Volume 2 (Chuck Berry album)

"Volume 2" is a vinyl anthology LP audio record of hit Chuck Berry recordings, made and printed in France on the "impact" Records label. In the 1970s, it was available for purchase in U.S. music stores, with a small adhesive sticker on the reverse of the album jacket stating, "Imported/Distributed" by Peters International, New York, N.Y.

The recordings of the major hits "Johnny B. Goode" and "Rock and Roll Music" are monaural and the obverse face of the jacket bears the message "MONO STEREO" along the top edge, along with the catalog number 6886 407. A color photograph by Claude Delorme of Berry (judging by his appearance perhaps circa 1970 Berry), performing on guitar in a green and turquoise floral pattern jacket, takes up about half the area of the cover, which otherwise is in shades of red and pink. The Chuck Berry name in large block capital letters in black ink dominates the title area of the cover, with "Volume 2" in a significantly smaller font centered on the line beneath it.

The album jacket bears the names of ten of the twelve songs included on the LP printed above the Berry photograph, followed by "Etc."

Messages printed on the cover assure the owner of original recordings, presented with the permission of Mercury Records, "Enregistrements Originaux" on the obverse and "Avec l'Aimable Autorisation Des Disques Mercury" on the reverse. The album jacket design employs the English language for song titles, in accordance with the original Mercury releases (except that the "School" in "School Days" is misspelled "Scholl"), and for such phrases as "Produced by Roy Dea and Boo Frazer"; but most of the printed material appears in French, such as a message about a ring of graphics that appears on the record labels of side 1 and side 2 that serve as a visual aid to whether the phonograph platter is actually rotating at 33.33 RPM.

The product gives the listener recordings that indeed are familiar to former listeners of 1970's U.S. AM radio "oldies" shows as hit songs from the 1950s/1960's charts.

Track listing

ide 1 (Face 1)

# Johnny B. Goode
# Misery
# Scholl Days "Ring Goes the Bell" (sic)
# I Love Her, I Love Her
# Check Me Out
# Feelin' It

ide 2 (Face 2)

# Ma Dear, Ma Dear
# Fillmore Blues
# The Love I Lost
# My Tambourine
# Rock Cradle Rock
# Rock and Roll Music

On the record label itself for "Face 1", the title of the song "School Days" is spelled properly, except the subtitle for the English language song is given as "Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell" in the Wikipedia article on the song, but on this product the subtitle is spelled "Ring Goes The Bell".

The reverse face of the product jacket devotes almost half its space to color photographs of the record jackets of ten other Impact Records products, including one called simply "Chuck Berry". Below its photo, that LP is identified in print as "Chuck Berry Vol. 1", but the words Volume 1 did not appear on the product cover, evidenced by the photograph displayed. Impact's first Chuck Berry anthology LP included the cuts Carol, Sweet Little Sixteen, I Can't Believe, Sweet Rockin', Back to Memphis, Ramblin' Rose, Wee Baby Blues, Louis to Frisco, Bring Another Drink and Sweet Little Rock and Roller (misspelled on the cover), plus promised others.

Impact's first anthology of Chuck Berry's work was number 6886 403.

Information contained about Impact Records

Impact Records identified itself on this product as having been located at 74 Boulevard Vincent Auriol, 75013 Paris, along with a telephone number.

The product's packaging indicated, by its array of photographs, that Impact had issued at least nine other anthology LP's featuring at least eight other well-known British, Australian and North American recording artists, Jerry Lee Lewis, Louis Armstrong, The Platters, Procol Harum, The Beatles, Joe Cocker, The Bee Gees and The Who.

The title of the Beatles anthology was "The Beatles First and Tony Sheridan" (number 6886 556). It's cover indicated that none of the recordings included were from after the onset of their George Martin period. It also did not display Tony Sheridan's photograph (neither did it mislead by depicting Ringo Starr). The "Union Jack" cover motif showed color images of Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John Lennon from just a few years later in their careers, plus a black-and-white "mug" photo of Pete Best in a jacket and open-collar shirt.

The Jerry Lee Lewis anthology was titled "Jerry Lee Lewis" in its cover art, but was identified on this Chuck Berry product as "Jerry Lee Lewis Vol. 1" (number 6886 402}, indicating there may have been a "Volume 2 (Jerry Lee Lewis)" produced as well.

"Louis Armstrong" was Impact number 6886 404, "The Platters" was Impact number 6886 401, "Volume 2 (The Platters)" was number 6886 405, "Procol Harum" was number 6886 555, "Joe Cocker" was number 6886 554 and "The Bee Gees" was number 6886 553.

The LP "The Who" (number 6886 551), which included I Can See For Miles, appeared to consist entirely of 1960's material.

All of the recordings on the anthology of The Bee Gees pre-date the circa 1967 onset of their recording career in England. (See the wiki on the Bee Gees for 1967 recordings). [ The Bee Gees#Early years]

References