June 2, 2020:
As a kid I wanted to play Beatle songs.
Not "Yesterday" or "Michelle" or "Octopus' Garden". But "Roll Over Beethoven", and "Rock and Roll Music". Those were my touchstones. I played the vinyl to death.
About a decade later I learned through the Rolling Stones that the "C. Berry" cited on the record sleeves was the great Chuck Berry. Who was then my main man two more decades.
Until... I realized one day it wasn't so much Bad Uncle Chuck who blew me away. It was Johnnie Johnson. Listen to "How You've Changed", "Wee Wee Hours", "Rock and Roll Music", "Sweet Little Sixteen". Hot damn. That's rock and roll.
He led to my music. Meade Lux Lewis, Pinetop Perkins, Albert Ammons, Clarence "Pine Top" Smith, Dorothy Donegan. And Johnnie Johnson.
Circle of life.