Chuck Berry – The Great Twenty-Eight (1982/2024) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Chuck Berry – The Great Twenty-Eight (1982/2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:09:29 minutes | 708 MB | Genre: Pop, Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Geffen

The Great Twenty-Eight is a compilation album by American musician Chuck Berry, released in 1982 on Chess Records. In 2003, the album was ranked number 21 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list, the second-highest ranking compilation on the list after The Sun Sessions by Elvis Presley. It was ranked number 51 in the 2020 reboot of the list.

Out of print for many years, the compilation was reissued on vinyl by Geffen Records on August 4, 2017, five months after his death. All of its 28 tracks can be found on the 2000 Anthology two-disc set. Geffen later announced a ‘Super Deluxe Edition’ vinyl reissue, containing the original album, a new compilation ‘More Great Chuck Berry’, a live album ‘Oh Yeah! Live In Detroit’, recorded in 1963, and a 10″ EP called ‘Berry Christmas’.

A survey of Berry’s first decade of recording on Chess Records, it contains 21 singles along with six of their B-sides and one album track from Chuck Berry in London. Of those singles, eleven were Top 10 hits on the Billboard R&B singles chart and ten were Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.

This is the place to start listening to Chuck Berry. The Great Twenty-Eight was a two-LP, single CD compilation that emerged during the early ’80s, amid a brief period in which the Chess catalog was in the hands of the Sugar Hill label, a disco-oriented outfit that later lost the catalog to MCA. It has proved to be one of the most enduring of all compilations of Berry’s work. Up until the release of this disc, every attempt at a compilation had either been too sketchy (the 1964 Greatest Hits album on Chess) or too demanding for the casual listener (the three Golden Decade double-LP sets), and this was the first set to find a happy medium between convenience and thoroughness. Veteran listeners will love this CD even if they learn little from it, while neophytes will want to play it to death. All of the cuts come from Berry’s first nine years in music, including all of the major singles as well as relatively minor hits such as “Come On” (which was more significant in the history of rock & roll in its cover version performed by the Rolling Stones as their debut release). The sound is decent throughout (surprisingly, except for “Come On,” which has some considerable noise), although it is considerably outclassed by the most recent round of remasterings. In the decades since its release, there have been more comprehensive collections of Berry’s work, but this is the best single disc, if one can overlook the relatively lo-fi digital sound. – Bruce Eder

Tracklist:
1-01. Chuck Berry – Maybellene (02:19)
1-02. Chuck Berry – Thirty Days (02:24)
1-03. Chuck Berry – You Can’t Catch Me (02:43)
1-04. Chuck Berry – Too Much Monkey Business (02:54)
1-05. Chuck Berry – Brown Eyed Handsome Man (02:17)
1-06. Chuck Berry – Roll Over Beethoven (02:23)
1-07. Chuck Berry – Havana Moon (03:06)
1-08. Chuck Berry – School Day (Ring Ring Goes The Bell) (02:40)
1-09. Chuck Berry – Rock And Roll Music (02:30)
1-10. Chuck Berry – Oh Baby Doll (02:37)
1-11. Chuck Berry – Reelin’ And Rockin’ (03:15)
1-12. Chuck Berry – Sweet Little Sixteen (Demo) (03:00)
1-13. Chuck Berry – Johnny B. Goode (02:39)
1-14. Chuck Berry – Around And Around (02:40)
1-15. Chuck Berry – Carol (02:47)
1-16. Chuck Berry – Beautiful Delilah (02:08)
1-17. Chuck Berry – Memphis, Tennessee (02:13)
1-18. Chuck Berry – Sweet Little Rock ‘N’ Roller (02:22)
1-19. Chuck Berry – Little Queenie (02:42)
1-20. Chuck Berry – Almost Grown (02:20)
1-21. Chuck Berry – Back In The U.S.A. (02:25)
1-22. Chuck Berry – Let It Rock (01:45)
1-23. Chuck Berry – Bye Bye Johnny (02:05)
1-24. Chuck Berry – I’m Talking About You (01:46)
1-25. Chuck Berry – Come On (01:49)
1-26. Chuck Berry – Nadine (02:34)
1-27. Chuck Berry – No Particular Place To Go (02:41)
1-28. Chuck Berry – I Want To Be Your Driver (02:12)

Download: