Letter from Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan to Chuck Berry

Nevada Bob Gordon helping Chuck Berry 
strum while doing his famous duckwalk.
(Statue across from Blueberry Hill night 
club where Berry often played.)
 

One of the most memorable scenes in the film Back to the Future --yes, I know there were many, many, many--was when Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) took the stage and played electric guitar with the Black musicians who were performing on prom night. This was the 50s and when he broke into an insanely wild guitar solo, one of the players called his cousin Chuck (Berry) and said, "Hey, you gotta listen to this."  

Meanwhile everyone had stopped dancing and was just staring dumbfounded. Marty pauses to say, "I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it."

Thanks to Hollywood, we now know how Chuck Berry found his inspiration. 

In the year following this film the Voyager interstellar spacecraft was sent off to go where no man (or woman) has gone before. On board the Voyager were a variety of items from Earth to export to the stars. One of these was Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode.*

Here's the letter that was sent to Mr. Berry from Cornell University.

15 October 1986

Mr. Chuck Berry
c/o Mr. Nick Miranda
12825 Four Winds Farm Drive
St. Louis, MO 63131

When they tell you your music will live forever, you can usually be sure they're exaggerating. But Johnny B. Goode is on the Voyager interstellar records attached to NASA's Voyager spacecraft now two billion miles from Earth and bound for the stars. These records will last a billion years or more.

Happy 60th birthday, with our admiration for the music you have given to this world...

Go Johnny, go.

Ann Druyan

Carl Sagan

Cornell University

Ithaca, NY 

On behalf of the 

Voyager Interstellar 

Record Committee

The abandoned Chuck Berry house at 3137 Whittier in St. Louis

Photos courtesy Gary Firstenberg

"Turning Negatives Into Positives"

*Trivia: I was told that Chuck Berry actually took the riff for Johnny B. Goode from Louis Jordan's "Ain't That Just Like A Woman." Carl Hogan' guitar intro is note-for-note used by Berry years later.