*(1963) Chess 1883 ''Nadine Is Ot You'' (N 005-16) (Take NA Master) Chuck Berry

''Nadine (Is It You)'' (N 005-16) (Take NA Master) (Chuck Berry) (Arc Music) (2:35)
Recorded November 15, 1963 at (Chess) Ter-Mar Recording Studio, 2120 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois

Name (No. Or. Of Instruments)
Chuck Berry - Vocals & Guitar
Johnnie Johnson - Piano
Probably Bo Diddley - Guitar
Rubin Cooper - Tenor Saxophone
George Patterson - Tenor Saxophone
Louis Satterfield - Bass
Odie Payne - Drums

Producers - Leonard Chess & Phil Chess
Recording Engineer - Ron Malo

Like ''No Particular Place To Go'' (number 5) and the two that followed, ''Nadine'' was written during Chuck's enforced stay in Springfield Penitentiary. This first record after his release did reasonably well on the charts, either in the low end of the Top 30 or just outside it, depending on whether you read Billboard or Cashbox. Recorded in Chicago on November 15, 1963, it features Johnnie Johnson on piano, possibly Bo Diddley on guitar, Louis Satterfield on bass, Rubin Cooper and George Patterson on saxes, and Odie Payne on drums.

Evenals'' No Particular Place To Go'' (nummer 5) en de twee daarop volgende nummers, werd ''Nadine'' geschreven tijdens Chucks gedwongen verblijf in de gevangenis van Springfield. Deze eerste plaat na zijn vrijlating deed het redelijk goed op de hitlijsten, hetzij onderin de Top 30, hetzij er net buiten - dat hing er vanaf of je Billboard las of Cashbox. Opgenomen in Chicago op 15 november 1963, met Johnnie Johnson op piano, mogelijk Bo Diddley op gitaar, Louis Satterfield op bas, Rubin Cooper en George Patterson op de saxen, en Odie Payne op drums.

"Nadine (Is It You?)" is a song written and recorded by Chuck Berry. It was released as a single in February 1964 and was the first music that Berry released after finishing a prison term in October 1963.

After his December 1959 arrest under the Mann Act, Berry eventually served a one-and-a-half-year prison term, from February 1962 to October 1963, for transporting a girl, age 14, across state lines. He had not released a single since "Come On" in October 1961. "Nadine" was recorded at a November 1963 session at the Chess studio in Chicago, his first after his release from prison. Another song from that session, "You Never Can Tell'', would also be released as a single. The composition resembles Berry's first hit, "Maybellene'', similarly featuring lyrics about pursuing a girl, though in "Nadine" the pursuit is not by car but on foot and by taxi. As Berry told Melody Maker, "I took 'Maybellene' and from it got ''Nadine''. As William Ruhlmann of Allmusic writes, the lyrics are distinguished by an "unusual use of similes," such as: She moves around like a wayward summer breeze; Moving through the traffic like a mounted cavalier; and I was campaign shouting like a Southern diplomat.

The song was released in February 1964 as a single on Chess (catalogue number 1883), backed with "O Rangutang". It peaked at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 7 on the Rhythm & Blues chart, and number 27 on the UK Singles Chart.

According to Allmusic, the song had a "profound influence" on the songwriting of Bob Dylan: "One need only listen to 'Nadine (Is It You?)', released in February 1964, and then to the 1965 Dylan album Bringing It All Back Home, with its surreal story-songs, to hear the similarities''. Cash Box described it as "a hard-driving, rhythmic pop-blues tear-jerker essayed with authority and feeling''. In the 1987 documentary film ''Hail! Hail! Rock And Roll'' (in which Berry performs "Nadine"), Bruce Springsteen praised the song's lyrics. Springsteen singled out the lines, I saw her from the corner when she turned and doubled back / Started walking toward a coffee-colored Cadillac. "I've never seen a coffee-colored Cadillac, but I know exactly what one looks like," Springsteen says in the film.

The song has been recorded by numerous artists including Steve Forbert, John Hammond Jr., Kevin Dunn, Waylon Jennings, Billy Boy Arnold, Dion, George Thorogood, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Juicy Lucy, Dire Straits, George Benson, Michael Nesmith, Motörhead, Dicky Lee, Stan Ridgway, and The Seldom Scene.

Source and more information see: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

* - Digitally Remastered

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