T/S: Chuck Berry or Elvis Presley?

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I would think that this has been asked, but I can't find it anywhere...So: Who is the real king of rock n roll?

― Tape Store (Tape Store), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 16:30 (twenty years ago)

lady, if you have to ask...

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 16:32 (twenty years ago)

50s: berry just barely
60s: elvis easy
70s: elvis easy

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 16:33 (twenty years ago)

bo diddley.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 16:33 (twenty years ago)

Diddley seconded. If that's invalid, Berry.

― O-Keigh (O-Keigh), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 16:49 (twenty years ago)

My Ding-A-Ling vs. Suspicious Minds

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 16:55 (twenty years ago)

Berry as a writer, as a performer it's . . Little Richard!

― Soukesian, Tuesday, 28 March 2006 17:01 (twenty years ago)

Nobody cuts The Killer!

― Jim M (jmcgaw), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 20:56 (twenty years ago)

OK, I never played Dungeons and Dragons, but I knew people who did. They were always talking about hit points and charisma points and stuff. What are the categories for first-wave Rock'n'Rollers, then? I'm not sure how many points you get in D&D, but for our purposes we'll assign them on a 1-10 range.

Songwriting:
Berry - 10
Presley - 1 (co-wrote Heartbreak Hotel)

Instrumental Prowess:
Berry - 9
Presley - 2 (he knew a couple of chords, right?)

Vocal Prowess:
Berry - 7 (perfect for what he did, but I feel like giving Elvis a fair shake in this)
Presley - 9

Performance on records:
Berry - 9
Presley - 8

Stage Presence/Charisma:
Berry - 8
Presley - 10

Stamina:
I don't know -- Berry didn't do much past the mid-60s, but he's still alive; Elvis put out decent stuff until the mid-70s, but he's dead.

Hit Points:
I guess you'd have to look up how many songs charted, but I don't know if you'd want to measure by how popular or [rolls eyes] "influential" they are -- that's what VH1's for.

Alright, there have to be some dorky -- er, "differently cooled" -- people out there. Figure this out with your trillion-sided dice and get back to me.

― O-Keigh (O-Keigh), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 21:56 (twenty years ago)

this is not a Custos thread.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Tuesday, 28 March 2006 22:28 (twenty years ago)

elvis, for all his faults, would prob be more fun to hang out with.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 00:31 (twenty years ago)

Agreed, Elvis seemed like genuinely friendly, but dig this: If you take some pills with Elvis, you'd just hang around watching TV -- three TVs granted, but still, it's essentially "Flowers on the Wall" by the Statler Bros.

You party with Chuck Berry and "Mexicali Blues" by the Grateful Dead starts happening in real life.

Oh shit, nevermind, I thought this was the "Compare and contrast two artists except you can only cite songs not performed or written by the artists in question" thread. Carry on.

― O-Keigh (O-Keigh), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 05:16 (twenty years ago)

Check the Berry passages in Stanley Booth's "True Adventures of the Rolling Stones." Very funny.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 05:40 (twenty years ago)

Not from Booth's book, but still hilarious:

"Dick Jagger?"
-- Chuck Berry, ca. 1969

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 05:55 (twenty years ago)

Chuck Berry, though I like Elvis a lot

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 06:03 (twenty years ago)

Seconded. And we're not era-ing here as far as I'm concerne; it's an all or nothin' world.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 06:12 (twenty years ago)

I'd give an edge to Elvis, but it's remarkable how much music each takes in -- including crooners. Elvis dug Dean, Chuck does one hell of a Charles Brown impersonation.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 06:24 (twenty years ago)

And Elvis gets *no* points for his "songwriting," which was all Colonel Parker sleight-of-publishing-hand.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 06:25 (twenty years ago)

there may be no better record anywhere than "the great twenty-eight," so i'm tempted to go with chuck, but if you picked elvis's 28 best performances they just might stand up to it. chuck sort of faded away as a songwriter after '64, but elvis dropped to spectacular lows and then made a comeback.

on the other hand, there's probably dozens of elvis soundtrack songs even worse than "my ding-a-ling"!

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 06:27 (twenty years ago)

elvis then forx! you happy?

― j blount (papa la bas), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 06:27 (twenty years ago)

elvis did genuinely co-write a couple of songs, i think, according to guralnick - nothing that famous tho.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 06:28 (twenty years ago)

Deeply, blunt. I'll even concede your breakdown if we went that way. But that's my point: Berry doesn't seem like the man on paper, but he undeniably IS in my mind.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 06:37 (twenty years ago)

It's funny; one way of looking at it is that I might go for a while without listening to Elvis -- I've heard him so much -- but then when I check it again, he always blows my mind. But Chuck's songs walk around with me in my head as much as or more than Elvis'. Right now some brain cell is playing me "Beautiful Delilah, dressed in the latest styles" as I write this and groove on the Kanye record on my stereo.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 06:56 (twenty years ago)

The Great 28 vs. Number Ones = what a contest! Chuck wins it, but not by that much (and not as much as us-the-listeners who get to hear them again)

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 07:14 (twenty years ago)

I'd rather have a contest between The Great 28 and Sun Sessions, myself. And I'd call it a tie.

― James, Wednesday, 29 March 2006 10:25 (twenty years ago)

Maybe even better: *The Great 28* vs. the small band stuff on *Tiger Man* and *Memories*

― Chuck B, Wednesday, 29 March 2006 13:57 (twenty years ago)

elvis. more diverse. less samey sounding records.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 13:59 (twenty years ago)

I thought "All Shook Up" was markedly different after Pelv had rewritten it.

Also, "Hound Dog" was whatever Elvis remembered of the original at the time. So, in a way, he co-wrote that one. Without credit! ooo.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 14:26 (twenty years ago)

"Also, "Hound Dog" was whatever Elvis remembered of the original at the time. So, in a way, he co-wrote that one. Without credit!"

Dave Marsh has made the interesting agrument that Elvis rearranged many of the songs he recorded (pre-Army) so radically that he might as well have received credit for them. Post-Army, that changed.

― James, Wednesday, 29 March 2006 14:36 (twenty years ago)

(For a second there, I thought that was the xpost of the century...)

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 14:41 (twenty years ago)

I guess edd s hurt is still composing his thoughts on this matter.

― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 15:00 (twenty years ago)

I agree that Berry can be a bit "samey", but what he does is just so good! For me, Chuck over Elvis is kind of like Ramones over Clash -- the boyos were way more diverse, but c'mon, Ramones, dude. So I guess that's my argument: C'mon, Chuck Berry, dude.

― O-Keigh (O-Keigh), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 15:48 (twenty years ago)

comparing elvis to the clash is really insulting to elvis

― pyjamagrama (teenagequiet), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 15:54 (twenty years ago)

On an only marginally related note, I hated the Clash for a long time because of Joe Strummer's "Chuck Berry is Dead" T-shirt. After Joe kicked it I kind of wished Chuck would return the favor.

― O-Keigh (O-Keigh), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 16:01 (twenty years ago)

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