ON PREVIOUS DAYS:

ON THIS DAY
Chuck Berry v the IRS

It was the THIRD time behind bars for legendary rock n’ roller Chuck Berry when he was found to have dodged $110,000 in income tax on 11th June, 1979.

He insisted on being paid cash-in-hand for his sometimes shambolic personal appearances, and his propensity for stashing it was so well-known that in Australia the authorities introduced limits on the amount of cash that could be transited across their border, specifically in response to him once stuffing $50,000 in his guitar case.

In this episode, Rebecca, Arion and Olly dig deeper into some of Chuck Berry’s former convictions; take a disturbing peek into his home video library; and reveal the true origins of the ‘duck walk’…

Content Warning: detail of underage, exploitative and non-consensual sexual acts

Further Reading:

• The New York Post on Berry’s scandalous sex life (2017):

https://nypost.com/2017/03/21/the-dark-past-of-chuck-berrys-scandal-filled-sex-life/

• Inc. on why Berry’s ‘musical genius was also his financial undoing’ (2017):

https://www.inc.com/jay-jay-french/how-chuck-berrys-musical-genius-was-also-his-financial-undoing.html

• Chuck Berry’s duck walk – a compilation:

ON THIS DAY
Chuck Berry v the IRS

It was the THIRD time behind bars for legendary rock n’ roller Chuck Berry when he was found to have dodged $110,000 in income tax on 11th June, 1979.

He insisted on being paid cash-in-hand for his sometimes shambolic personal appearances, and his propensity for stashing it was so well-known that in Australia the authorities introduced limits on the amount of cash that could be transited across their border, specifically in response to him once stuffing $50,000 in his guitar case.

In this episode, Rebecca, Arion and Olly dig deeper into some of Chuck Berry’s former convictions; take a disturbing peek into his home video library; and reveal the true origins of the ‘duck walk’…

Content Warning: detail of underage, exploitative and non-consensual sexual acts

Further Reading:

• The New York Post on Berry’s scandalous sex life (2017):

https://nypost.com/2017/03/21/the-dark-past-of-chuck-berrys-scandal-filled-sex-life/

• Inc. on why Berry’s ‘musical genius was also his financial undoing’ (2017):

https://www.inc.com/jay-jay-french/how-chuck-berrys-musical-genius-was-also-his-financial-undoing.html

• Chuck Berry’s duck walk – a compilation:

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OLLY MANN

Olly Mann made his name with another trivia-wielding podcast, Answer Me This! with Helen Zaltzman – and now presents The Modern Mann, The Week Unwrapped, and Four Thought for BBC Radio Four. He also has an A-Level in History, so Dan Snow beware.

REBECCA MESSINA

Rebecca got a passion for podcasting  working at The Week magazine and a passion for trivia appearing on University Challenge in 2011, making The Retrospectors her natural home.

ARION MCNICOLL

Arion started out in satirical news in Australia, then moved to the UK to work for ostensibly serious publications including The Times, CNN, and The Week… before realising that since around 2016 the news has all been satire really.

Do you have a day of note that we should cover? Or would you or your business like to support the podcast? Get in touch!

    11 Jun: Chuck Berry v the IRS

    It was the THIRD time behind bars for legendary rock n’ roller Chuck Berry when he was found to have dodged $110,000 in income tax on 11th June, 1979. He insisted on being paid cash-in-hand for his sometimes shambolic personal appearances, and his propensity for stashing it was so well-known…

    10 Jun: Benjamin Franklin's Kite 🪁⚡

    Benjamin Franklin’s legendary ‘kite experiment’ supposedly took place on 10th June, 1752, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to the traditional account, the future Founding Father flew a kite fitted with a metal key into a storm cloud to prove that it contained electricity, leading to the creation of the lightning rod…

    8 Jun: Who You Gonna Call?

    ‘Ghostbusters’ opened in US cinemas on 8th June, 1984, quickly becoming the highest-grossing comedy of all time.  The brainchild of SNL’s Dan Aykroyd - whose great-grandfather was a 19th-century psychic investigator - the film was pitched and delivered within 13 months. Drawing inspiration from 1930s ghost comedies, the wisecracking ensemble…

    4 Jun: Crazy Frog v Coldplay

    ‘The Annoying Thing’ is how the begenitaled amphibian animated by Erik Wernquist was first described; but by the time he released his first single ‘Axel F’ he was universally known as The Crazy Frog, and beat Coldplay’s ‘Speed of Sound’ to UK #1 on 4th June, 2005. The tale of…

    3 Jun: The Zoot Suit Riots

    Los Angeles erupted in racist violence on 3rd June, 1943 in a week of riots that exposed deep tensions in wartime America. California’s Mexican-American “Pachuco” youth had adopted the zoot suit style from African-American jazz culture. But to many white Americans the fashion appeared rebellious, unpatriotic and even threatening at…