One of the most memorable and convincing scenes from the classic film Back to the Future involves Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly riffing on an electric guitar during an epic solo in the middle of his rendition of “Johnny B. Goode.”
For context, the scene in question takes place during the high school prom of Marty’s parents. Having traveled back in time to the 1950s, Marty is tasked with ensuring his parents share their first kiss at the dance so that he does not get erased from history. But when the prom band guitarist injures his hand, it is up to Marty to keep the music going so the romance does not dissipate from the air.
Hence, we get one of the most rock-and-roll scenes in cinema history where Marty plays the 1958 Chuck Berry hit three years before the world was originally introduced to it. Just how did Fox pull this off? Is he the ultimate method actor? Or is this more special effects trickery from the master, Robert Zemeckis?
Who really played guitar during Marty McFly’s ‘Johnny B. Goode’ performance?
Credit where credit is due, Fox really did learn how to play the song “Johnny B. Goode” for Back to the Future and that is the reason his finger movements seem to match the audio so well. However, the actual audio we are hearing in the film is from another performer, Tim May. Interestingly, Fox was taught the song by Paul Hanson, who ended up being in the film as the bass player in the band The Pinheads, according to ScreenRant.
The rest of Fox’s performance was a bit of a group effort as well. For instance, the vocals that we hear in the movie is not Fox’s, but the Jack Mack and the Heart Attack singer Mark Campbell. Although Campbell wasn’t credited in the film, he did get a cut of the royalties from the soundtrack.
In terms of Fox’s dance moves in the movie, those were all performed by him. But the dancing was taught to him by choreographer Brad Jeffries who paid homage to rock-and-roll greats like Berry himself, Jimi Hendrix, and Pete Townshend.