Cinemax just ran the movie Chuck Berry Hail Hail Rock 'n' Roll and I Tivo'ed it. They started out showing the Cosmo Club in East St. Louis. The movie was made in 1987 and the place was run down then, but the sign was still up.



What is the address of the Cosmo Club? Is it still there? If Chuck is the father of Rock and Roll, is this the birthplace of Rock and Roll?

Gary Kreie wrote:Cinemax just ran the movie Chuck Berry Hail Hail Rock 'n' Roll and I Tivo'ed it. They started out showing the Cosmo Club in East St. Louis. The movie was made in 1987 and the place was run down then, but the sign was still up.



What is the address of the Cosmo Club? Is it still there? If Chuck is the father of Rock and Roll, is this the birthplace of Rock and Roll?

You'll have to twist arms to get people to admit this. As much as I'd love St. Louis to be the home of Rock N Roll it'll never be given that title officially like New York and Hip Hop.



Spinoff: Any historic music venues in St. Louis ala Abbey Road? I'm pretty clueless about our music history.

Found this...



Near the end of 1952 he received a call from a piano player named Johnnie Johnson asking him to play a New Year's Eve gig at the Cosmopolitan Club. Berry accepted, and for the next three years the band literally ruled the Cosmo Club (located at the corner of 17th and Bond St. in East St. Louis, Illinois).

Source: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404700627.html



Also found this video which may be the same footage from the film.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kai2QKWCtHU

njenney wrote:Found this...



Near the end of 1952 he received a call from a piano player named Johnnie Johnson asking him to play a New Year's Eve gig at the Cosmopolitan Club. Berry accepted, and for the next three years the band literally ruled the Cosmo Club (located at the corner of 17th and Bond St. in East St. Louis, Illinois).

Source: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404700627.html



Also found this video which may be the same footage from the film.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kai2QKWCtHU

Thanks. I entered 17th and Bond on Google Maps, and it shows me exactly where the club was. Near Lincoln park.



Chuck joined with Johnnie Johnson and played there a lot. In the movie, Chuck talks about how he didn't invent he rifs -- he just adapted what he heard from Johnnie and others to the guitar. As he put it- there is nothing new under the sun.



But that is invention. That's how it works.



If the Cosmo club is not where the classic rock sound came from -- from Chuck and Johnnie, then where did it start? Is there a better claim? Why did Keith Richards and Eric Clapton come to St. Louis to manage this Chuck Berry tribute? As John Lennon put it in the movie, "If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry".

Unfortunately, the Cosmopolitan Club on 17th and Bond was leveled a few years ago. After years of neglect and sitting vacant, the building was destroyed. It's now an empty lot. I drove past the site last Wednesday and that area is in rough shape. There's no sign or marker noting the landmark and its history. Very sad.



On a happier note, Chuck's home at 3137 Whittier has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places! This happened yesterday. Chuck and his family lived here from 1950 through 1958 and was the place where he wrote and practiced his early classics. A true landmark.

Arch_Genesis wrote:I'm pretty clueless about our music history.

You're not alone. There's SO much more our area could do to highlight its rich music history- hopefully we'll see a real effort one of these days.

I see in the ads that Memphis is running in the Post Dispatch that it now bills itself as the Birthplace of Rock n' Roll.
http://www.memphistravel.com/

They probably point to Elvis or Sun Records as the reason. But I think East St. Louis/St. Louis can make a strong claim to the title as home of the Cosmopolitan Club and Chuck Berry.

Here is a description from the History of Rock web site that sure sounds like the evolution of what people now think of as Rock N Roll -- the kind Chuck Berry did first.

In 1952 Chuck Berry began to play professionally at different clubs in St. Louis. On New Year's Eve Berry joined the Sir John Trio. The leader of the group was Johnnie Johnson and the third person was the drummer Ebby Hardy. The Sir John Trio became the house band at the Cosmopolitan Club in East St. Louis and would be the start of Berry's long association with Johnson whose piano boogie riffs would have a great influence on his guitar playing.

The most popular music in the area among whites was hillbilly. The band played mostly blues and ballads, but Berry"s joking "hillbilly" songs were the real pleasers and it wasn't long before a white crowd got word of a black hillbilly and began coming to his shows

"Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering "who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?" After they laughed at me a few times they began requesting the hillbilly stuff and enjoyed dancing to it."
Chuck Berry, from "Chuck Berry: The Autobiography"

... Berry thought his blues material would be of most interest to Chess, but to his surprise it was the hillbilly "Ida Red" that got Chess' attention. Chess, a great blues label, in recent years had seen its market shrink and was looking to move beyond the rhythm and blues market and Chess thought Berry might be that artist that could do it. So on May 21, 1955 Berry recorded, "Ida Red" renamed "Maybellene," the name taken from a line of cosmetics, with Johnny Johnson, Jerome Green (from Bo Diddley's band) on the maracas, Jasper Thomas on the drums and blue legend Willie Dixon on the bass. Johnson's piano playing, the heavy drums and maracas and Berry's lead style gave Maybellene the hard rhythm and blues feel that balanced the country elements. Maybellene reached the pop charts and #1 on the rhythm and blues charts.

... The song went on to sell over a million copies, reaching #1 on Billboard's R & B chart and #5 on the Hot 100."

http://www.history-of-rock.com/berry.htm

The movie also shows an address for what was called the "Crank Club" at 2742 Vendeventer in STL. Looks like a building still remains at that corner (Kennerly), but not sure if its the correct building.

I see on St. Clair County real estate tax site that the site of the Cosmo Club at 1644 Bond in East St. Louis is now owned by the ST CLAIR COUNTY TRUSTEE, -- essentially the County.  (Corner of Bond Ave & Dr M R Lemons Blvd -- formerly 17th Street). They list the value at $153 * 2 = $306.00 for the two narrow parcels at the corner where the club existed.  It is now an empty lot.  

From "History of Rock and Roll", Chuck Berry is quoted as saying:

"Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering "who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?" After they laughed at me a few times they began requesting the hillbilly stuff and enjoyed dancing to it."

Chuck Berry, from "Chuck Berry: The Autobiography"

And from the Wikipedia page for Rock and Roll, referencing the three sources below:

In the documentary film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, Keith Richards proposes that Chuck Berry developed his brand of rock and roll by transposing the familiar two-note lead line of jump blues piano directly to the electric guitar, creating what is instantly recognizable as rock guitar. Similarly, country boogie and Chicago electric blues supplied many of the elements that would be seen as characteristic of rock and roll.^[20]Inspired by electric blues, Chuck Berry introduced an aggressive guitar sound to rock and roll, and established the electric guitar as its centrepiece,^[34] adapting his rock band instrumentation from the basic blues band instrumentation of a lead guitar, second chord instrument, bass and drums.^[35]

20. Bogdanov, Woodstra & Erlewine 2002, p. 1303

34. Michael Campbell & James Brody, Rock and Roll: An Introduction, pages 110–111

35.  Michael Campbell & James Brody, Rock and Roll: An Introduction, pp. 80–81.

Question:  Why isn't the state of Illinois buying this site and putting at least a plaque on this site and making it a regular part of any, say, Route 66 tour as the birthplace of what everyone thinks of as Rock and Roll -- created there by the father of Rock and Roll -- Chuck Berry.  Is it a Chicago vs. Southern Illinois conflict?  It is St. Louis vs Chicago?  Racial?  Crime?  I don't get it.  Sad that the venue Keith Richards chose for his tribute to Chuck Berry as the birthplace of Rock and Roll was torn down.  But I think Illinois is missing a big tourist opportunity by failing to stake their claim to the strongest case for the possessing the true birthplace of the worldwide phenomena known as Rock and Roll.

At only $306, I'm also amazed an historical society in St. Claire County hasn't bothered to purchase the property.  Or a Rock and Roll fan in St. Louis.

Here is the map from the St. Clair County Real Estate Tax Page:
http://stclairco.maps.arcgis.com/apps/w ... 1240233026

Google Maps View:
https://goo.gl/maps/HHsRdDkqC5CMypgV7