Sir Paul McCartney recently said there would be no Beatles without Chuck Berry – and that is very much the case.
in 1973, the late ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ hitmaker’s publishers, Big Seven, battled Macca’s late band mate John Lennon and claimed lines and melodies of their super hit ‘Come Together’ were too similar to Berry’s 1956 song ‘You Can’t Catch Me’.
However, Lennon, at the time, insisted he was simply inspired by his sound.
In an unusual turn of events the ‘Yellow Submarine’ hitmaker settled the case by recording three songs by publisher Morris Levy.
However, it didn’t stop there as Lennon then countersued as Big Music proceeded to leak Lennon’s songs and he was then handed £60,000, a lot of money back then.