Product Description

Unlike his fellow original rock & rollers like Elvis, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis from the Class of '56, Chuck Berry remained quite vibrant in the '60s and even recorded some of his best songs--"You Never Can Tell", "No Particular Place To Go", and "Nadine" in the decade of Beatlemania. Including all of these classics and more, YOU NEVER CAN TELL: THE COMPLETE CHESS RECORDINGS 1960-1966 thoroughly covers this era over four discs and 108 tracks, 18 of which were previously unreleased. Capturing many different sides of the rock-&-roll giant--including his blues phase, great instrumentalversions of favorites like "Brown Eyed Handsome Man", and 45 minutes of a 1963 live show in Michigan--the box is a must-own for serious Berry devotees and an in-depth rendering ofone of the greats in his last essential era.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Drifting Blues
2. I Got To Find My Baby
3. I Got To Find My Baby
4. Don't You Lie To Me
5. Worried Life Blues
6. Our Little Rendezvous
7. Bye Bye Johnny
8. Bye Bye Johnny
9. Run Around
10. Run Around
11. Jaguar and Thunderbird
12. Diploma For Two
13. Little Star
14. Way It Was Before
15. Away From You
16. Down the Road Apiece
17. Down the Road Apiece
18. Confessin' the Blues
19. Sweet Sixteen
20. Thirteen Question Method
21. Stop and Listen
22. I Still Got the Blues
23. I'm Just a Lucky So and So
24. Mad Lad
25. Surfin' Steel (Cryin' Steel)
26. Route 66
27. Route 66 (Alt. Take 11)
28. I'm Talking About You
29. Rip It Up
30. Come On
31. Come On (Alternate - Stereo)
32. Adulteen
33. Man and the Donkey

Disc 2:

1. Go Go Go
2. Go Go Go
3. Trick or Treat
4. Brown Eyed Handsome Man
5. Brown Eyed Handsome Man
6. Brown Eyed Handsome Man
7. All Aboard
8. Live Recordings
9. Guitar Boogie
10. Let It Rock
11. Almost Grown
12. Chuck Berry Dialog
13. Johnny B. Goode
14. Introduction/Instrumental
15. Sweet Little Sixteen
16. Wee Wee Hours
17. Chuck Berry Dialog
18. Maybellene
19. Medley Goodnight Sweetheart/Goodnight/Johnny B. Goode/School Day
20. Nadine (is It You)
21. You Never Can Tell
22. Little Girl From Central
23. The Things I Used To Do
24. I'm In the Danger Zone

Disc 3:

1. Fraulein
2. Lonely All the Time (Crazy Arms)
3. O Rangutang (Unfaded Instrumental)
4. Big Ben (Blues)
5. Promised Land
6. Brenda Lee
7. No Particular Place To Go
8. You Two
9. Liverpool Drive
10. Chuck's Beat
11. Bo's Beat
12. Little Marie
13. Go Bobby Soxer
14. Lonely School Days
15. His Daughter Caroline
16. Dear Dad
17. Want To Be Your Driver
18. Spending Christmas
19. Song of My Love
20. Butterscotch
21. After It's Over
22. Why Should We End This Way

Disc 4:

1. You Came a Long Way From St. Louis
2. She Once Was Mine
3. Jamaica Farewell
4. My Little Love Light
5. I Got a Booking
6. St. Louis Blues
7. Shake Rattle & Roll
8. Wee Wee Hours
9. Honey Hush
10. Run Joe
11. It's My Own Business
12. One For My Baby (and One More For the Road)
13. Every Day We Rock and Roll
14. My Mustang Ford
15. My Mustang Ford
16. My Mustang Ford
17. Merrily We Rock and Roll
18. Vaya Con Dios
19. Wee Hour Blues
20. It Wasn't Me
21. It Wasn't Me
22. Ain't That Just Like a Woman
23. Right Off Rampart Street
24. Welcome Back Pretty Baby
25. Sad Day Long Night
26. Ramona Say Yes
27. Ramona Say Yes
28. Viva Viva Rock 'N Roll
29. His Daughter Caroline
30. Lonely School Days

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9977 in Music
• Released on: 2009-07-13
• Number of discs: 4
• Formats: Box set, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .50 pounds

Customer Reviews

"...Now If You Want To Hear Some Boogie Like I'm Gonna Play...It's Just Down The Road Apiece..."
"You Never Can Tell..." is the eagerly awaited second volume of Chuck Berry's Chess recordings (his initial output for the famous label was released in 2008 as "Johnny B. Goode - The Complete 50's Recordings"). This February 2009 US Hip-O Select 4CD set has 108 tracks housed in a slightly oversized 4-way foldout digipak that is itself tied with a string on a lapel on the front. It's not numbered, but is a worldwide limited edition of 5000.

The 24-page booklet on recycled paper is in colour and features an informative and affectionate article by FRED ROTHWELL - author of the 2001 book "Long Distance Information - Chuck Berry's Recorded Legacy". There's also detailed track-by-track annotation and the whole set has been transferred and remastered by Universal's ERICK LABSON - a sure sign of quality (he has over 800 mastering credits to his name including almost all of the massive Chess catalogue). The sound quality is wonderful, especially on the STEREO mixes - full of punch and detail...

There isn't room in this review to list all the tracks and where they came from, but as there's stuff fans will want to know, I've posted a separate detailed list of all 4CDs in the 'comment' box. It outlines what track is from where...

Each of the discs is coloured to reflect a different era in the Chess label while beneath the see-through trays are 4 albums pictured in colour - "Chuck Berry On Stage", "Bo Diddley/Chuck Berry - Two Great Guitars", "Chuck Berry In London" and "Fresh Berry's". Across each of the foldout flaps are colour shots of Chuck, which are beautifully reproduced - really classy looking photographs.

Niggles - the booklet has some sloppy mistakes in it - quoting "No Particular Place To Go" as Chess 1848 when its 1898 - the singles discography forgets "You Never Can Tell" on Chess 1906 (the title of this box for God's sake!) - and worse - other than the pictured albums, there's no LP discography whatsoever. You can be damn sure that if Bear Family had been handling his box, the booklet would have been done with care and pictured stuff from worldwide sources to thrill fans rather than make them yawn (see my reviews of their Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent box sets). The packaging and booklet are nice - they are - cute even - - but for such a major release on such a seminal artist, it should have been so much better...

Back to the music - most dedicated fans will have the 3 "Rock & Roll Rarities" releases from 1986 and 1999 and the unreleased stuff on the 4CD 1988 "Chess Box" - what they won't have is the 23 PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED tracks surfacing here for the first time anywhere. They're a mixture of outtakes, instrumentals and an unheard concert. My heart always sinks when I hear it's live (too much filler), but if anything the 11 on here are more lively than some of the studio stuff and capture the essence of the man and his music much better. It's from a gig in Walled Lake Casino In Detroit, Michigan in October 1963 and accompanied by good taping and an appreciative audience, Chuck's on rare old form - cracking jokes - playing the crowd like he does - launching into "Almost Grown" like he was 18 and his life depended on it - it's really great stuff...

A good set then - "You Never Can Tell" compliments Hip-O's Muddy Waters and Little Walter Chess boxes to a tee. I would have liked better presentation for sure, but it's the tunes and the great man's spirit I'll return too.

Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll! Deliver us from the days of old! Indeed!

masterpieces of music, horrible packaging
Chuck Berry is the king of rock for me, but this collection is very poor in his presentation, only a smal digipack with a small booklet, and a very overpriced one, really very expensive, really a shame

and now ¿where are the mercury recordings?....I hope universal also put out that ones

Chuck Berry "You never can tell"
Hip-O Select really come up with the good, don't they ? This is the second in the series of Chuck Berry's Chess recordings mastered from the original tapes, and WHAT a collection this is!

The sound quality is superb, and the disc's contain alternate version, and stereo re-mixes previously un-heard.

It's amazing, and sometimes overlooked that Berry recorded some true classic songs in the 1960's "Bye, bye Johnny", "Confessin the blues", "I gotta find my baby" "Brown eyed handsome man" "You never can tell" "Don't you lie to me" the list goes on, and they are all here for us to enjoy.

One or two little niggles prevent me from giving this 5 stars. I/ because the sound quality IS so good we can now hear, rather annoyingly "breath pops", and 2/ as previously stated by another reviewer, the packaging; you either like it or you don't. But, as this is packaged in a similar manner to volume one you know what to expect and you either take it or leave it. Me, I took it and am glad I did.

All in all a great collection of classic Chuck Berry. Go for it, before this limited edition sells out.