Postcard from St. Louis; sweet little seventy-five.(singer Chuck Berry)(The Talk of the Town)

It was not precisely a secret that Chuck Berry spent much of last spring in a place called the Four Seasons studio, not far from the airport in St. Louis, his home town. But few people besides family members and friends were aware that he was recording his first studio album in almost twenty-five years, or that the album, which will be released in early summer, will include a dozen new songs.

One day not long ago, Berry took a break from recording and drove from the Interbelt industrial park, where the studio is situated, to a nearby Wendy's. He drives a silver Toyota Avalon XL, with a string of purple Mardi Gras beads swaying from the rearview mirror. He wore a bolo tie with a black silk casino jacket and his trademark sailor's cap. "It keeps the sun out of my eyes," he said. "Baseball caps are better, but Chuck Berry is no hip-hop salesman."

Berry, who is seventy-five, lives in a stone manor house in Ladue, a suburb inhabited mainly by Monsanto and Anheuser-Busch executives. He stays in shape by lifting bricks, mowing the lawn, and working in his carpenter's shed. Once a month, he performs in the basement of Blueberry Hill, a music venue near Washington University that is owned by his friend Joe Edwards, and he still follows the St. Louis Cardinals. It's a low-key sort of life for a publicly angry man who spent three years in reform school after an armed-robbery conviction in his teens, and who, in his thirties, served twenty months for violating the Mann Act.

When he arrived at Wendy's, two young fans approached, carrying yellow napkins to be autographed. Berry obliges autograph seekers, who are mostly white college kids; he usually draws a smiley face next to his signature. At the counter, he asked for a double cheeseburger, chili, fries, and a Frosty. "France has the worst restaurants of all," he said. "They have scrawny chickens in their windows and serve horrible onion soup that tastes like dishwater. And then the European press has the nerve to say I'm difficult. Man, there is nothing funny about being hungry in a foreign land and reporters asking you dumb questions about your hits. Of course you're going to snap. Do you know what I miss over there? Chili, steaks, pork, oatmeal, buttermilk, and good hamburgers. My dad used to grow vegetables when I was young: cucumbers, squash, tomatoes -- you name it. The vegetables in Europe don't compare."

He brought the food in a bag back to the studio, and as he ate he talked about the new album. A song entitled ...