 1950s onward and I can honestly say that RJ truly captured the essence of Chuck Berry as I knew him. You couldn’t have a better book on the life and career of my ol’ friend.'

- Bobby Rush, GRAMMY Award Winning blues artist, Blues Hall of Famer, and author of I Ain’t Studdin’ Ya

'Chuck Berry is both a national monument and something of an enigma. RJ Smith convincingly connects those two points in his scrupulous account, which is impressively detailed but never dull, and rich in the textures of time, place, personality, and sound. You'll want to read every word.'

- Lucy Sante, author of Low Life, The Other Paris, and Maybe the People Would Be the Times

'A hungry ear drives Smith's wondrous, brilliant book. Not only does he capture the excitement of Berry's music, he hears the awe of those in its thrall, from his rock & roll heirs to rivals, fans, and mystified bystanders throughout the twentieth century. Smith writes history as though it's a series of tall tales—how else to conjure Berry's brilliance as well as complexities, the unheralded highs and lows, the myth and the man, the man and the strange nation that produced him.'

- Hua Hsu, staff writer at the New Yorker and author of Stay True

'Chuck Berry is a necessary book that expands and beautifully complicates our understanding of Berry as a human and as an artist.'

- Jessica Hopper, author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic

'No one writes about popular music and its icons quite like RJ Smith: his ability to see inside the psyche of the most enigmatic figures, to reveal the soft tissue connecting them to cultural context, to deconstruct how a song actually works, all with prose that borders on poetry. Chuck Berry is a masterwork.'

- Dan Charnas, author of Dilla Time and The Big Payback

'Author RJ Smith brilliantly brings together all the Complicated Chucks in this self-proclaimed “definitive biography” that actually lives up to the distinction.'

- Houston Press

'A firm grasp of Berry’s meaning, and he tells the story with a sense of color his subject deserves.' 

- Los Angeles Times

Publication Date: 08.11.22
ISBN: 9781913172954
Extent: 416 pages
Format: Hardback

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