Rock ’n’ roll’s founding father dies at age 90

Chuck Berry, regarded as a founding father of rock ’n’ roll, died Saturday at his home in an unincorporated area west of St. Louis. He was 90.

Emergency responders summoned to Berry’s residence by his caretaker about 12:40 p.m. found him unresponsive, police in Missouri’s St. Charles County said in a statement. Attempts to revive Berry failed, and he was pronounced dead shortly before 1:30 p.m., police said.

Berry, whose music and style influenced The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, and countless others, was known for such classic hits as “Johnny B. Goode,” ‘‘Sweet Little Sixteen,” and “Roll Over Beethoven.” John Lennon of The Beatles once said, “If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry.’”

“Chuck Berry was a rock and roll original. A gifted guitar player, an amazing live performer, and a skilled songwriter whose music and lyrics captured the essence of 1950s teenage life,” The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame said in a statement.

But Berry’s career was often overshadowed by run-ins with the law. Prior to his success, in 1944, Berry was involved in a crime spree that included armed robberies and car theft. He served three years of a 10-year sentence at a reformatory.

In late 1959, during the height of his career, Berry was charged with violating the Mann Act, which barred the transportation of a minor across state lines for “immoral purposes.” An all-white jury found him guilty in 1960, but the charges were vacated after the judge made racist comments. A trial in 1961 led to his serving 1½ years of a three-year sentence. Berry continued to record after getting out, but his hit-making days were essentially over.

“Down from stardom / then I fell / to this lowly prison cell,” Berry wrote as his jail time began.

Tax charges came in 1979, and another three-year prison sentence, all but 120 days of which was suspended. Several former female employees later sued Berry for allegedly videotaping them in the restroom of his restaurant. The cases were settled in 1994, after Berry paid $1.3 million.

“Every 15 years, in fact, it seems I make a big mistake,” Berry acknowledged in his memoir.

Born Charles Edward Anderson Berry to Henry and Martha Berry on Oct. 18, 1926, in St. Louis, he was the fourth of six children. His father was a contractor and a deacon in the Baptist church. His mother was a teacher and a school principal.

Berry grew up singing the church choir and the high school glee club. A fan of blues, swing and boogie-woogie, Berry studied the mechanics of music and how it was transmitted. As a teenager, he loved to take radios apart and put them back together. Using a Nick Manoloff guitar chord book, he learned how to play the hits of the time. He was fascinated by chord progressions and rhythms, discovering that many songs borrowed heavily from the Gershwins’ “I Got Rhythm.”

He began his musical career at age 15 when he went on stage at a high school review to do his own version of Jay McShann’s “Confessin’ the Blues.’ Berry would never forget the ovation he received.

“Long did the encouragement of that performance assist me in programming my songs and even their delivery while performing,” he wrote in his autobiography. “I added and deleted according to the audiences’ response to different gestures, and chose songs to build an act that would constantly stimulate my audience.”

Berry is survived by his wife of 68 years, Themetta “Toddy” Suggs, who married Berry in 1948, one year after he was released from the reformatory, and stuck by his side through his many indiscretions. They had four children.