“Roll Over Beethoven” by Chuck Berry

"Roll Over Beethoven" was Chuck Berry's 1956 shot across the bow of the concert hall, cut for Chess with Leonard and Phil Chess producing and "Drifting Heart" on the flip, and it later turned up on his 1959 LP Chuck Berry Is on Top. As Berry's chroniclers tell it, the song grew out of a sibling squabble: his sister Lucy kept claiming the family piano for classical pieces when he wanted to bang out the popular stuff.

So he wrote a manifesto for rock and roll, demanding that rhythm and blues get the kind of respect the classical crowd took for granted. Berry sings and plays guitar, Johnnie Johnson rolls along on piano, Willie Dixon holds down the double bass and Melvin Billups drums. When Rolling Stone ranked the 500 greatest songs ever in 2004, it put this one at 97.

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