[Milsurplus] Chuck Berry and A.F.R.S.

[Hubert Miller]

The death of Chuck Berry yesterday reminded me of an anecdote i read about some decades back in a book by Joel Agee, son of 1940s
American novelist James Agee. Joel's Agee's mother second marriage was to a German communist intellectual ( perhaps an oxymoronic
term )  and one high in  the D.D.R.  cultural hierarchy. In Joel Agee's book, "Twelve Years: An American growing up in East Germany", he
tells about listening to A.F.R.S. - which would have been a sin in the D.D.R. - to a rock n' roll hits program. The G.I. playing the songs said
he was getting so many requests for "Roll Over Beethoven", that he'd play it over, and he did, seven times in a row. Agee went crazy
over this music, so alive and different from the stuff the D.D.R. broadcast.
I heard lots of A.F.R.S. in the pre-TV years ( there really was a time pre-TV ) and heard a lot of the early, early rock, but didn't hear this
particular program. I never heard any D.D.R., but i imagine it was strictly dullsville. At least into the late 1960s, when even the N.V.A.
( D.D.R. army ) troops started showing little signs of hipness awareness, like longer hair, and sometimes packing guitars.
A.F.R.S. - one of the very best memories of my youth.
-H
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