Berry was the youngest child born in St. Louis. He grew up in the Ville, a north St. Louis neighborhood populated by many middle-class residents. Henry William Berry (1895-1987) was a contractor and deacon at a nearby Baptist church; Martha Bell (Banks) (1894-1980) was a certified public school principal. Berry’s upbringing enabled him to pursue his musical interests from a young age.
He gave his first public performance in 1941, while still a student at Sumner High School; he was still a student there in 1944, when he was arrested for armed robbery after robbing three shops in Kansas City, Missouri, and then stealing a car at gunpoint with some friends. Berry claims in his autobiography that his car broke down, so he flagged down a passing car and stole it at gunpoint with a nonfunctional pistol.
He was convicted and sentenced to the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men in Algoa, Missouri, near Jefferson City, where he formed a singing quartet and boxed. The singing group improved to the point where the authorities allowed them to perform outside the detention facility. Berry was released from the reformatory in 1947, on his 21st birthday.
Did the Beatles meet Chuck Berry?
Berry never met The Beatles when they were together in the 1960s, but he did shake John Lennon’s hand for the first time in 1972 before the two of them performed together on The Mike Douglas Show. The late rock superstars took the stage to perform “Johnny B. Goode” and “Memphis, Tennessee.”
