CHUCK

This is a terrific, cohesive album that reconsiders past glories, reaffirms old obsessions and reflects on his waning days.

If Berry leaves the world with any last thoughts on Chuck, it’s that his vitality and relevance will continue to endure.

Berry makes no attempt to chase trends or offer a final statement; he just gathers his ten best recent tunes and that's why Chuck is such a fitting epilogue to a legendary career. It captures the essence of Chuck Berry, how he could turn the everyday into something exciting.

Chuck sets an example for everyone else to follow. [Jul 2017, p.94]

Chuck falls short of the power of albums with emphatic famous last words. What Chuck does instead is persuade us to pay closer attention to the totality of an artist's work instead of revering their peaks.

It’s an extremely sprightly record for a man pushing 90, and though there’s no way he can recapture the era-defining energy of his classics--cuts so pervasive their DNA is present in every rock song for the last 60 years--there’s a lot of the spirit of that era here.

Although many songs on Chuck sound familiar, it's amazing that no two tracks sound alike. Berry covers a lot of musical ground on Chuck, and most importantly, reveals just how much fun he was still having at the end of his storied life.

A fine goodbye filled with easy charm and style.

The good news is that while the man was no longer a groundbreaking creator of a new musical style, he still could rock in creative and energetic ways.

Chuck is Berry’s last inimitable flare, delivered in the nick of time.

His final album--and first since 1979--not only demonstrates the durability of the musical format he pioneered but also proves his indefatigability as an entertainer. [Jul 2017, p.25]

The Chuck Berry template rears its head, for better and worse, throughout Chuck.

The singer goes on autopilot for "Jamaica Moon," a thin rewrite of his Caribbean-flavored '50s composition, "Havana Moon," and "She Still Loves You," a cousin to his forlorn "Memphis." When Berry wanders outside his songwriting safety zone, stranger sides of his personality emerge.

There are three generations of Berry guitarists and guest appearances from the likes of Nathaniel Rateliff and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello. Perhaps this explains why it doesn’t sound anything like the work of a 90-year-old man. The riffs are instantly familiar as those with which Berry defined rock’n’roll in the 1950s and his themes are mostly youthful.

Chuck Berry's first album since 1979 is a classic as he always made them, with knockoffs of his own inventions, blues filler, even a live goof delivered with one of those raised-eyebrow vocals. All of rock & roll would have crawled on its hands and knees to St. Louis to record with Berry, yet Chuck makes do with a gleeful bar-band stomp.

An uneven but fitting swansong, then. [Aug 2017, p.100]

There’s a sweet familial feel to the opening Wonderful Woman, Berry leading the line of guitars that also features contributions from his son and grandson, but its generic chug disguises a typically leering lyric that, frankly, sounds sinister coming out of the mouth of a man pushing 90.