Hello and welcome to the working songwriter, the show where today's best songwriters come to talk shop.

I'm your host, Joe Pug.

Each episode here, we host a distinguished guest, and we ask them to go deep,

on their inspiration, on their process, on the general ups and downs of making a life in music.

So whether you're a grizzled veteran, wondering why no one is paying the asking

price on eBay for your 1997 Parker Fly, or else, a scrappy upstart, desperately searching

for the old school marble composition books that don't have those ugly Manila three-section

dividers in them, this is your show, because ultimately it is what every writer seeks most,

an ironclad excuse to put off actually writing.

Hey, everybody, it's the last Friday of March, 2017, and before we get to our regularly scheduled program, we have a very, very important farewell to bid.

Thank you. The

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Oh Born Charles Edward Anderson Barry in 1926, Chuck Berry grew up in a segregated middle-class neighborhood in St. Louis.

Barry earned a degree in cosmetology and worked for a time as a beautician.

He began playing in local bands in the 1950s, notably a trio led by piano player Johnny Johnson,

and eventually Muddy Waters arranged a meeting for him with Leonard Chess of Chess Records in Chicago.

Chuck took an old standard song named Ida Red and rechristened it, Mabelene.

The song made Barry a star, reaching number five on the

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