I first notice him standing under a single fluorescent light in a back corner of the shadowy basement night club. His black raincoat is still buttoned to the collar, and a battered brown guitar case hangs at his side.

He is talking with two other Negroes, apparently his managers. While his voice is too soft to hold my attention, my eyes keep returning to his tired mouth and tired face.

The light glistens on the greasy jet-black ducktail precariously perched atop his head. Everything about him is adolescent--the lithe body, the tapered green slacks, the pointed brown loafers with black tassels and black socks. Everything, that is, except his ancient face.

It is the Psychedelic Supermarket, a damp basement garage just off Kenmore Square. No more than a dozen people sit at tables near the stage -- mostly teeny bopper couples with happy-colored beads and sad faces. Two workmen in cover-alls are folding up unused tables and chairs and dragging them past the three men.

The sound system screams psychedelic music. "I'm so glad, I'm so glad, I'm so glad." He stares at his feet, trying not to notice the workmen. "I'm glad, I'm glad, I'm glad."

Album covers line the near wall. The Electric Prunes, Surrealistic Pillow, Fresh Cream, The Grateful Dead--all call out in glaring psychedelic script. Yet there was something in that ancient face of 36 years, smiling weakly in the shadows, that recalls a younger, simpler time.

A time when songs sold in single 45's, and album covers could be read. A time when teenage idols dressed in pink-sequined tuxedoes and sang of schoolrooms and malt shops and juke boxes. A time when singers could have names like "Buddy" and "Elvis" and "Chuck"--"Chuck Berry."

Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. Elvis Presley retreated to the drive-in movie screen. And Chuck Berry stands here in the basement. "I'm glad, I'm glad, I'm glad." The workmen continue to drag furniture away, and Chuck Berry disappears.

More people filter in now--perhaps 50, perhaps a hundred. Chuck Berry passes through the rcowd of hippies, still in his raincoat, and no one notices. At a table near stage, a flatchested teeny-bopper with flowing blonde hair drags awkwardly on a cigarette and scowls dumbly into space.

"He started it all, you know," she says nervously, not breaking her stare. "Rock 'n Roll, I mean." She flicks an ash onto the floor.

No, Chuck Berry didn't quite start rock 'n roll. It had been part of the colored rhythm and blues tradition of the St. Louis in which he grew up. But you could say that he gave rock 'n roll to the Whites--and he should have known that he'd never get it back.

On stage, a new acid-rock group called "The Butter" is playing a new acid-rock number. It is a most unbutterlike performance, with a wailing lead singer who rips at your eardrums and a bass you can hear through your elbows on the table. The blonde is dancing quietly in the backstil smoking, still staring.

She must be too young to remember the spring day in 1955 when the world first heard Chuck Berry. Maybelline was the number, a new recording of the Negro rock song, Ida Red. It took three weeks to climb to the top of the national hit parade. Rock 'n roll was here to stay.

Chuck Berry slips on stage midst the buttered bedlam, carrying a greasy red guitar. Someone is aware enough to start a smattering of applause. Berry does not acknowledge this, but squats with his back to the audience and tugs at an amplifier cord. Quickly he tunes his guitar, places it back in its case on the edge of the stage, and again disappears.

He began singing in his high school glee club during the War. When his interests turned to rhythm and blues, he purchased a six-string Spanish guitar and an instruction book. Three years later, he started a small combo that played the cheaper clubs around St. Louis. The receptionists at four recording studios rejected him before he finally signed with Chess Records. After Maybelline, he went from a $14-a-night stand in East St. Louis to a thousand-dollar matinee in Cleveland.