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Sweet Little Sixteen was a Rock and Roll hit for Chuck Berry in 1958, reaching number 2 in the charts. This song would probably be ranked as a good old rock and roll tune without much further comment, had it not been for Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.
Berry’s songs found new popularity in the British-Invasion era of the early 60’s, as many bands including notably The Rolling Stones and The Beatles covered his early hits. You can say that Chuck Berry was one of the early pioneers of rock and roll music, as it emerged from the Blues scene in the 50’s. The Beach Boys went one step further, and not only covered his songs, but amended the lyrics… Sweet Little Sixteen, a song about a young fan attending concerts around the country is replicated in Surfin’ U.S.A. The melody and music is the same, the subject of the song is almost the same, and there isn’t that much change in the lyrics.
Originally, Surfin’ U.S.A. was credited to Brian Wilson, with no reference to Chuck Berry. Wilson must have been crazy to think he could get away with that! At the time, Berry was not approached for permission to use his music. Some year’s after Surfin’ U.S.A. was released, Chuck Berry filed a lawsuit against the Beach Boys, which he won, and any subsequent releases of Surfin’ U.S.A. are correctly credited to Berry/Wilson (Berry for the music, Wilson for the lyrics).
Chuck Berry received writing credits on The Beach Boys Surfin' USA
November 22nd, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Do I have to sue to get credit for alerting you to this?
February 22nd, 2010 at 6:20 am
[...] remember commenting on a previous Chuck Berry song, “Chuck Berry: Sweet Little Sixteen” how Berry’s music were almost identical to The Beach Boys 1963 hit [...]