Chuck Berry – After School Session

When you stop and think about, and then start to count, just HOW many hit songs Chuck Berry wrote, the whole thing becomes rapidly fucking mind-boggling.

When you realize, upon further reflection, just how many of these were on his FIRST album, you realize you’re in the presence of Rock n’ Roll’s Mozart.

After School Session is Chuck Berry’s “official” first album. Versions of it available today include 3 additional singles that weren’t on the original release, as they were only released as singles at the time. But given that they were released virtually simultaneously, I think it’s fair to consider it all part of the package.

Which means this man, this songwriter, this artist, DEBUTED with 15 songs that included:

School Days

Too Much Monkey Business

Brown-Eyed Handsome Man

You Can’t Catch Me

30 Days

Maybellene

THAT … is crazy. When you realize that within a mere 5 additional years, he would also give us: Rock and Roll Music, Reelin’ and Rockin’, Sweet Little Sixteen, Johnny B. Goode, Almost Grown, Back in the U.S.A., and more, the Mozart comparison is genuinely apt.

But no need to even skip ahead to those songs just yet. Just start here. And in addition to the hits, check out the slow blues of Wee Wee Hours, the playful camp of Havana Moon, or the spooky, rumbling Americana of Down Bound Train. It’s all pretty darn remarkable.

Rock Me, Chuck Berry.