"Gave the Music Its Sound and Its Attitude"

"It could be said that Berry wore the mask, though he did it in trickier ways. When that mask really dropped, at the end of the 1950s, he lost just about everything. Yet such was Berry's importance that if not for him, the Beatles, Dylan, the Rolling Stones and countless others wouldn't have had a model or map. Rolling Stone wouldn't be here without him. If ever there was an American who deserved the Nobel Prize in Literature, it was Chuck Berry. If ever there was an American who did not, it was Chuck Berry. If ever there was an American, it was Chuck Berry."

Mikal Gilmore at Rolling Stone writes an appreciation of Chuck Berry, who died at age ninety in March.