All told, 2,400 artists and groups are listed, spanning the last five and a half decades and taking in all styles of music... It's testament to the influence and appeal of Chuck Berry's music that so many folk would decide to cover his songs... I loved the quote from Ted Nugent that precedes his live version of 'Around And Around' from 1981: 'This is a Chuck Berry song - you're all his children, you know.'

Now Dig This (December 2012)

Here's Vol. 3 in what is to be a 4-volume series, with Vol. 4 due out next year. We've reviewed the first two. This volume is entirely devoted to cover versions of Chuck Berry songs by other artists, and yes, yours truly is singing one of those you can find in here, with the band Filé Gumbo! There's a chart in the beginning listing the top 20 Chuck Berry songs covered by multiple other artists, and it shows "Johnny B. Goode" at #1 with 648 cover versions. "Memphis" is second with 433 cover versions. At the bottom of the list "I'm Talking About You" at #20 only has 87 cover versions.... so far! There are to be more cover versions from TV and lots of soundalikes in the next volume. You can have fun paging through this, looking for your own versions of Chuck's songs, or those of various artists you personally know or have collected. One would think if you were a Chuck Berry completist to the point of needing every cover version, this would either drive you crazy, or make you secure in the knowledge that there would always be something more to want and look for!

Marc Bristol, Blue Suede News (Winter 2012-13)

Get the Reff some glasses... He bloody needs them after this. The pages in this book must be thinner than an old Ted's hairline – you wouldn't think it to look at it, but the whole thing clocks in at over 600. That said, there's the best part of 2,500 artists catalogued within, as Reff's struck out to find every known recorded cover of a Chuck Berry song released in the past half-century.

If nothing else, it's testament to Berry's enduring influence over generations of kids with guitars, with the obvious (Stones, Kinks) rubbing up with the less-known (Spanish combo Los Chicos, whose 'Oh Baby Doll' saw release on a Berry tribute album in 2005) and the more surprising (Motörhead). It's also testament to something arguably going beyond obsession. Reff must really (no, really) like Chuck to want to have gone to all this trouble over release dates and catalogue numbers, etc... and you're going to have to be similarly fixated to want to find space in your brain for this much info.

Still, you can't fault his dedication. Volume 4 promises to focus on soundalikes, remakes of songs that Berry covered himself, and recordings that sound like they have some sort of connection with him... but actually don't. And then Reff might want to send himself off for an early bath. It boggles the mind.

Record Collector (January 2013)

The crusade by Morten Reff (indefatigable Norwegian collector, writer and Berry authority), to set in stone for posterity just about every known fact about Chuck Berry's musical career, continues apace. A brief recap – in 2008, Volumes One and Two of this epic took their starting point of reference as Fred Rothwell's definitive 2001 chronicle of Berry's recording sessions ('Long Distance Information', from the same publisher) and exhaustively listed issues of those recordings in forty-odd countries, plus all Berry's films, television and radio appearances, international tours; as well as detailed looks at Johnnie Johnson and Eddie Clearwater, respectively Berry's longest collaborator and finest copyist.

Later than originally intended, we now have the third opus, with the final one promised for this spring. Although the first two volumes could be bought as stand-alone books, they were presented as the first thousand pages and nineteen chapters of the overall monograph. This third volume now adds, in one single 'Chapter 20', a listing of worldwide cover versions of the Brown-Eyed Handsome Man's records which its further 600-plus pages struggles to contain! This listing is set out 'By Artist', with a parallel list 'By Title' set to kick off Volume Four, which will also contain hit cover versions, over 850 sound-alikes, non-Berry songs with similar titles (!), an index to the whole set and goodness knows what else – including additions and amendments to date (I just hope it includes Lenny Henry's wonderful 'Buck Cherry'!).

As to this new 'Chapter 20' Itself, where do you start? Well, if you have no interest in lists, then probably not at all; but I think that most Berry fans will, like me, at least embark on a 'Beat The Reff' session (geddit?!), to see If a few they know and love have found their way in there. Despite, unsurprisingly, finding no obvious omissions, I still kept on dipping in and revisiting and will doubtless continue to do so, which is the main attraction of any book like this.

Presentation follows that of the preceding volumes, in the usual attractive Music Mentor format and including around 250 label and cover shots, itself an area of fascination for many. As was only to be expected, this and the final volume move us very firmly into completist territory and the price may be a little rich for mere lovers of lists, no matter how fascinating, but, as always, that's where personal views of essentialness come in.

Once Volume Four Is here, though, Reff's avowed aim, of providing 'the ultimate reference guide to all aspects of Chuck Berry's career and legacy' will be complete... apart from updating, which must have started even as the proofs were being read.

Brian Smith, Blues & Rhythm (February 2013)