Chuck Berry has been called "folk poet of the '50s," "the major figure of rock and roll" and "the single most important name in the history of rock." All of these epithets are well deserved, not only because of his own achievement but because of the influence he exerted on later super-rock artists like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and the Beach Boys (whose surfin' music was based on his "Sweet Little Sixteen"). (pp. 144-45)

[He] sang about "Maybellene," who took off with a cat in a Coup de Ville and he went motivatin' after her in his Ford—nothin' outrun my V-8 Ford—and though Maybellene might be untrue, he drove his way truly into the heart and psyche of school kids in '55. Today, it's motorcycles but back then, hot rods and stock cars and anything that moved fast on four wheels meant romance, adventure, and sex—and Chuck Berry felt it and told it like it was. (p. 145)

"Too Much Monkey Business" caught the "botheration" of kids working in a filling station and being burdened with all the menial little tasks. Like "Thirty Days" in its comment on judges and "No Money Down" in its putdown of car salesmen, this song embodied criticism of the establishment to which Chuck was sensitive as a Negro and which incorporated the new generation's beefs against authority and conformity.

In "Roll Over Beethoven" and other songs, Berry beautifully captured and expressed the feelings of the young about things they enjoyed or "disenjoyed." Here it was R & B music and he was for their digging it freely "if you feel it and like it …" The words and images were unexceptionable but they had sex in them. Not being a teen-ager, Berry did not write as one identifying with the young but as an observer. But what an observer and what empathy!

"School Days," "Johnny B. Goode," and "Sweet Little Sixteen" of '57-'58 were minor masterpieces of insight and understanding. "School Days (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell!)" pinpointed the teenager's feelings from his arrival in school where "the teacher is teachin' the golden rule" to the three-o'clock bell that spelled release and the rush to the juke joint around the corner: "Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' roll / Deliver me from the days of old …" But in "Baby Doll" he also sensed the nostalgia of young people, looking back after graduation and summertime, and remembering how they walked to school "when the weather was cool" and stopped to catch the newest song on car radios passing by.

In "Sweet Little Sixteen" he described sympathetically a girl's joy in collecting autographed pictures of singing stars, her excitement in seeing them in person—"Oh Daddy, Daddy / I beg of you / Whisper to Mommy / It's all right with you …"—acting grownup in tight dresses and high heels, and then the letdown of being "sweet sixteen back in class again …"

"Almost Grown" of '59 defined maturity in teen-age terms—I ain't never been in dutch and don't browse around too much—and in a throwaway line, caught the loneliness, introspection, and abstraction of adolescence: Don't bother me, leave me alone … (pp. 145-46)

[When] it comes to sheer creativity, wit, and imagination as a songwriter, he has few peers. Except for Leiber and Stoller, possibly Otis Blackwell, no songsmith has done more to body forth the rock 'n' roll experience and the outlook, feelings, put-downs, and hang-ups of the teen generation of the 1950s. He was and is its song laureate. (p. 147)