The man who built rock and roll would have turned 100 today. Chuck Berry was born in St. Louis on October 18, 1926, and the centennial of the “Johnny B. Goode” legend has tributes running across the country all weekend, from a yearslong celebration in his hometown to a symposium at Monmouth University to a tribute concert tonight outside Washington, D.C. Here is how America is marking Chuck Berry’s 100th birthday, and why his shadow still covers everything on your playlist.
How the country is celebrating Chuck Berry’s 100th birthday
In St. Louis, the centennial is the centerpiece of CHUCK100, a multi-year commemoration of the city’s most famous musical son. The series, first reported by the Post-Dispatch, includes tribute EPs recorded at the St. Louis Recording Club, each built around four versions of a Berry classic, plus public activations featuring memorabilia and one of Berry’s Cadillacs from the 1987 concert film “Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Berry’s statue still watches over the Delmar Loop, a few blocks from the Blueberry Hill Duck Room, the club named for his signature move where he played monthly shows deep into his eighties.
Last weekend, the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music turned Monmouth University into Chuck Berry central with “Chuck Berry at 100,” a daylong symposium and concert. Scholars and musicians examined his songwriting, his guitar playing, and race and the birth of rock and roll, before Stevie Van Zandt, Sonny Kenn, Charlie Giordano and Vini Lopez played the catalog. The day closed with a panel pointedly titled “The Complicated Legacy of Chuck Berry,” which faced the harder chapters of his life alongside the music, per the Center’s own recap.
And tonight in Alexandria, Virginia, Daryl Davis, Berry’s bandmate of three decades, leads “A Tribute to Chuck Berry” at the Birchmere with a very special guest: the rocker’s grandson. “We call him Charlie Berry the Third,” Davis told WTOP. “He will be singing and playing, and carrying on that legacy. There will be duck walking. There’ll be the splits. There’ll be everything!”
Why Chuck Berry still matters
Davis, who spent 30 years on stage next to Berry, frames the legacy in civil rights terms. In the segregated 1950s, audiences sat in sections designated by law. Then came Berry’s backbeat. “White kids and Black kids could not sit still,” he told WTOP. “They got up out of their seats… and they were boogieing and dancing in the aisles together for the first time in the history of the United States.” The songs themselves became the foundation: “Maybellene,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Sweet Little Sixteen” and “Johnny B. Goode,” which Davis calls the most recorded and most performed rock and roll song of all time. Without Berry, he notes, there are no Beatles, no Rolling Stones, no Springsteen.
Chuck Berry: the timeline
Oct. 18, 1926: Born in St. Louis and raised in the Ville neighborhood; graduates from Sumner High School.
1955: “Maybellene” becomes his breakthrough hit and one of the founding records of rock and roll.
1958: “Johnny B. Goode” arrives, later carried into space on the Voyager Golden Record.
1987: “Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll,” the Taylor Hackford concert film, captures Berry at 60 alongside the cadre of stars he inspired.
2017: Berry dies at 90, months after announcing “Chuck,” his first new studio album in decades.
2024-2026: St. Louis launches CHUCK100, a multi-year centennial celebration with tribute EPs and public events.
Oct. 18, 2026: Berry’s 100th birthday, marked by tributes nationwide.
What this means for readers
The easiest way to join the centennial is through the music: the CHUCK100 tribute EPs are on streaming platforms, and the original catalog, from “Maybellene” to “Johnny B. Goode,” is the most rewarding history lesson in American music. “Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll” is the essential watch if you want to see the duck walk in its prime. If you are near D.C. tonight, Davis and Charlie Berry III play the Birchmere; in St. Louis, the Loop’s statue and Blueberry Hill remain the pilgrimage stops. For more music moments from a busy weekend, Chappell Roan surprised Charli XCX’s Kia Forum crowd last night, and our look at Celine Dion’s Paris finale and 2027 album plans is here.
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