Remastered Twofer Reissue of his Classic Chess Albums from 1958 & 1961.
CD Reviews
On the ballad side!
tatu metsäpelto | Finland. How do you do? | 02/02/2003
(3 out of 5 stars)
"As far as I know, this album is the 1st C.B.-album recorded to be an album.. I mean, it's not a collection of singles and "fillers", the way it used to be in early days.Many people don't know how many-sided Chuck really is, and this album is a good change to get familiar with his ballad side. There is some latin-feelings (13 question Method), gentle blues (Sweet 16, a song by B.B. King, not Chuck's original Sweet Little 16, as mentioned in the song list!!), jazzy pop-ballads(The Way It Was Before) and, of course, 3 or 4 rockers and everything from between... Some may say that girl-choruses in some songs could've been left out, it's maybe true, but it's a fact that this is the most focused, arranged and produced Chuck Berry record ever, and that makes it interesting. Soon after this record Chuck was thrown in jail for 1 and 1/2 years and after that his concentration was never the same what comes to recording sessions... ..or maybe his last studio-record, the great 1979 "Rock It", comes pretty close, who knows...Highlight of this record is still a soft rocker "Route 66", I think it's one of Chuck's best ever... There is also a couple of throw away-songs, a silly pop-slower "Little Star" and an uninspired "straight from the sheet"-sounding reading of Little Richard's "Rip It Up" To everyone interested in different dephts and shades of C.B. this is a good buy!"
The Bible
David Booker | Denver Co | 06/06/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"One Dozen Berrys was The Bible for all Brit rockers ..this collection contains stuff you cant get elsewhere .. "It Dont Take But A Few Minutes" for instance,a great example of his C&W stylings cannot be found anywhere on his current releases plus this set contains Rockin At The Philharmonic, and Ingo; two great rare instrumentals . This 'two- fer' is an interesting and welcome re-release from this British label BGO (Beat Goes On )Check out their other Chuck Berry two -fer releases"
"Another worthy 2-lp's-on-1-CD title from the UK label Beat Goes On.Here,you get Berry's second lp 'One Dozen Berrys'('58)and his fifth longplayer 'Jukebox Hits'('61).For the record(no pun intended,but those two albums were originally pressed on the famed Chess label).Total of 24 tracks.Good to listen to late on a summer night,cuts like "Sweet Little Sixteen", "Guitar Boogie", "Reelin'& Rockin'", "Rock And Roll Music", "Route 66", "Run Around" and several others. An absolute should-have, specially for the asking price."
Lousy product
Traveller | 01/18/2009
(1 out of 5 stars)
"Thin reverberant sound. On the first 12 tracks (Berrys) all the information comes out of the right channel only. Totally annoying.
The separate CD editions of Berrys and Jukebox Hits are probably the ones to go for."