“Bo Diddley, a singer and guitarist who invented his own name, his own guitars, his own beat and, with a handful of other musical pioneers, rock ’n’ roll itself, died Monday at his home in Archer, Fla . He was 79.”
We’ve talked a lot about the man’s influence on us San Diego youngsters — in fact, we may have mentioned him more than any other single musician. This is the right time to discuss what made him so damn cool to us. Thanks again, Mr. Diddley.
“Gotta tombstone hand and a graveyard mind,
Just 22 and I don’t mind dying.
Who do you love?”
After getting the sad news I immediately played ‘Pretty Thing’. What a fantastic love song.I get goose bumps everytime. I think part of the allure of Bo was that he defied being conventional. I think as kids we recognized that and embraced him as a hero.
Bo was cool. He was a chubby dork in glasses, with a plaid jacket and a square guitar -- all of which he made assets. Musically, he was what some might consider to be technically limited -- but he turned the guitar into a rhythmic force, and doing so he completely reversed the roles of rhythm and melody for the first time in popular music. James Brown, Sly Stone and the later hip-hoppers took this farther out, but Bo did it first -- and was so incredibly African in his sound…
Shelly Ganz, of the Unclaimed, described the “Bo Diddley beat” as having “come off the boat, in chains”.
Yeah, and unbowed.
I purposely held back here, with the suspicion that someone, likely Jeremiah C., would come through and _nail_ the perfect comment. I was absolutely right.
Thanks Paul.
Ravel and Cab Calloway probably get props on the rhythm/melody thing, too -- and the powdered-wig set said that about Ludwig Van -- but Bo was the man who damped the guitar down to a two-chord drum!
Whereas most people walk towards the light. Bo is most likely headed towards the sound of Jeromes maraccas. The beat is dead, long live the beat!
the first time a girl broke up with me and it hurt real real bad i ended up on pats door step and he soothed my pain with a magic bottle of rye wisky ” yuck ” and -- mojo come to my house, ya black cat bone take my baby away from home.
ugly ole mojo, where ya been.
up your house and gone agian.
bo and pat put a hand on my sholder and said -- kid, welcome to the club.
Damn…
I have a nice collection of original photos of Bo. Put one up in my shop in honor of his Diddliness…
Had the pleasure of meeting him in Del Mar at the fair once. He was nice.
Got to talk to “the duchess” aka “Lady Bo” in SF some years later. She’s in the picture I put up today. She’s still at it I think. She was a much better guitarist than Bo if I remember correctly. I’m sure Bo would agree she’s a whole lot better lookin’ too!
I think I’ll always associate my shop here with the loss of so many legends of my youth. I’ve brought out prints from my collection to hang in my gallery for the deaths of Ray Charles, James Brown, Ike Turner, and now Bo Diddley. I’m running out of old pictures. Time to close my shop.
Bo is the last straw.
over and out
Patndhat
OK this is the DIDDLIEST!
You got to scroll the UTUBE menu for the “Roadrunner” bit. Dig the knee scratchin’ move and the white-boy on bass!
Gawddam!
Pat
Patrick: Great one … This clip is just one bad-ass move after another:
Bo Diddley was a gunslinger.
Among many innovations Bo put tremelo on the soundscape map, a mind-blowing, hypnotic sound…I don’t know anyone who used it like that before him, or after..not surprising as Bo was totally unique.
I saw Bo play at a club in NYC in 1985, he had updated his sound a bit by having a phaser effect on his guitar and more notably by putting a 4-on-the-floor funk backbeat under the Bo rhythm.
The added downbeat thump, combined with the trademark Bo sound, created a heavy, swirling groove that worked in so many ways..it was less manic a feel than the early records but it was so SOLID and phunky, and a total thrill to witness the legend continue to broaden his palette.
In 2005 I was back visiting in NYC, music-store hopping on 48th St., and I see a 1957 Gretsch Firebird model guitar in the window at Rudy’s music shop. Identical to THE first classic Bo guitar he played before he custom-ordered the square Gretsch or the crazy-shaped Thunderbird in the 60’s. The original Gretsch Firebird is a fire-engine red Les Paul-shaped model that is hollow inside. Total classic and stock..hump-block fingerboard inlays (only in ’57)…sweet. Despite it being in dire need of a decent setup and having an asking price of 5 grand I had to check it out for a while…and of course ya gotta play some Bo beat on Bo’s guitar…very satisfying indeed.
I walk out of Rudy’s store, cross the street to Manny’s Music which is directly across the way, and who is in Manny’s, being lovingly surrounded by half the staff of the store but Bo Diddley himself!!!!!
I tried to be a fly on the wall among the other flies and listened in as the Man shmoozed with the Manny’s managers…and I attempted to come to grips with Diddley Serendipity!
I desperately wanted to go back across the street, buy that Firebird, run right back and ask Bo to sign it, but a rare moment of common sense prevailed…
What a sad day for Rock and Roll…
The story is that when Bo Diddley toured with the Clash, he got $10,000 per show…and insisted on being paid in cash BEFORE every performance… so every night on stage he’d have the huge wad of bills in his pocket the whole time he performed.
I saw him play the Reeperbahn in Hamburg in ’87 … Another show I paid for with a capful of deutschmarks I’d earned busking that day.
Freaky! Thousands of miles away, Toby Gibson mentions the Zeros in a totally different context in a different thread.
I stand corrected, Tom G!
Hey Todd, Dave, Matt and Dave! Wow! been a long time. Todd remember when we used to share a room in the Greenwich Village West? John Kobey lived across the way? Very strange. Just talked to Kobey recently he lives in NYC and still looks very odd. Oh yeah Bo Diddley, I played Mona at an open mic for him, but the kids there were too young to know who he was. Hey Dave Rinck, do you remember David Rogers from High School? I wonder what fate befell him. Remember when he took an overdose of No Doze? Or the time you convinced that Parliaments were acid cigarettes?
Cole Smithey’s and my friend, film critic Glenn Kenny, was also thinking about Bo Diddley. I’ve encouraged Glenn to check out our blog, especially since we’ll need his industry connections when the movie finally gets made.
Hey Ted, Yeah I do remember that and I think Jerry was in there too. He would somehow manage to sneak in the building at night. Some sort of acrobatics involving the fire escape! Oh yeah John Kobey or Jack he made the S.F. exodus. I saw him around in the early years but then lost track of him. I think he and Jerry hung out a lot up there though. Good to see you’re doing well.
I think I moved out of Greenwich West when that big black transvestite across the way got hit in the head with an iron. After the Morlocks me and Kobey were in a band together. We were roommates at the time and he wanted to sing, the other guy played some guitar, we had a great bass player and this drummer from Thailand. GT Jesus and The Crawling Asylum, weird stuff like The Birthday Party or something. I had a 65 fender 12 string and I would crank it through my amp with the reverb and tremolo all the way, and I had a flanger and fuzz. It was friggin brutal … we had these stripper chics dancing on stage with us. We played Easter at Nightbreak and Jack wanted to release live pigs on stage. I didn’t take him seriously until there were messages from hog farmers on the answering machine! I talked him out of it by suggesting we get plastic easter eggs and fill them up with these millipede nightcrawlers from the bait shop. We threw a ton of them out onto the floor during the show. People were tripping out, they thought it was going to be candy inside. Some people were putting them in their pockets figuring they would eat their candy later … worm guts all over the dance floor. One time we played at the kennel club and Jack thought it would be cool to rig up all these flashpots and explosives, it came time to detonate them and it was like this tiny poof of smoke … too funny. Jack is seriously crazy, disturbed, he would get angry and storm out of every practice. One time he got so pissed at the neighbor he was hanging out his window swinging this sledge hammer. He would up hitting himself in the head pretty good …. I have a lot of fond memories of that apartment …
I saw Bo in New York my first time in the early 80s and it was incredible -- he played for almost 3 hours straight. Later on he played at the swap meet at San Diego’s Jack Murphy stadium so me and Mike Gomes decided to sell some stuff that day. We saw Bo perform but the biggest thrill was when he was walking around shopping in his trademark big black hat, and he actually looked through the stuff we were selling. I was dying!
I was looking forward to seeing him again in May of 2007 at the huge Green Bay Rockin’ 50s Fest (dumb name, great event), but sadly he had a stroke just before the show so I never got to see him again.
Bo Tribute from the Official Monster Raving
->William Hill Loony Party
Bo Diddley leaves the Stage
http://www.loonyparty.com/index.php?page=tribute-to-bo-diddley
It is with deep regret that we report the passing of rock ‘n’ roll legend Bo Diddley who died on Monday of heart failure at the age of 79.
Diddley, who was born Ellas Otha Bates in Magnolia, Mississippi on December 30th, 1928, moved with his family to the Southside of Chicago in 1934. Acquiring the nickname, Bo Diddley, he initially became involved in church music, but was soon to be found playing out on the streets and in the clubs with his own rhythm & blues band. He signed for Leonard and Phil Chess’s self-named record company in 1955. His first hit, “Bo Diddley” featured his trademark “shave-a-haircut-six-bits” rhythm which became such a huge influence on popular music. With other hits such as “Diddley Daddy”, “Who Do You Love” and “Say Man” he became one of the true giants of the 50’s rock ‘n’ roll scene.
His career received a further boost in the 60’s when the up-and-coming wave of British bands adopted his music as a major influence. The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Yardbirds, The Who, The Pretty Things (who named themselves after one of his songs) and many more recorded his numbers and exposed his music to a new generation of fans. Since then, he had been regarded as one of the true elder statesmen of popular music, regularly receiving accolades such as his induction into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm & Blues Foundation in 1997.
With his weird and wonderful instrumental sounds, idiosyncratic lyrics, garish plaid jackets and strangely-shaped guitars, he embodied the true spirit of loonyism and I’m sure fellow members will join with me in paying tribute to the great man.
-- Wynonie Harris, Shadow Minister for Real Rhythm & Blues