By Brad Tolinski, a longtime guitar journalist, former Guitar World Editor-In-Chief, and the author of Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen, Play It Loud: An Epic History of the Electric Guitar, and Light & Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page. He currently writes Guitar Land, a Substack devoted to the untold stories behind the music, players, and gear that shaped rock history.

I HAVE A small favor to ask.

As one of pop culture’s most omnipresent songs, many of you may feel a little numb to the charms of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” But I’m gonna ask you to listen one more time—with fresh ears—and marvel at the layers of brilliance packed into its two and a half minutes.

With his 1958 masterpiece, Berry created the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll folk hero in just a few snappy verses. As we all know, Johnny Goode wasn’t pounding a piano, crooning into a microphone, or blowing a saxophone. By choosing the electric guitar—sleek, modern, and unmistakably of the moment—Berry forged an image that would define the archetypal rocker for decades to come. Few fictional characters have shaped the mythology of an instrument as profoundly as “Johnny B. Goode,” transforming the electric guitar from a tool into a cultural symbol.

THE SONG’S OPENING riff is a clarion call—arguably the greatest intro in rock history. Performed by Berry on an electric Gibson ES-350T, it sounded, just as the lyric promised, “like a-ringin’ a bell.”

The tale begins “deep down in Louisiana,” where a country boy from a poor household is doing his best to get by. Johnny, we learn, “never ever learned to read or write so well,” but he possesses something better than a formal education or a diploma. He has raw talent, street smarts, and a guitar. His Gibson isn’t just an instrument—it’s his ticket out of the backwoods.

After introducing our hero, the anthem turns its focus to the guitar itself. It’s portable—small enough to toss it into a “gunnysack” and practice anywhere, even beneath the trees by the railroad. And it’s astonishingly loud. More powerful than a passing locomotive, Johnny’s soaring notes stop train passengers dead in their tracks.

By the final verse, the guitarist’s reputation has spread far and wide. As a growing legion of fans urges him on with cries of “Go, Johnny, go,” even his long-suffering mother is forced to concede that “maybe someday your name will be in lights.”

“JOHNNY B. GOODE” is a brilliant, uniquely American rags-to-riches story, but with a modern twist. Where Horatio Alger’s nineteenth-century heroes rose from humble origins to lives of middle-class security through hard work and virtue, Johnny succeeds entirely on his own terms. He is uneducated, solitary, and rebellious—a bad boy whose story resonated deeply with a generation of teenagers just beginning to identify with outsider icons like James Dean and Elvis.

The song thrilled audiences both Black and white, becoming a massive crossover hit, peaking at #2 on Billboard magazine’s Hot R&B Sides chart and #8 on the Hot 100. To teenage ears, Chuck Berry’s guitar signaled the dawn of the new era.

John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, and Bruce Springsteen were just a few of the working-class kids who immediately grasped the song’s sly moral, and recognized a good blueprint for fame and fortune when they heard one.

John Lennon pays direct homage to the man that inspired him, and millions of others, to pick up the guitar.

REFLECTING LATER ON the significance of “Johnny B. Goode” and his other hits, Berry often played down their originality. He said he was simply marrying the diction of Nat King Cole, the storytelling of Louis Jordan, and the swing of Charlie Christian, all infused with the soul of Muddy Waters.

“Ain’t nothin’ new under the sun,” he liked to say. But Berry was being modest. His synthesis of genres and his bold use of amplification were wholly original. If Charlie Christian (see Guitar Land #5) introduced the electric guitar to a mass audience, Berry gave it its grandest mythology.

But that’s not all.

THE SONG’S PLACE in our cultural pantheon was sealed in 1977, when NASA launched two spacecraft on missions to explore the outer limits of our solar system and beyond. Voyager 1 has since become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, now more than twelve billion miles from our sun, with Voyager 2 close behind.

Packed aboard each spacecraft is a twelve-inch gold-plated phonograph record containing 115 carefully curated sounds and images intended to represent life on Earth. A team led by astrophysicist Carl Sagan selected a precious handful of musical works from across cultures and centuries, including compositions by Stravinsky, Bach, and Beethoven, alongside traditional songs from Peru, Zaire, and Senegal.

And among this cosmic mixtape was, yes, “Johnny B. Goode.”

In a galaxy far, far away, Chuck Berry’s opening riff is still playing. If you want to hear how it sounds on the Voyager 1 and 2, fast forward to the 3:18:37 mark.

It was a controversial choice, but Sagan, a child of the modern era, understood something essential: there are few sounds on Earth more exhilarating, more life-affirming, or more unmistakably human than the opening electric-guitar lick of Chuck Berry’s immortal song.

The brilliant Johnny Winter keeps the flame burning on The Midnight Special in 1973—just another great guitarist tipping his hat to the source.

About the Author

Brad Tolinski is a writer and historian of the electric guitar. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of Guitar World and the author of several acclaimed books, including Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen, Play It Loud, and Light & Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page. He currently writes Guitar Land, a Substack devoted to the untold stories behind the music, players, and gear that shaped rock history. His forthcoming book, Blow by Blow: The Jeff Beck Story, is due out in July. → Check out Guitar Land on Substack