“The first record I remember wanting and then getting was Chuck Berry’s Flashback. I was probably about 10 years old and my mom bought it for me at Sam Goody.”
“My older sister had the soundtrack from American Graffiti, which I loved and listened to a lot. Buddy Holly, Del Shannon, and The Beach Boys were all on there, but my favorite song was “Johnny B. Goode.” It was the first time I really wanted to hear more of an artist apart from the song that I liked.
So the next time the family was at the mall, I asked if I could get a record. I found the Chuck Berry section in the bin and found Flashback, a double album, greatest hits compilation. The cover was horrible, but it had Johnny B. Goode and about 20 other songs which was plenty for me. I remember listening to album 1 over album 2 at about a 20 to 1 ratio.
Side 1, song 1 was my favorite “Johnny B. Goode” and in my mind it was Chuck’s autobiography. I can still picture the silver Pickwick record label on the vinyl and listening to “Maybelline,” “Rock & Roll Music,” “Memphis TN,” and so many more.
I was doomed, within a couple of years I got my first guitar and one of my brother’s friends taught me the riff from “Johnny B. Goode” incorrectly but close enough to make me happy.”
—Michael Eisenstein
Letters to Cleo’s first three albums Aurora Gory Alice, Wholesale Meats, and Fish and Go are presently available on vinyl for the first time ever at the Letters to Cleo website and at select Newbury Comics stores. LTC’s “Back to Nebraska” EP is also on store shelves—on vinyl.
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PHOTOS: JUSTINE UNGARO
