Sweet sixteen

Before we get started, a word for all you Substack loyalists. Long before there were Substacks, writers wrote things called blogs. This is one. Please feel free to explore this blog’s vast archive — more than 800 posts — as you would any museum.

It was 16 years ago this evening — Feb. 25, 2007 — that I sat down and wrote the first post here at AM, Then FM. I had two good eyes back then.

Because I’m recovering from eye surgery to repair a detached retina, typing is a bit of a hassle, so I’ll keep this short.

Though the audience grows smaller every year, thank you to all who have visited and read and commented and offered encouragement over the years.

In the third year of this blog’s existence, I went to see Chuck Berry at our local casino ballroom. Of that night, I wrote:

“He opened with a little ‘Roll Over Beethoven,’ then a little ‘’Round and ‘Round,’ then a little ‘Sweet Little Sixteen,’ all played only slightly faster than a shuffle pace … then announced: ‘If you guarantee at this moment that we are in tune, we would like to open our show.'”

It was indeed sweet. So, from a record I’ve had for almost 50 years …

“Sweet Little Sixteen,” Chuck Berry, 1958, from all from “Chuck Berry’s Golden Decade,” 1967. My vinyl copy is the 1972 reissue.

Dig this, too. A lip-syncing but still swaggering Chuck is introduced by host Dick Clark and guest Johnny Carson on the second episode of the “The Dick Clark Show” on ABC. This is from Feb. 22, 1958, barely two months after “Sweet Little Sixteen” was recorded and just a month after the single was released.

Chuck may be gone, and Substacks may rule the day, but this old blog is gonna keep on keepin’ on.