ArtsMusic
ANSWERS: 3
  • Elvis had 54 #1 hits Chuck Berry had 13. And Elvis only lived to be 42. Chuck Berry lived to be almost 100! I do think he was a better guitar player though. Elvis's guitar was pretty much just a prop! haha.
    • bostjan the adequate 🥉
      Where'd you get thirteen number ones? I only see one number one US Billboard listing for Chuck Berry.
    • Linda Joy
      That's what popped up when I googled "How many #1 hits did Chuck Berry have. Only it says 12 and not 13. Upon further investigation I admit you are right about him having only 1. Maybe what popped up were chart hits and not #1's even though what I googled were #1's. But thank you for your correction, however petty.
  • I prefer Chuck Berry. Elvis was a good-looking white guy who took other people's songs and hired musicians to play them, so he could bring them to a wider audience. The two big hits he had where he received writing credit, though, well, he didn't really do anything to deserve credit for writing them: "All Shook Up" was written by Otis Blackwell (music and lyrics), and Elvis said he liked the refrain, so the record executives gave Elvis co-writing credit. "Love Me Tender" is melodically identical to "Aura Lee," an older song. Elvis told his producer that someone should write new lyrics to it, so the producer had his wife write new lyrics, and credited himself and Elvis as writers, even though neither of them deserved credit for writing the song. Even though Elvis was famously always pictured with a guitar, hired help Scotty Moore played guitar on his records and in concert. Chuck Berry, on the other hand, wrote his first song "Maybellene" himself, played it himself, and record executives gave writing credit to Russ Fratto and Alan Freed, two disc jockeys, as a favour for playing their songs on the radio, even though those two had nothing to do with writing any of Chuck Berry's music.
    • mugwort
      I agree with you. Presley didn't write any of his hits. OTOH Chuck Berry wrote his songs. I like Elvis but I prefer Chuck Berry because he wrote his songs.
  • Two totally different styles, but Chuck Berry

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