Chuck Berry's fifth Chess Records album,
New Juke Box Hits, was recorded and released in the midst of the legal difficulties that would put him in jail the following year. That distraction seems to have kept him from composing top-flight material, while the attendant publicity adversely affected his record sales, such that the album contained no hits. The included single was "I'm Talking About You," later successfully recorded by
the Rolling Stones, and the album also contained "The Thirteen Question Method" and "Don't You Lie to Me," worthy minor entries in the
Berry canon. Elsewhere,
Berry filled out the record covering others' hits --
Nat "King" Cole's "Route 66,"
B.B. King's "Sweet Sixteen,"
Little Richard's "Rip It Up." The result is a good rock & roll set, but not in the same league with
Berry's earlier albums. ~ William Ruhlmann