On today's official centennial, here's our wrapup of the Springsteen Center's CHUCK BERRY @100 event
October 18, 2026
As today we officially celebrate the 100th anniversary of Chuck Berry's birth, we also celebrate The Bruce Springsteen Center For American Music at Monmouth University's recent Chuck Berry at 100 daylong symposium/concert, held in Monmouth University's Pollak Theatre on Saturday, October 11. Chuck Berry at 100 marked the first time that the Center held such an event centered around an artist other than Springsteen since its 2024 daylong Beatles symposium, as well as the first symposium it's held since it opened its new building last June.
This also was one of the best symposia that the Center has produced to date. Keynote speaker RJ Smith has written a great biography, Chuck Berry: An American Life, and his keynote address concisely summarized Berry's complicated genius, how his art and life were both shaped by and helped to reshape a racist and sexist society, why Chuck Berry mattered so much then, and why he still does now.
While yet again white males dominated the symposium/concert's list of panelists and performers, for the first time ever at such a Springsteen Center-sponsored symposium, two of the panelists were African-American women: Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) content director Marquette Folley and Monmouth University African American History Professor Dr. Hettie V. Williams. In addition to being featured panelists, at other points throughout the day both Folley and Williams also served as panel-discussion moderators, as did the Center's Director of Curatorial Affairs, Melissa Kozlowski. (Unfortunately the great music writer Holly Gleason, also originally scheduled to be a panelist, had to bow out at the last minute due to a temporary illness.)
This increase in diversity, however slight, helped greatly to enhance and deepen the discussions of all aspects of Chuck Berry's legacy. It is a complex legacy, to say the least. The excellent, enduring music and his continued cultural impact are, of course, Chuck Berry's greatest triumphs, and deserve continued attention, study, and celebration. To the extent that it could, however, given the structure and time-constraints of the day, Chuck Berry at 100 also correctly addressed the tragic flaws of both Chuck Berry himself and the social system that surrounded him. For more on this aspect of Chuck Berry at 100, we strongly recommend clicking here to read Kozlowski's Curatorial Corner essay about organizing and moderating the symposium's closing panel, "The Complicated Legacy of Chuck Berry."
After a lunch break, all in attendance were treated to something extra-special sent along by Thom Zimny, Bruce Springsteen's longtime film/video collaborator/archivist. Three Chuck Berry-themed video-clips from the Springsteen film/video "vault," one rarely screened publicly and another never-before-screened publicly, were presented by the Center's Executive Director Bob Santelli and Director Eileen Chapman, who also announced that Zimny will return in person to the Center's Powell Soundstage theater this Saturday, October 24 with From the Vault With Thom Zimny: Selections From The Bottom Line (Early Show) and From the Vault With Thom Zimny: Selections From The Bottom Line (Late Show.) The three Berry-themed clips were as follows:
"Carol" - the Chuck Berry classic as covered by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band during their October 11, 1975 concert (with Chuck Berry at 100 occurring exactly forty-one years afterwards) at what was then the Monmouth Arts Center and is now the Hackensack Meridian Health Theatre at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, NJ. This is Barry Rebo's single-camera black-and-white videotape recording (incomplete, with various video/audio drops and cuts during the performance) and featuring a bit of great Chuck Berry style duckwalking from both Bruce and Stevie Van Zandt. It's rarely been seen publicly, last screened in Pollak Theatre just over two years ago at the September 28, 2024 "Springsteen on Screen" event.
"You Never Can Tell" - This video-clip of a Springsteen/E Street Band Chuck Berry cover is the exact opposite of "rarely been seen publicly," being the viral video of "You Never Can Tell" as performed in Leipzig, Germany on July 7, 2013. It quickly became one of the best-known examples of just how quickly Springsteen and his band can assemble a great performance, allowing the audience - and eventually anyone else on the planet, via the viral video - watch them build the by-request performance spontaneously. It might seem like it's all "from scratch," but most of it's actually from decades of collective bar-band and in-concert learning/experience embedded within key band members. While it's doubtful that anyone in the room for Chuck Berry at 100 hadn't seen this wonderful footage previously, seeing (and hearing) it on the big screen and through the big speakers at Pollak Theatre was still a great treat. And as an extra treat, after it was screened, Bob Santelli invited E Street Band keyboardist Charlie Giordano back onstage to briefly provide his own personal account of being part of this amazing performance.
Jon Landau on the "Johnny B. Goode" riff - the truest rarity of this trio, never screened publicly prior to Chuck Berry at 100. It's a black-and-white, single-camera, and Barry Rebo-shot clip from the Darkness on the Edge of Town sessions. Apparently at some point during a break in the sessions, Jon Landau decided to explain on-camera to Rebo the greatness of Chuck Berry as both a composer and guitarist, demonstrating and analyzing the "Johnny B. Goode" riff while actually playing it himself on electric guitar, backed on drums by none other than Clarence "Big Man" Clemons! Zimny enhanced this wonderful footage by cutting in occasionally to vintage black-and-white TV/film clips of Chuck Berry demonstrating his own greatness. A truly beautiful little piece of rock-and-roll history all around.
The video-clip screenings were followed by two more panels preceding the closing concert performance. First up were the "Inventing Rock Guitar" panel, with Jersey Shore music legend Sonny Kenn, Stevie Van Zandt, and Bob Santelli, moderated by writer/reporter Nick Corasaniti. There was much interesting, illuminating discussion - and even demonstration - of Chuck Berry's guitar and songwriting innovations, and why they were and remain so important and foundational.
The talk centered much around Berry's immense importance to the 1960s British Invasion's guitarists, with Stevie Van Zandt humorously pointing out how those guitarists copped Berry's style and riffs but virtually none of his showmanship. Van Zandt even asserted that none of the Sixties guitarists other than Keith Richards got as much from Berry's guitar work as they did from his songwriting. It seemed rather odd, however, that the name of this young, impressive Sixties guitarist/songwriter/bandleader/showman from the U.S. never came up, despite a newly (re-)released archival concert performance...
...as well as this 1967 quote from him:
The final panel of the day, as previously noted above, was "The Complicated Legacy of Chuck Berry." Within the appropriate time-limit of just under an hour, the panelists did an excellent job of exploring in general the more controversial aspects of the other baggage that Chuck Berry carried with him, in addition to being the great, influential artist he was and will remain. A difficult conversation was handled with insight, sensitivity, and even just a bit of necessary, humanizing humor at times. Again, we strongly recommend reading moderator/ Springsteen Center Curator Melissa Kozlowski's recently posted essay about this panel.
After that came the music, which of course is always the best way to remember and celebrate Chuck Berry and what made him so great. Thus the day ended appropriately with an all-Chuck-Berry set, perofrmed by a stellar band formed just for the occasion, and pictured above in action, left to right: Charlie Giordano (piano,) Sonny Kenn (guitar, lead vocals on most songs - exceptions noted below,) Stevie Van Zandt (guitar, backing vocals, and lead vocals at times, as noted below,) Joe Bellia of The Weeklings (drums,) Vini Lopez* (drums, guest lead and backing vocals at times, as noted below,) and Chris Plunkett* (bass.)
*A bit of fun Jersey Shore/pre-E Street Band history here, as noted by Springsteen Center Director Eileen Chapman when introducing the band members... In addition to being a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame founding member of the E Street Band, Vini Lopez also was in Sonny and the Starfires with Sonny Kenn back in the day. And as a teenager, Chris Plunkett joined fellow teen pal Stevie Van Zandt and others in their mid-1960s band The Shadows.
The setlist:
"You Can't Catch Me"
"Rock & Roll Music"
"Back in the U.S.A." (with Vini Lopez sharing lead vocals, trading verses with Sonny Kenn)
"Nadine" (with Vini Lopez on drums)
"Wee Wee Hours"
"You Never Can Tell"
"Around and Around" (with Stevie Van Zandt on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, and Sonny Kenn on lead guitar and backing vocals)
"Little Queenie" (with Stevie Van Zandt on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, and Sonny Kenn on lead guitar and backing vocals)
"Sweet Little Rock 'N' Roller" (with Stevie Van Zandt on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, and Sonny Kenn on lead guitar and backing vocals) - arrangement and slight lyrical change based on Rod Stewart's version recorded for his album Smiler, and famously performed live in 1974 with The Faces and Keith Richards, broadcast on The Midnight Special in 1975
"Johnny B. Goode" (with Vini Lopez on lead vocals)
Hail, hail Chuck Berry at 100... and beyond! And of course... hail, hail rock and roll!
