Deathblog:
Bo Diddley 1928 - 2008

So it’s kind of gutting to get back from abroad to find that Bo Diddley’s up and died.

He of course having a better claim than just about anyone of being the originator of all that crazy, rackety rubbish I went over there to see and hear.

Don’t know if I’ve got the time or energy for a big post, so I’ll try to be concise.

Having read some of the other obits, I guess I’d like to try and make the point that there was a lot more to Bo Diddley than his ‘beat’, his square guitar and some dreary run-down of British invasion groups, post-punkers and garage revivalists who may or may not have dug him.

I guess you could say that where Chuck Berry was your main man in terms of establishing the mainstream of rock n’ roll convention by very knowingly kitting out black r’n’b with lyrics white teenagers could relate to and taking the whole deal to town with winning pop hooks and a big, bright sound, Bo Diddley is more like some fucked up old man of the mountain who might as well have been there forever, doling it out raw in his own uniquely twisted fashion, and changing the world – or all the bits of it that matter – a little more subtly, and a little more thoroughly in the process.

Yeah, that sounds about right to me I think – if you’re following the breadcrumb trail back to the source from a Classic Rock perspective, then Chuck’s your guy, and that’s fine, but if you’re tracing back the past fifty years worth of Underground music – better bow before Bo.

He’s got to be a dead cert for the greatest rhythm guitar player of all-time too (with all due respect to Sterling). His tunes – and it seems like he wrote about a million of them – are all knuckleheadedly simple, practically straight outta the cave… until you sit down and try *playing one*. Have a go, then you’ll see where the genius kicks in.

And despite the vast role he played in shaping the development of rock n’ roll, just about everything Bo Diddley recorded in the ‘50s sounds UTTERLY INSANE to this day, completely unlike anything else on earth, except other people trying to rip off Bo Diddley.

And the stuff he knocked out through the ‘60s, ‘70s and beyond was scarcely any less noteworthy – in fact, many rock n’ roll true believers would contest that his records got even gnarlier, more rocking and more nuts as time went on, refracting the developments of the punk kids he inspired back into his own mad universe, recording endless weird songs in his own homemade studio, answerable to no one.

I mean, he’s fucking BO DIDDLEY, for christ’s sake. What more do you need to know? Like the God of Abraham, he is what he is. The kind of name that can resound in legend forever, be all things to all people and never leave the earth.

He’s got a graveyard hand and a tombstone mind, he’s just twenty-two and he don’t mind dying.

(His earthly vessel nearly made it to eighty in the end, so I guess he must be feeling pretty alright about things.)

“Bo Diddley Is Jesus”, The Jesus & Mary Chain once declared, and maybe they weren’t just pissing around.

But enough talk! Seeing the guy in action will say more than this rubbish ever could.

First, here’s a young Bo Diddley, singing as usual about his favourite subject, Bo Diddley, on the Ed Sullivan show back in 1955.

A placid enough performance by today’s standards maybe, but I mean, can you IMAGINE being some kid, growing up in some suburban hellhole with zero contact with black culture, before rock n’ roll was an established phenomenon, before you even knew ‘the blues’ existed, turning on the TV and being confronted with… THIS?! It’d be enough to give you the screaming fits…



Ok, now move forward maybe, I dunno, 20 years (there’s no date on this next video, but I’d guessing ‘70s), and Bo’s right in the middle of the music world that those kids who probably watched him on Ed Sullivan went out and created, and what’s he doing…? HE’S SHEDDING LIKE A ABSOLUTE MOTHERFUCKER is what he’s doing.

Seriously, just watch:



And, to end, a few tunes.

You’ve probably heard the hits, but still, I’m going to post ‘Who Do You Love’, just because, and a couple of slightly more obscure numbers to go with it.

Until recently, I’d assumed ‘Pills’ was a New York Dolls original (it’s my favourite tune on their debut album), and thus was uproariously happy to discover it was actually a Bo Diddley song, rock n’ roll nurse and everything! Amazing! What a fucking punk! How many other ‘50s legends can you imagine layin’ down something like this as they cruise through middle-age?

‘Dancin' Girl’, which I first heard on the great ‘Songs The Cramps Taught Us’ compilation doesn’t require much of an explanation – it’s just plain rad.

Bo Diddley >
Who Do You Love?
Pills
Dancin' Girl

Oh, and finally, I can’t resist the urge to post ‘The Story of Bo Diddley’ by The Animals, a terrific and very funny tune which I feel will fill out the historical aspects of this post in a far more entertaining manner than all this hyperbolic midnight blather ever could.

The Animals – The Story of Bo Diddley

Labels: Bo Diddley, deathblog, rock n' roll, The Animals, videos