After School Session

After School Session was Chuck Berry's debut LP, but when it appeared in 1957 he had already been famous for two years. The teen market in those days was based around singles, not albums, and he had built a formidable reputation releasing one killer 45 after another. On stage, screen, and radio, he had been featured heavily by deejay Alan Freed, whose syndicated radio show, All-Star stage packages and Hollywood drive-in features put Chuck right in the front rank as rock'n'roll swept all before it.

Released in May 1957, the album came complete with sleeve notes describing the man himself as 'our Rock-a-Billy Troubadour'. If this sounds a little strange to modern ears, it's worth recalling Chuck's well-documented love of hillbilly music, and Maybellene's own roots in the 1938 Bob Wills
recording, Ida Red.Chuck once said that his influences ranged all the way from Muddy Waters to Jimmie Rodgers, via Nat King Cole. Out of this he created something truly his own, which wasn't strictly R&B and it wasn't hillbilly either. This, unquestionably, was rock'n'roll, and with this LP and its
preceding singles, he laid down many of the genre's enduring ground rules. As the original back cover proudly stated, 'The songs are all original compositions written by Chuck, for Chuck, and as only Chuck can perform them'. Of course, other fine Chess musicians were backing him, but here
was a star who sang, played, and crucially wrote his own material. - Max Décharné (Max's history of rockabilly, A Rocket in My Pocket, is published by Serpent's Tail)