Writer recalls chance breakfast with late rock legend Chuck Berry

The passing of rock ‘n’ roll legend Chuck Berry brought up a memory of a chance encounter I had with the man, a surreal moment where I almost had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

It happened at the San Francisco airport, when I had time before my flight to catch a bite to eat. I was just exiting the cafeteria line with my tray of scrambled eggs and bacon. As I turned to look for a table, there he was, just a few feet away, sitting by himself.

I think I stopped dead in my tracks, because I remember blurting out “Chuck Berry?!” I was so startled to see this musical icon in such an unexpected setting.

And amazingly, he gestured toward an empty chair next to him, inviting me to sit down.

My memory of the ensuing conversation four decades ago is hazy. But I remember he told me he had just done some recording, or was flying back to his hometown of St. Louis for some studio work.

My mistake shortly into the communal consumption of scrambled eggs was to tell him I was a newspaper reporter.

I’m not sure what I was thinking at this young stage of my career. Maybe that it could lead to an article, say a freelance story in Rolling Stone magazine.

I remember how his demeanor changed. It was like a dark cloud came over him and he began to rail against journalists.

Looking back, I can understand celebrities and famous musicians don’t always enjoy their treatment by the media. And there are plenty of hacks who cover entertainment and music beats.

As Frank Zappa famously said “Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.”

Chuck Berry also had scrapes with the law that were tabloid fodder. Maybe there were some reviews of his shows or articles that had rubbed him the wrong way, too.

I had seen him play a show in the early 1970s, at South Lake Tahoe. It was a modest-sized club, and my impression at the time was that he was on a downslope.

He played energetically and did his trademark duck walk, getting the crowd into it. But every other song he played seemed to have the same “Johnny B. Goode”-type guitar lick.

It didn’t matter that it was one of the most recognizable, seminal combination of guitar notes in rock ‘n roll history. It got old after a while.

Still, that didn’t dampen my enthusiasm maybe six or seven years later, to be sitting at the same table with this bonafide legend whose songs inspired the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys and the Kinks.

They covered his songs, as did just about every garage band over the past half-century.

Berry, like many entertainers, had peaks and valleys in his long career. There would be comebacks, tribute shows and accolades from his peers.

This was a man who helped invent rock ‘n’ roll, with perennially fresh lyrics that celebrated adolescence, school days, cars and drive-ins. His signature “Johnny B. Goode” is somewhere out in space, onboard the satellite Voyager One, for alien life forms that might encounter it.

In the years that ensued after meeting Chuck Berry, I would go on to sing and play a bit of guitar in a classic rock band, The Remedies. No originals, just covers. There was no pretense of writing songs to compete with established hits.

I didn’t have illusions about quitting my day job to play music. But I still do the occasional gig.

One of the absolute highlights was about five years ago, getting to play in Santa Rosa’s Rose Parade. Our band was pulled in the procession on a flatbed trailer, as thousands of people lined the downtown sidewalks.

The indelible moment, one that I will always cherish, was how the crowd reacted as we came into Old Courthouse Square, playing - you guessed it - “Johnny B. Goode,” the story of the young man who never ever learned to read or write so well, “but he could play the guitar just like a ringing a bell.”

They roared with appreciation at the familiar anthem, enveloping us with collective waves of energy as we passed by.

In the song, Johnny’s mother tells him that someday he will lead a band, people will come to see him from miles around and his name will be in lights.

I never saw my name on a marquee, but I’ve had the thrill of playing quintessential rock ‘n’ roll songs to appreciative throngs, courtesy of greats like Chuck Berry.

And once upon a time, I actually sat down to breakfast with him.