Chuck Berry, pioneer of rock and roll, celebrates 90th birthday by announcing he has a new album coming

John Lennon once said that if rock and roll were ever to have another name, it would be Chuck Berry

Berry performing in Monaco in 2009 (Reuters)

Chuck Berry turning 90 on Tuesday was a signal event in the calendar of world music. But birthdays, by nature, tend not to be a surprise. What was a surprise, however, was Mr Berry using it to announce the imminent release of a new album, to be called, simply, Chuck.

Mr Berry, widely credited with being one of the most important pioneers of rock and roll, is not, in other words, done quite yet. The LP, his first in 38 years, will be released during 2017 by Dualtone Records, the label that is also home to the Denver folk rock band, The Lumineers.

A longtime resident and a native of St Louis, Missouri, Mr Berry said he was dedicating the new record to his wife of 68 years, Themetta Berry. “This record is dedicated to my beloved Toddy,” he said. “My darlin', I'm growing old! I've worked on this record for a long time. Now I can hang up my shoes!”

Mr Berry, who was among the first ten musicians to be inducted into the Rock ’n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland when it first opened in 1986, will sing and play guitar on the upcoming album assisted by the same back-up group that has been with him for years. It includes his children Charles and Ingrid Berry on guitar and harmonica respectively.

Songs that will always have a home in the canon of American rock and roll music written and performed by Mr Berry include Johnny B. Goode, Roll Over Beethoven, Maybellene, Sweet Little 16 and Rock and Roll Music. When NASA sent the space probe Voyager into outer space in 1977, the only song it stowed on board was Johnny B. Goode.

For years, Mr Berry and his back-up crew, which also includes bassist Jimmy Marsala, who has played with him for 40 years, pianist Robert Lohr and drummer Keith Robinson played regular sessions at the St Louis club Blueberry Hill. But Mr Berry collapsed on stage in Chicago in January 2011 and has not played at the Blueberry Club, also a popular restaurant, since 2014.

“What an honour to be part of this new music,“ Charles Berry Jr. said in a statement. ”The St. Louis band, or as dad called us 'the Blueberry Hill Band,' fell right into the groove and followed his lead. These songs cover the spectrum from hard driving rockers to soulful thought provoking time capsules of a life's work.”

Neither Dualtone nor Mr Berry offered much detail about the new album except to say that the material would be mostly original and that he has been recorded the tracks in assorted studios in the St Louis area for some time. It’s not clear whether he would be fit enough to tour the material when it is released.

“It is a great honour to be a part of this record and the broader legacy of Chuck Berry,” said Paul Roper, president of Dualtone Records, which also hasn’t said when during 2017 the new album will become available. “This body of work stands with the best of his career and will further cement Chuck as one of the greatest icons of rock and roll.”

Mr Berry, who received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy in 1984, released his last studio album, Rock It, all the back in 1979. Groups that have recorded Berry songs over the decades have include The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and he was always lionized by peers including the late John Lennon, who once said, “if you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry’”.