Too Much Monkey Business

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Too Much Monkey Business is a Chuck Berry song that was first recorded on April 16, 1956 in Chicago , Illinois , and the first version of which was released on Chess Records .

Emergence

The song was recorded on April 16, 1956 in Chuck Berry's fourth recording session for Chess Records in the label's own studio. Berry played on guitar, Johnnie Johnson on piano, Willie Dixon on bass and Fred Below on drums. In addition to Too Much Monkey Business , Drifting Heart, a blues number, and Roll Over Beethoven and Brown Eyed Handsome Man, two future rock 'n' roll classics were on the program. Berry then asked his pianist Johnson to use the recording to make a transcript so that he could submit it to the Library of Congress for copyright registration .

Cover versions

After Chuck Berry, numerous artists have recorded the song, including Elvis Presley , the version of which was released in 1968 on the album Elvis Sings Flaming Star . The title also enjoyed great popularity with the groups of the so-called British Invasion . The Beatles had had the piece in their live repertoire since 1960 and played it at four of their radio concerts for the BBC in 1963 . In 1994, their recording from September 3, 1963 for the program Pop Go the Beatles was released on the album Live at the BBC . The song was sung by John Lennon . The Hollies recorded a version for their second studio album In The Hollies Style in 1964 . Also in 1964, The Kinks played their version for their debut album Kinks . Morton Reff identified a total of 75 cover versions by the year 2000, including an instrumental version.

content

The song, the title of which literally means Too Many Monkey Businesses and, figuratively, means Too Much Lazy Magic , describes the burden of a person who is involved in too many confusions in everyday life that threaten to despair. In this respect, the song's content and mood can be traced back to Louis Jordan's Choo Choo Ch'Boogie . Although the narrator is working his way through a factory, suddenly an old bill flutters into his house. A dealer wants to impose something on him, a good-looking woman wants to bind him to him and be looked after by him. He fought in WWII and fed up with the army. Now he works at a gas station and is harassed by customers: "Wipe the window, check the tire pressure and the oil level."

Criticism and success

Too Much Monkey Business reveals, according to Bruce Pegg Berrys, “genius for detail, play on words and the rhythmic structure of his poetry”. No one else described the annoyances of everyday life as confidently as Berry, says Fred Rothwell, who believes the title is an early form of the protest song that Bob Dylan refers to a decade later with a different focus. Rothwell can only understand the thesis that Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues was directly influenced by Too Much Monkey Business with regard to the staccato singing and the text “Johnny in the basement”. The song debuted on October 6, 1956 in the American R&B charts of Billboard magazine, where it stayed for a total of six weeks with a top rating in fourth place.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Fred Rothwell: Long Distance Information. Chuck Berry's Recorded Legacy . 1st edition. Music Mentor Books, York 2001, ISBN 0-9519888-2-4 , Session 5, pp. 30-35 .
  2. ↑ Travis Fitzpatrick: Father of Rock & Roll. The Story of Johnnie "B. Goode “Johnson . 1st edition. Thomas, Cooke & Company, Houston 1999, ISBN 0-9672157-0-6 , pp. 113 (American English).
  3. ↑ www.allmusic.com: Review by Bruce Eder . Retrieved April 24, 2015.
  4. ↑ Kevin Howlett: The Beatles: The BBC Archives 1962-1970 . BBC Books, London, 2013. ISBN 978-1-84990688-3 . P. 329.
  5. ^ John C. Winn: Way Beyond Compare. The Recorded Beatles' Legacy. Volume 1: 1957-1965. Three Rivers Press, New York NY 2008, ISBN 978-0307451576 , p. 72.
  6. ↑ www.hollies.co.uk: In The Hollies Style . ( Memento of the original from May 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 24, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hollies.co.uk
  7. ↑ www.thekinks.info: Kinks . ( Memento of the original from October 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 24, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thekinks.info
  8. ^ Fred Rothwell: Long Distance Information. Chuck Berry's Recorded Legacy . 1st edition. Music Mentor Books, York 2001, ISBN 0-9519888-2-4 , Cover Versions of Chuck Berry's Songs, pp. 315-319 .
  9. ↑ a b Bruce Pegg: Brown Eyed Handsome Man. The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry. An Unauthorized Biography . Routledge, New York 2002, ISBN 0-415-93748-5 , pp. 67 .
  10. ^ Joel Whitburn: Hot R&B Songs. Billboard 1942-2010 . 6th edition. Record Research Inc., Menomonee Falls 2010, ISBN 978-0-89820-186-4 , pp. 55 (American English).