Anyone play Chuck Berry type music with the mandolin?

[FrDNicholas]

I was wondering if anyone either just for fun or commercially plays straight forward Rock and Roll with the mandolin? I think that would be a lot of fun.

[wundo]

Yeah, J.B. Goode, Roll over B., 30 days, Brown eyed handsome man, You never can tell, No particular place to go.
I use to play in a band playing mandolin doing this stuff.

Jim and Jesse issued a record called Berry Pickin', but I don't think Jesse did enough Berry licks.

Alot of down strokes like Monroe.

[re simmers]

Just for fun, and a few shows. I played with a very part-time band for about a year. We had a '60's electric bassist and a lead guitarist (acoustic) who were rockers. I played mandolin. We played some Chuck Berry, several Beatles tunes, Yes, Bread, and a few I wasn't familiar with. I played lots of tremelo, and stuck to the melody because I didn't want to duplicate anything our excellent guitarist played. We also played grass, country and a lot of gospel. My chop had to be right on the money, and no back-up playing because our bass player was all over the place. My chop was close to a snare drum.....closer than usual.

Bob

[journeybear]

Oh yeah. Like wundo said, all down strokes. The A pattern 2245 works best, as it's real easy to do the 5-6 riff that way (back and forth between 2245 and 2445), and if you're feeling real slick, make it into a 5-6-7b-6 thing. This also works in the E form (1224 to 1244), but keeping that riff as low as possible is best. :cool:

[Ivan Kelsall]

You mean the Mandolin 'style' that Chuck Berry 'borrowed' from Bill Monroe (according to many sources). It's a popular belief that BM was doing the 'minor chord blues chops' well before Mr Berry,
& that CB 'borrowed' from BM rather than the other way around. Whatever - it's a great sound & one of the only BM stytlistic bits that i try to jam into my playing. All the down strokes that's required leave my wrist acheing more than a bit,but it's good fun,
Ivan:cool:

[mandocrucian]

Actually, Berry picked up the downstrokes-only sound from guitarist Karl Marx Farr, the brother of fiddler Hugh Farr, both of whom were the instrumental component of the classic Sons Of The Pioneers lineups. Karl's RH technique was a limitation on his speed, but he still played some good jazzy guitar leads. Berry was looking for something that would give him the attack of boogie-woogie pianists such as Pete Johnson ("Roll 'em Pete").

Hugh Farr, a phenomenal fiddler, described by some classical violinists as having the best bow hand in the business, was featured on an LP on the JEMF label, which is well worth searching out, along with the SOP album of rarer tracks on JEMF. No doubt, much of this material will probably be also found on Bear Family compilations.

It turns out that Chuck listened to a lot more swing/country swing/Texas swing/Django than he ever did to SE stringband music (such as WSM) and the that the Sons of The Pioneers were a much greater influence than the Bluegrass Boys.

NH

[JimRichter]

Something I did for the blues mando social group. Just a few steps between Monroe, Chuck Berry, and T-Bone Walker

[mandopops]

Chuck loved Louie Jordan & Guitarist Carl Hogan of the Jordan band so both the song style & Guitar style were a huge influence on his music. Hogan did alot with double stops as back-up lines.
Chuck said if he were to just listen to music the rest of his life he'd pick Nat Cole, but he had to be a performer he'd pick Louie Jordan. Chuck did use the T-Bone octave lick alot also. So much so it's been called a Chuck Berry lick.

I think some of the Armstrong Twins acoustic boogie workouts are in that zone. Kinda Rock-a-billy Boogie. Ya know what I mean?

[wundo]

Floyd and Lloyd, the Armstrong Twins did this boogie.[ATTACH]45480

[Martian]

You mean the Mandolin 'style' that Chuck Berry 'borrowed' from Bill Monroe (according to many sources). It's a popular belief that BM was doing the 'minor chord blues chops' well before Mr Berry,
& that CB 'borrowed' from BM rather than the other way around. Whatever - it's a great sound & one of the only BM stytlistic bits that i try to jam into my playing. All the down strokes that's required leave my wrist acheing more than a bit,but it's good fun,
Ivan:cool:

Ivan you are right on. Dana Cupp Jr.,the last banjo player for Monroe, told me the very same thing about who came first,the 'lick', or the bluegrass boy. He then proceded to play me a song from Mr. Monroe's past, circa 40's, and I heard Chuck's lick. He then explained, Chuck would have been a teenager at that time, well before the world came to know of him. Also, Dana told me that when C B was asked "where did you get that lick?", in his autobiography, he responded From Bill Monroe" and had suggested He was a big fan

[johnwalser]

A few weeks ago, Marty Stuart was playing mandolin "Rock and Roll" (or pretty dang close to it ) on his weekly TV show. We see him every week on RFDTV.

[bluesmandolinman]

wundo , thanks for the Floyd and Lloyd TABs !!!

for those interested to play Chuck Berry Style shuffle on mandolin you can get Niles Mandocrucian´s Digest back issues :#11 - (Rock & Roll Shuffles, part 1) #12 (rock & roll shuffles, part 2) . Easy and fun to play !

René

[wundo]

I just remembered that that last part of the boogie I stole from one of the
Maddox brothers break.

Works fine with all kinds of boogies, like freight train boogie, step it up and go, etc.

Before there was Chuck B, there was boogies.
He does a tune called the Guitar Boogie.
Hal Leonard has a book out with lots of Chuck's tunes, including the guitar
boogie.

[mandozilla]

It's pretty well known that Chuck Berry was a big fan of Bill Monroe and had a pretty large library of Bil's recordings. I can't say who came up with the 'Minor Chord Blues Chop' first it doesn't really matter to me anyway. :disbelief:

I'm just happy that Bill was recognized by, and is an inductee in, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence on Rock & Roll. I think it's also important to remember that, like Rock & Roll, Bluegrass Music is a modern American musical form only about 6 years older than Rock & Roll. :grin:

As to playing Chuck Berry type music with the mandolin...I've played a few Chuck Berry numbers, but only in the Bluegrass Style. But, I don't see why it wouldn't be good to play some early, Berry type Rock & Roll with an Emando. :cool:

Sorry for the ramble...Now I'll get back to where I belong...in the Bluegrass arena.

~o):mandosmiley: