Rock legend Chuck Berry falls on stage
Rock legend Chuck Berry is in good health after collapsing on stage during a performance in Chicago due to exhaustion, a spokesman said on Monday.
Berry, 84, slumped over an accompanist’s keyboard about an hour into the performance Saturday night and was helped off the stage in front of a packed house.
He returned about 15 minutes later and tried to resume the show, but was taken off stage almost immediately to be checked by paramedics.
Berry came back out to thank the fans who’d waited for him and left the stage using a bit of his signature “duck walk.”
A few minutes later he walked out the stage door on his own into an awaiting limousine. He did not go to the hospital and was home in St. Louis on Sunday.
“I’m sorry to see his health be in that shape,” said boogie piano player Vijay Tellis-Nayak, who performed with Berry that night.
“He obviously loves performing. The music is still there. It’s hard to see his health deteriorating. He may be working harder than he should.”
Berry performed two shows in New York the night before.
With his string of 1950s jukebox gems such as Johnnie B. Goode, Sweet Little Sixteen, Roll Over Beethoven and School Days, Berry profoundly influenced some of the biggest pop groups of the 1960s including the Beatles, The Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys.
“If you tried to give rock-and-roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry,” John Lennon once told an interviewer.
Post new comment