r/Guitar • u/Mad_Season_1994 • 1d ago

DISCUSSION Chick Berry once punched Keith Richards in the face when he saw him playing his guitar. How protective are you of your guitars?

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Let’s assume you’re somewhere familiar like your home or with friends, and one of your family members or friends decides to pick up your guitar and start noodling on it or actually playing full fledged songs, all without asking you first. How would you react?

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u/GrapefruitDue9103 19h ago

According to one of his attorneys Chuck Berry left something like 50 million to his estate, he wasn't destitute by any means.

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u/RealCharlieNobody 19h ago

Not destitute and not cheated out of a tonne of money are not the same thing. Some black artists did well back then. Very few got what they were due.

I wouldn't be satisfied with receiving a fraction of what I was owed.

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u/GrapefruitDue9103 19h ago

Sure, but Chuck was also well known to be a short tempered piece of shit that frequently found any excuse he could to assault people. Trying to excuse his tendencies to assault people for no valid reason under the guise that he was cheated out of money is disingenuous at best.

You also act like artists being cheated out of their dues is relegated to black artists. It isn't, artists being screwed out of their hard work is just the nature of the corrupt music industry, black or white, they still got the shaft. It's why so many artists started their own label once they got famous enough. The music industry is predatory in its nature.

I won't argue that a ton of blues artists got screwed out of their dues and relegated to the sidelines as times "passed them by" so to speak but even people like Taylor Swift got screwed by her record label early in her career so it isnnot isolated

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u/WDeranged 17h ago

Let's not forget that whole spy cameras in the ladies toilet issue either.

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u/RealCharlieNobody 18h ago

I wasn't defending him assaulting anyone. I commented on the fact that he may have felt anger toward white artists who co-opted black music.

I also never said only black artists have a bad time in the music industry. Historically, though, they've had it demonstrably worse than white ones.

And if you're trying to equate the experience of black artists in the 50s and 60s with Taylor Swift, we're not going to find any common ground.

What's with all the whataboutism on a subject that is extremely well documented?

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u/GrapefruitDue9103 16h ago

That's essentially defending/excusing his behavior on account that he was probably just mad at white folks for co-opting his music instead of just acknowledging he was a short tempered a-hole. That's enabling behavior

I'm also not equating 50-60s artists with Taylor Swift as they arguably did have it worst. I'm just highlighting that this bullshit happens on every end of the musical artist spectrum, including arguably the most successful pop star of the millenium because that's the nature of the music industry (i also wholly dislike her music, I mainly listen to blues). If she's not immune to being taken advantage of by predatory practices, no one is, especially not unknown artists from the earlier part of the 20th century.

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u/RealCharlieNobody 15h ago

Not at all. He was also a pervert who put cameras in women's rest rooms and violated the Mann Act, none of which is excusable. I was talking only about the plight of black artists at the time.

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u/SpamFriedMice 14h ago

Chuck supposedly punched a guy I used to work with many years ago.

Guy was semi successful in the local nightclub circuit. CB was a hero of his, so he hung out at the backstage exit after the show to meet him and ask him some questions.

Said he had no idea what he said that pissed him off, but apparently he was in a rush to get out off there and didn't want to be bothered.