music by Bo Diddley Text and Photos by Larry Benicewicz		Larry meets Bo at Bagnols Blues in 1996. Photocopyright by Carol Campbell
Bluesman and pioneering rock & roll legend Bo Diddley died of heart failure at 79 on Monday, June 2 in Archer, FL. He had survived a heart attack in August, 2007, three months after suffering a stroke while on tour in Iowa. At the time of his passing, he was undergoing rehabilitation for impaired speech. Although he never scored a million selling album and only hit the Top 40 once in his career with the 1959 “Say Man,” his influence upon the history of rock & roll is undeniable. Perhaps inspired by the individuality of a John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley invented his characteristic beat which not only profoundly affected many contemporaries but also a whole host of performers of the British Invasion of the mid-60s and beyond.  In an interview with Bo a decade ago, I asked him how he arrived at his signature rhythm, composed of chord changes in quick, staccato-like succession. First he dismissed theories about a “Latin angle” or “shave ‘n’ a haircut, two bits” or any input whatsoever from Delta bluesmen. “Well, it’s a Caribbean beat with a little primitivism thrown in. And it gets to be sanctified when I get to playing fast. Make you want to undress,” he said with a wink. Some have dubbed it an “Afro-Cuban clave;” but whatever its source (accented by the impeccable Jerome Green on maracas), it was simply revolutionary to play in such a way wherein the rhythm guitar was front and center as a lead instrument. In fact, within the context of mid-70s punk rock, you could see a direct relationship to Bo Diddley’s trail blazing approach—not much emphasis on melodic content. So when the Clash invited its idol to open for them on their world tour in 1979, it wasn’t an incongruous coupling at all. In fact, it was an easy, seamless segue from the roots of rock to one of its latter day ramifications.
Echoes of “Bo’s beat” can be heard in such major hits of the 50s as “Not Fade Away” by the Crickets (with Buddy Holly), which was later covered by the Rolling Stones, “Willie and the Hand Jive” by Johnny Otis, Dee Clark’s “Hey Little Girl,” and even Elvis’s “His Latest Flame.” Into the 60s, borrowers included the Strangeloves in 1965 with “I Want Candy” and Ronnie Hawkins, who in 1963 reprised Bo’s “Who Do You Love,” which included a positively scintillating guitar solo by Robbie Robertson, later of The Band. Aside from the Rolling Stones, with whom he toured the UK in 1963 (along with Little Richard and the Everly Brothers) and who early on resurrected his “Mona,” other British rockers who owe a debt of gratitude to Bo include the Who with “Magic Bus,” the Yardbirds with “I’m A Man,” and Eric Burdon and the Animals with “The Story of Bo Diddley.”
click to the photo, you see the poster		A strong argument could be made that Bo’s style with its heavily textured rhythm may have also given rise to elements of modern day rap or hip hop. As far as rap is concerned, you only need to examine the aforementioned cross-over hit, “Say Man,” and then draw your own conclusion. In this record, Bo and Jerome Green, in their typical macho posturing, “talk over” a highly rhythmic background, exchanging insults about their girlfriends. Bo says that his woman is “so ugly that she had to sneak up on a glass of water.” This kind of male braggadocio called “signifying” in that era anticipates a more recent phenomenon in the black community of “dissin.’” For example, a favorite present day retort might be: “If ugly was [sic] a brick, your girl would be a skyscraper.” Otha Ellas Bates was born on December 30, 1928, on a farm in McComb, MS. Abandoned by his father, he and his teenage unwed mother were raised by a cousin, Gussie McDaniel, who bestowed her surname on him and then seeking a better life after the death of her husband, she took the adopted family to Chicago in 1936. How Bo Diddley’s self-taught manner of delivery evolved probably had to do with its origins—the street. Its simple no frills approach belies the fact that he was classically trained and in an instrument as sophisticated as the violin no less. Soon after his relocation to the Windy City, his aunt Janie took him to the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where musical director, Professor O. W. Frederick, taught him to play and he practiced everyday until his recent stroke incapacitated him. “No, I won’t bring the instrument to concerts. I can’t hit the high notes I want to. My fingers are too big to fit between the strings,” he said in the same interview. So, despite this extensive training in this more elegant and refined long hair music, Bo Diddley as guitarist in the late 40s and early 50s was leading small washboard trios and busking-hustling pedestri-ans for tips-at the market on storied Maxwell Street where he would be competing with the likes of Little Walter and Joe Hill Louis. One of his first bands was the Hipsters, which included washtub bass player and “runnin’ buddy,” Roosevelt Jackson. By the advent of the 50s, the group became the Langley Avenue Jive Cats (where both Jackson and Diddley resided) with the arrival of Jerome Green and the occasional inclusion of guitarist Jody Williams or John Lee Williamson (Sonny Boy I) protégé, Billy Boy Arnold. By the middle of the decade, this latter ensemble was coalescing to a degree that they became a much sought after act and were invited indoors, performing to packed houses at South Side clubs like the 708, Castle Rock, and the Sawdust Trail, all in the vicinity of State and 50th Sts. They also composed a catchy off color song, much like Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-A-Ling,” which was oft requested in this bar circuit. Bo confirmed the title---“Dirty Muther F**ker.” Convinced that the tune was a winner, Bo auditioned it first at one the biggest, black owned independent labels in Chicago---Vee-Jay, founded in 1952 by Vivian Carter Bracken, husband James Bracken, and Calvin Carter. But Ewart Abner, president and A&R man, turned it down, not seeing much commercial potential given its salty lyrical content. Leonard Chess of Chess records, Bo’s second stop, also agreed that no self respecting DJ would touch this material the way it was presented, but envisioned a hit if it could be cleaned up and made suitable for airplay. “It was Roosevelt Jackson, my bass player and former sparring partner [Bo in his formative years had been an amateur boxer as well], who suggested my nickname from grammar school---Bo Diddley,” said Bo. And on March 2, 1955 Bo Diddley made his first trip to Chess’s recording studio, a session which yielded “Bo Diddley” and its flip, “I’m A Man,” in which Lester Davenport on harp ably filled in for Billy Boy Arnold, who was then under contract to Vee-Jay. Released as Checker # 814 (a Chess auxiliary), the recording was a huge success, climbing to #2 on the R&B charts, and the reverse spawned at least three noted covers---Etta James’s “W-O-M-A-N” (Modern 972), Jimmy Griffin’s “She’s A W-O-M-A-N” (Atco 6060), and fellow Chess stable mate, Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy” (1602). For Bo, this auspicious single would be the debut of a nearly a two decade tenure with the label. Before this proud logo’s demise in 1974, Bo would go on to issue over 30 singles and a dozen and a half albums. Bo’s early sides for Checker included at times the Moonglows vocal group, the members of which, including Harvey Fuqua and Bobby Lester, were themselves big stars on the Chess roster. With experiments like “Diddley Daddy” (819) and “Diddy Wah Diddy” (832), it appeared as if Leonard Chess wanted to water down Bo’s rather rough-hewn product (lots of tremolo, echo, reverb, and no bass) a bit in order to give it a more marketable sound. But the trend didn’t last long as Bo, for the most part, was given free reign in the studio and settled into the groove which made him famous. “Whatever I created, it was all me. And no one at Chess, not even Leonard, controlled what I did,” asserted Bo in the interview. It was also apparent that the principals at Chess allowed him an unfettered hand in song writing, as well, since only one of his R&B smashes was not his own composition, but staff writer and session bassist Willie Dixon’s “You Can’t Judge a Book By the Cover” (1019). Soon his other talents emerged, that of producer and talent scout, particularly after his move to Washington, D.C., in the late 50s. For seven years (1959-66) he lived in the Nation’s Capital, first at 2614 Rhode Island Avenue in Mount Pleasant and later at 812 Rittenhouse St. NW.  It was Bo (who later became a fixture at Washington D.C.’s chitlin’ circuit stop, the Howard Theatre) who first discovered the rotund Billy Stewart as a singer/pianist in his mother’s choir and brought him to the attention of Leonard Chess in 1956. “Billy’s Blues” (Chess 1625), which flopped, first showcases the future soul singer’s signature stuttering, word doubling, and vocal acrobatics. Undaunted, Bo and his orchestra backed Stewart on his second effort in 1957, another of his compositions, this time for Okeh records, “Billy’s Heartache” (7095), also a failure. But this latter platter became a collector’s item in that it includes, as backup, Marvin Gaye’s (b. April 2, 1939 in Washington, D.C.) first vocal group, the Marquees. Bo, who produced and managed this doo-wop quintet, was also instrumental in having Gaye eventually join the Moonglows at Chess before the vocalist left the label to begin his distinguished career at Motown. By 1962, Bo had a studio in his home and it was in that year that he penned, played on, and arranged Billy Stewart’s first chart topper at Chess, “Fat Boy” (1820), which features accompanist Dave “Baby” Cortez of “Happy Organ” fame. Stewart would go on to become a major seller for the logo until his life was tragically cut short in an auto accident in 1970. Now classified as a rock & roller, Bo, with his patented, trademark rectangular guitar and often in the company of fetching, provocative, leather-clad rhythm player, the Duchess (Norma-Jean Wofford) and later Lady Bo (Peggy Jones), had one chief rival at Chess in the figure of Chuck Berry. And their careers at the label closely paralleled. As a matter of fact, they eventually even collaborated on an album, “Two Great Guitars” in 1964. Although their individual styles could not have been more dissimilar (Chuck’s was an amalgam of blues and C&W), their longevity at Chess could be attributed to at least one major factor: both were able to incorporate topical items of pop culture into their songs, which ironically made their records especially attractive to white teenagers. In other words, both had staying power in their cross over appeal.  So here were two black artists acting as unlikely arbiters of taste to a vast white audience. For Chuck, many of his releases centered about the peculiarly American fascination for the automobile, a vehicle which first liberated 50s teens from the sexual constraints imposed by their parents, but, for the most part, it was only the white teen  who could even dream of such a luxury. Songs like “Maybelline,” “You Can’t Catch Me,” “Jaguar and the Thunderbird,” “No Particular Place to Go,” and “No Money Down,” fueled and shaped their fantasies. Bo, himself, procured a number of his themes related primarily to television (at the time, another high-ticket consumer product out of the financial reach of the typical black family), a medium which was gradually becoming a force to be reckoned with as far as dictating trends and fashions---“Cops and Robbers” (850), “Road Runner” (942), and “Gun Slinger.” And a single such as “Surfer’s Love Call” (1045) and a 1963 album like Beach Party (LP 2988) addressed exclusively white pursuits. It should be no surprise then that both Berry and Bo Diddley were such draws for white teens who flocked to the rock & roll caravans of the late 50s and early 60s, hosted or sponsored by enterprising DJs such as Allan Freed and Dick Clark. Despite the fact that the majority of his disks were being bought by a hip, white, younger generation, Bo Diddley while on tour still encountered blatant racism, a fact of life which forced many of his peers, blues greats like Memphis Slim, Big Joe Turner, Champion Jack Dupree, and Mickey “Guitar” Baker to become expatriates, all discovering that the racial climate was much more hospitable abroad in Europe. Bo wasn’t about to resort to this drastic step, but found that he had to be particularly inventive, especially when finding something to eat on the road became problematic; so he shopped and then cooked his own meals on a hot plate back at the hotel. “I wasn’t about to go around to anyone’s back door, even if I was dying of hunger,” affirmed Bo. Nonetheless, Bo, who always had a strong sense right and wrong, must have seen the irony in the bizarre situation. Here he was a regular on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand program, who also appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1955 and on the slate of Carnegie Hall; yet, he could not get served at the most humble greasy spoon restaurant. Although they were quick to acknowledge Bo’s contributions their rock & roll repertoire, the groups of the British Invasion starting in the mid-60s were exerting their sway over the record buying public and rendering the rudimentary rock styles of artists such as Bo and Chuck Berry as obsolete. Despite the fact that Bo had an R&B chart maker as late as 1967 with “Ooh Baby” (1158), his association with Chess late in the decade could be described as a downward spiral of dwindling sales. However, at least one special evening proved to be his well received return to Los Angeles’ Whisky-A-Go Go club “which kept his name out there.” By then, he encouraged his daughters, Terry and Tammi, to follow in his footsteps in music and to make ends meet, they would often accompany him on the road on, respectively, keyboards and drums. “You know, they even recorded in group calling themselves the Offspring. Lord, I wish I had copyrighted that name,” Bo said in the interview. The decade did conclude on a positive note—his triumphant appearance with other rock & roll legends as part of John Lennon’s Live Peace in Toronto concert in 1969. As the 70s dawned there was renewed hope for a reversal of fortune, career-wise, as his 1972 tour de force, The London Bo Diddley Sessions was met with much critical acclaim. But after the death of head honcho Leonard Chess in 1969, the fabled recording company was essentially rudderless, having been sold to the GRT (General Recorded Tape) corporation. And this new California based concern was clueless as to how best to proceed with Chess’s stable of stars, including Bo, whom they inherited. After leaving Chess/GRT in 1974, Bo admitted that he made two serious mistakes. The first was joining Richard Nader’s “1950s Rock ‘N’ Roll Revival Show” which ultimately made its way to cinema as the 1973 Let the Good Times Roll. “Yeah, it put bread on the table but I had a hard time living down my image as just an oldies act,” he confessed. The other wrong move was hooking up with RCA, with the ill-advised 1976 album, The 20th Anniversary of Rock and Roll (APL 1-1229). This LP was an overblown affair which presented an intrusive, syrupy female chorus competing with a strident, overdubbed acid guitar, both against a heavy, monotonous funky beat. Bo’s voice is strangely lifeless, lacking in conviction as if he despised the production (which he did). Ironically, a single culled from the session was “Not Fade Away” (JB 10618) was not his composition but a song reconstituted from “Bo’s beat.” And its selection did nothing to dispel the notion that Bo Diddley was no more than an oldies artist. Not being able to make the transition to a disco performer (and not wanting to), he temporarily retired from touring to become deputy sheriff in Los Lunas, NM, and thereafter moved to Archer, FL, near Gainesville, where he eventually built a studio on his spacious spread of land. The decade of the 80s could be summarized as Bo’s emphatic return to the public arena as entertainer, which was given much impetus by his invitation to join the aforementioned Clash tour in 1979. In 1982 came a memorable cameo in George Thorogood’s (& the Destroyers) music video of his “Bad to the Bone,” yet another latter day record incorporating “Bo’s beat,” guitar riff. In 1983, Bo accepted an acting role in director John Landis’s Trading Places, which starred Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. Also, much more exposure followed in an engagement as part of huge “Live Aid” concert in Philadelphia in 1985. And 1987 proved to be a special year as he rerecorded with Los Lobos his “Who Do You Love” for the soundtrack of La Bamba, the smash biopic of Richie Valens, appeared in the cinematic release, Hail, Hail, Rock and Roll; and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH. The next year, he was a marquee performer at George H.W. Bush’s inaugural in former hometown, Washington, D.C. By 1989 Bo figured prominently in a nationwide advertising campaign for Nike, “Bo Knows,” opposite another Bo---Jackson of football and baseball fame. And, in the same year, he capped off this decade by being recognized with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. The 90s commenced where the 80s left off, as Bo continued on the comeback trail. In fact, this span of years could be easily characterized as one big coming out party for the rock demigod. Not only was he back in the studio on a regular basis, recording three fine albums of original material for the Triple X label in quick succession but also he was making more high profile appearances, like Bill Clinton’s inaugural of 1992. But what really jump started his touring again was the 1996 CD for Code Blue/Atlantic, A Man Amongst Men (82896-2), which would prove to be his last album. But what a project it was with a little help and a fine tribute from his celebrated friends and peers, young and old---Chess session pianist Johnnie Johnson, Billy Boy Arnold, Johnny Guitar Watson, Keith Richards, Ron Wood, Jimmie Vaughan, Richie Sambora, Jerry Portnoy, and the Shirelles on background vocals. And it was produced by none other than Mike Vernon of Blue Horizon renown. A real shot in the arm, its release immediately prompted a month long European junket (Vienna, Stockholm, Lisbon, Montreux, Copenhagen, etc.) to promote it, including a July stop at the prestigious Bagnols-sur-Ceze blues concert in the south of France where he appeared as headliner with Otis Rush and Popa Chubby. This Grammy-nominated undertaking proved to be the icing on the cake of quite an illustrious career and it no doubt contributed mightily to his receiving the 1998 Grammy for Lifetime Achievement. Well into the new millennium, Bo’s schedule was relentless. “I have to tour. I got no choice,” he told me. “It’s the only way I can pay my bills now. And it’s a damn shame somebody my age has to sweat so hard to earn a living.” This was a reference to the fact that in a moment of weakness, he, like so many artists of that bygone era, had sold away the rights to his songs, the retention of which would have afforded him quite a comfortable living in his “golden years.” Despite his various attempts at litigation, up until the end, he never did receive adequate compensation for his body of work, his royalties remaining irrecoverable due to the statute of limitations. “I thought they [the record men] were in my corner. But they robbed me with a dangerous weapon—a fountain pen,” he was wont to say. The royalties issue was always a sore subject with him, yet he never let the bitterness consume him. In fact, he saw himself optimistically as a crusader for social justice. In his later years, he relished his role as an elder statesman of rock & roll in order to deliver his message directly to the public. And the larger the forum, the better. For example at the Democratic Convention of 1992, he introduced “This Should Not Be,” which addressed the plight of the homeless in America. And a track of the Code Blue CD, “Kids Don’t Do It” (wherein he is joined by grandson rapper Philosopher G, Reese Mitchell), was intended to be a future anti-drug anthem. I’ll miss this true American original — his thick, horn rimmed glasses, dark Stetson, and that rectangular guitar which so many times played that syncopated beat but which is now forever laid to rest. One of rock’s true architects whose influences still reverberate far and wide, he was simply a true giant of the genre, much imitated but never duplicated. But most of all, I feel so much richer as a person having known him, especially when he was holding court  between sets and dispensing his pearls of wisdom. Over the years, he had become such an institution, such a part of rock & roll lore, that it would have been inconceivable that one day he’d be gone. And it’s going to take a long time for me to come to terms with it. Larry Benicewicz, B.B.S., BAS-JOURNAL
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