Chuck Berry marks 75th birthday with hometown bash

ST. LOUIS -- Visiting with friends in a dressing room Thursday night, Chuck Berry showed off a wooden duck that waddled when pulled.

"Isn't that something," he laughed as at least 1,500 fans waited for him to show that the bird didn't have anything on the rock 'n' roll legend who made the duck walk famous.

It was Berry's night, his 75th birthday. And he was ready to show those who came to his bash -- pal Little Richard included -- his decades-old duck walk and one-legged hop that helped propel him to music immortality were alive and well.

In vintage Berry style, he was coy about his plans for the crowd at The Pageant, a local concert hall.

"Maybe once in a while I'll stick some blues in there," he said, smiling. Beyond that, "I work spontaneously, ad lib."

One of rock 'n' roll's most important architects, Berry pioneered a musical revolution decades ago, with guitar-driven hits like "Maybellene," "Roll Over Beethoven," "Sweet Little Sixteen," "Rock and Roll Music," "No Particular Place To Go" and "Johnny B. Goode."

He helped inspire Elvis and the Beatles, was inducted into both the Rock and Roll and Songwriters halls of fame and last year got one of the nation's highest awards as a Kennedy Center Honor recipient.

Together, Berry and sideman Johnnie Johnson -- another St. Louisan and the inspiration for "Johnny B. Goode" -- blended blues, boogie and country to help shape rock music in the early 1960s. Johnson composed the music on piano, and Berry converted it to guitar and wrote the lyrics.