By 1959, rock and roll music had taken one hell of a drubbing. I’m not one who buys into unfounded conspiracy theories, but an awful lot went wrong for rock and roll artists in a short amount of time. Look at this timeline to assess the damage that had been wrought over the course of two years:

• On December 12, 1957, Jerry Lee Lewis married his thirteen-year-old cousin Myra Gale Brown. Needless to say, this didn’t go over well with his young fans, or the establishment responsible for raising them.
• On December 20, 1957, Elvis Presley received his draft notice. He served until March 2, 1960.
• On an unspecified date in 1959, Little Richard decided to quit rock and roll music and dedicated himself to the ministry, performing only gospel music.
• February 3, 1959 is known as “the day the music died”, when a plane carrying Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and The Big Bopper crashed after takeoff, killing all aboard.
• In 1959, the House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight started an investigation into alleged payola scandals. The disc jockeys under investigation were all heavily involved in rock and roll music. Major labels went untouched, but smaller independent labels that survived on rock and roll or rhythm and blues became the subject of intense scrutiny, as did the publishers associated with those labels and their artists. Many professionals lost their jobs and due to the pressure, rock and roll music became something of a pariah. Just a look at the charts plainly shows a sudden, disproportionate collapse in independent rock and roll records getting airplay. The decrease in competition meant that ‘safer’ mainstream artists reaped benefits from the ‘targeted’ investigation.
• Finally, to put the icing on the cake, Chuck Berry was arrested on December 23, 1959, for transporting a fourteen-year-old girl across state lines for “immoral purposes”. 

 Now, I understand that you can’t blame anybody for Little Richard’s sudden shift in faith, and Jerry Lee Lewis was always a lunatic, so perhaps those two events were a matter of self-determination, but the others bring on a sense of implication, especially when taken in combination with one another. Was ‘the man’ out to get rock and roll? From Chuck Berry’s perspective, he certainly had every reason to think that was so. As 1959 drew to a close, he must have felt like the last man standing. Subsequent to his arrest, according to those who knew him well, his ability to trust people diminished drastically at this precarious point in time. A five-year sentence will do that to a person, and he served twenty months of his sentence before his conviction by an all-white, all male jury was’ vacated’. 

While all of this was going on, “Chuck Berry Is on Top” sat on record shelves, but not selling much, despite containing the best collection of Chuck Berry songs to date. Nine of the twelve songs appeared on Billboard’s Top 100 chart, the exceptions being “Around and Around (!), “Hey Pedro” and “Blues for Hawaiians,” the three tracks that close the album. In essence, it’s a greatest hits album in all but name, and it is also the last truly great album of the original rock and roll era (or what was left of it).

Featured Tracks:

Almost Grown

Carol

Maybelline

Sweet Little Rock and Roller

Anthony Boy

Johnny B. Goode

Little Queenie

Jo Jo Gun

Rollover Beethoven

Around and Around

Hey Pedro

Blues for Hawaiians

July 1959 – Billboard Did Not Chart