“Maybellene” by Chuck Berry

"Maybellene" came out on Chess Records in July 1955, the single that gave Chuck Berry his first hit, and it later turned up on the 1959 album Chuck Berry Is on Top. Berry built it partly out of the western swing fiddle tune "Ida Red" and loaded it with a teenage melodrama: a man in a V8 Ford running down his cheating girl in her Cadillac Coupe DeVille, a car chase and a busted romance at once.

Berry sings and plays guitar, Johnnie Johnson rolls on piano, Willie Dixon holds down the double bass, and Leonard Chess and Jerome Green shake maracas, with Leonard and Phil Chess producing. It was the whole rock and roll package before anybody had a name for it, and it topped the R&B chart and reached No. 5 on the pop chart. Rolling Stone later put the birth of rock and roll guitar right here.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.