Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry

Bruce Pegg has written an excellent biography of one of the fathers of rock and roll. This was exceptionally hard to accomplish, because in many ways, Chuck Berry is not an easy man to like. He's lived a very hard life, and as a result, he's become a bitter man. Pegg was able to get through Berry's shell, and write about the genius inside of the man. Some of the reviewers complained about the lengthy trial notes. I would agree with Pegg that they are necessary in order to understand the blatant racism and discrimination against Berry. It was this treatment that helped harden Berry. At the same time, Pegg is quick to give credit to Berry's brilliance as a musical giant. This is an excellent book, and I'd quickly recommend it to any fan of rock. No, Berry is not an angel. And, this book does not try to portray him as one. However, he is not the devil that some have indicated him to be. Again, read the book. Musically, he is at the head of the class. He has just celebrated his 90th birthday, and his 68th wedding anniversary. Let's just congratulate him on these accomplishments in his very hard life while we continue to enjoy his brilliant music.

This biography details Chuck life as well as anybody could. Not much else to say about except if you want just one book about Chuck that covers his life this is the one. Long story short Chuck was his own worse enemy. Surprised to learn that he did not really care that much about Rock and Roll just the money at the time.

To be fair, I read the whole book, learned a lot about Chuck Berry and the musicians he worked with, and now see him as a complicated person. And it gives a fairly good chronological history of rock and roll and how it ties in with the civil rights movement. However, I felt that it went into a lot of details about his legal troubles. At one point I felt like I was reading a summary of the courtroom transcript. There is also virtually nothing about his musical education, or when he started playing music. However,there is some good information about Johnnie Johnson, the Chess Brothers, and the Keith Richards relationship. It's worth reading.

I was disappointed with this book! Being a long time Chuck Berry fan I was anxcious to read this. I was looking to read more about how the music was created and more about Chuck Berry. The author writes more about civil rights and how Chuck Berry was screwed by racist. I have never read about Chuck blaming anyone. He is a shady dude and most his fans know this. The author never even interviewed Chuck. He plays Chuck as a victim. I don't think Chuck even sees himself this way. He never mentions how Chuck brought blacks and whites together and how his fan base is white. This author is very racist I learned little of how Chuck made is great music. This is a clip job of court documents and history of civil rights I say skip this book!.

I found this an interesting bio of the great Chuck Berry, but it is overly focused on the trials rather than the tribulations. Page after page of court testimony made this book less enlightning on Chuck's complete life & times and more on his run ins with the laws of the times. These are legitimate items for a bio but more on his music and its inspirations and influences would have rounded out the book more. Important reading for a Chuck fan but left me with the need to read more to get the full picture.

A good book but essentially a summary of legal proceedings, critic reviews and promoter comments. Gave very little information on his family other than that they were born. Very little information on his family life and what his children are doing.. No information on the type of parent he is. I assume that the people closest to him did not talk to the author of this book.

Interesting but not what I expected. I had hoped for more info on how he got into music, his first guitar etc. Still a decent read.

Great story on a great man...he is still under rated!

well pleased with this bk

I wanted to read about Chuck Berrys' life and achievements, but this book spends a lot of time digressing into general social history and other characters lives. I understand this is for context but I think there should be more about Chuck, like anecdotes and chronology. For instance, we never learn when he first started to play guitar or why/how; suddenly he's in a band impressing people. Maybe I should check to see if I have pages missing

Great item, excellent service