Ellas McDaniel: a Bo-bituary
I just heard that Bo Diddley died today in Florida. He was 79.
Just lately a few so-called classic records made in the 50s have begun to sound a little quaint and clanky to me. If I don't hear "Jailhouse Rock" or "Heartbreak Hotel" for a few years I won't be complaining.
But as other people fade into the background, the sound and swagger of Bo Diddley's classic Chess/Checker sides makes more sense than they have ever done.
When people go into specially distressed studios in the East End of London with valve amps to try to commune with the spirit of raw rhythm and blues, the sound that they're hearing in their heads - and usually failing to achieve - is the sound that came crackling off records like "Bo Diddley", "500% More Man" and "Bring It To Jerome" and can still make old men do the thing that old men do instead of dancing.
I love everything about him. The square guitar, the huge specs, the mad lyrics, the braggadocio (who else would have dared claim that Bo Diddley was a gunslinger?), the accompaniment from the Duchess who rocked the ballgown-and-axe look, the texture, the mad playground insistence of the whole thing.
I interviewed him once for Sounds and they spiked the piece in order to give one more page to the Cockney Rejects.
Here he is in his pomp. Gaze on his works ye mighty and despair. And watch right to the end when he does the walk and the coloured girls do "do da doo da doo..."
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That
is astonishing.
Three chords? Pah. Luxury.
Charisma? Bucketfulls.
Yes...
...sad news indeed. A massive influence on so many things; the British R & B boom is one of the most obvious. I always found 'Say Man' particularly enjoyable. He was actually due to play a venue near me not long before he was admitted to hospital a year or so ago.
Those old Chess records still sound great to me; I still think most of Elvis' records do too, but yeah, 'Heartbreak Hotel' is a big exception due to the dreadful production job it got.
The Animals' tribute...
Time to listen to this, I think:
Which serves to remind us...
....how great were the Animals?
Bo's Influence.
All the greats covered him or paid homage as Bruce did in She's The One, but if I were to pick just one of his songs to point to as a sure indicator of his influence it would be Who Do You Love.
"I walked 47 miles of barbed wire,
Used a cobra snake for a neck tie.
Got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made out of rattlesnake hide.
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of human skulls"
Nobody makes a mess of this one. Jim Morrison is positively demonic on the version that opens the Doors Absolutely Live. The Band kept coming back to it. Townes Van Zandt did it cheekily. Even the Quicksilver Messsenger Service's whole album side version on Happy Trails is worthwhile. My favourite was Juicy Lucy's and I can remember as if it were yesterday when it graced the lower reaches of the twenty and Glenn Fernando Campbell's pedal steel with Ray Owen's growl ripped up Top of The Pops.
Farewell Bo.
The Bo Diddley Beat goes on
From Wikipedia. [Any additions to make? (To replace Roxette?!)]
The Bo Diddley beat has been used by many other artists, notably:
Elvis Presley ("His Latest Flame")
Bruce Springsteen ("She's The One")
U2 ("Desire")
The Smiths ("How Soon Is Now?")
Roxette ("Harleys And Indians (Riders In The Sky)")
Dee Clark, [ex-Hambone Kids] ("Hey Little Girl")
Johnny Otis ("Willie and the Hand Jive")
George Michael ("Faith")
Normaal ("Kearl van stoahl")
The Strangeloves ("I Want Candy")
Guns N' Roses ("Mr. Brownstone")
David Bowie ("Panic in Detroit")
The Pretenders ("Cuban Slide")
The Police ("Deathwish")
Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders ("The Game of Love")
The Supremes ("When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes")
Jefferson Airplane ("She Has Funny Cars")
The White Stripes ("Screwdriver")
The Byrds ("Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe")
Tiny Letters ("Song For Jerome Green")
The Stooges ("1969")
The early Rolling Stones sound was strongly associated with their versions of "Not Fade Away" and "I Need You Baby (Mona)". The Who's "Magic Bus" also is based upon the distinctive "Bo Diddley Beat".
Bow Wow Wow
All their stuff owed a lot to Bo but obviously their version of "I Want Candy" came out top.
The Velvet Underground
I am thinking owed a huge debt also listening to the clip on the blog.
The Velvet Underground
I am thinking owed a huge debt also, listening to the clip on the blog, as has been said before by someone I once read somewhere.
Mo not Mona
I've read Mo Tucker talking about her first and enduring inspiration for the drums - Bo Diddley.
2 more of the best Bo beats.
Don't bring me down and Roslyn*, both on the same EP by the Pretty Things.
(*Well, sort of.)
The Bo Diddley Beat
Shave and a Haircut - Two Bits.
That's some band soundchecking in Rock Heaven tonight.
Rock...
and Roll. RIP.
listen to...
Mumblin' Guitar, from his brilliant Have Guitar Will Travel. It still sounds like it has arrived from outer space through a particularly 50's-looking radio telescope, probably with lightning striking it.
That YouTube clip is pure gold. Thanks!
Two more
Neil Young, Get Gone:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=31069598&i...
and Bruce Springsteen, Ain't Got You:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=207010988&...
Just remembered this
The...
... Originator...
Here's two of his songs performed on The Last Waltz:
And From From The Outer Limits
To quote the old sod "Say you get together with the group, and we're all trying to be friends with each other, they'll all put like Pavement, Sebadoh, REM on; I'll put bloody Bo Diddley on, or an old rockabilly track that is completely out of tune. They go: 'It's out of tune' 'So fucking what? Chuck Berry is out of tune. And if Chuck Berry didn't do that, you wouldn't be in a job.'
King Rocker
by Generation X - Lennon and Elvis duke it out in the ring to Diddley's beat.
Me N' Bo
here's Bo alongside my mate Kieron and myself.
The photo was taken in a hotel in Letterkenny when Bo played the first annual Rock N' Roll festival (the 1st and only one as it wasn't repeated due to lack of interest). We walked into the hotel we had booked rooms in to find Bo drinking tea in the lobby so we sat down and had a drink and when Bo passed we asked him for a photo. He told us he couldn't stop as he was heading for the toilet but, fair play to the man, he came back to us after his business was done and chatted for a few minutes. The show he played that night couldn't really be called a blinder but it was better than a lot I've seen and, of course, the material was second to none. Everyone, and I mean everyone, should own this.
Sunglasses indoors Pat?
Tsk.
ah but
they're prescription glasses so surely I'm excused
The roots of That Rhythm
Chang kerchang chang (pause) chang chang is none other than the basic clave of Cuban son. Bo probably got it from Forties rumba and mambo records (someone here's bound to know for sure).
Here's one they made earlier:
And here's what's going on rhymically underneath all that racket:
It's your uncle Bo!
Sensational stuff
My absolute all-time favourite Diddley number, and also my ring tone, is "Hey Good Looking", which definitely sounds like a rhumba.
You can hear it here.
Ringtones
That's a good idea for a thread, if it's not been done.
Can I be pedantic (again)?
I believe his name was spelt Ellas, not Ellis. (And while I'm at it, elsewhere on this site can you remove the spare 'e' from the end of Gene Clark(e)?)
Sorry. I've been waiting for someone else to say it for 24 whole hours.
I'm still chewing the carpet. . .
over that extraneous "e" in "Hughie Greene".
That's my fault
Somehow I thought he had one.
That was Lorne and Graham
Here you go, the Word-relevant(ish) ones I most often see got wrong (not in the mag, God forbid, but on the blog and in general):
Green: Al, Hughie, the Scritti Politti bloke, Willie (New Orleans drummer)
Greene: Graham, "Mean" Joe, Lorne
Steven: Berkoff, King, Morrissey, Spielberg
Stephen: Fry, Hawking, King
Davis: Angela, Bette, Brad, Colin (conductor), Rev. Gary, "Free" George, Nancy (Reagan), Ray (Parliament), Rob (Mud), Sammy Jr., "Interesting" Steve
Davies: Barry, Dickie, Freddie "Parrot Face", Hunter, Mandy Rice-, Marion (W.R. Hearst's mistress), Ray (Kinks)
Steven King?
You sure?
He's there twice
You're right, of course. He's one of the exceptions to the general "ph=British, v=American" rule.
e's are NOT good
Fixed. Thanks Lucas and Archie.
More Bo Borrowing
The Who - Magic Bus and Sally Simpson Tommy movie soundtrack version
An untrustworthy man?
I'm currently reading ‘The Big Wheel', Bruce Thomas's memoir of touring with the Attractions, and by a strange piece of serendipity, on the tube this morning I reached the wonderful bit where he finds himself at a Bo Diddley gig in Sydney on a night off:
"In 'I'm Evil' he's improvising:
I'm a crawling king snake
I'm a hoochie coochie
I'm a trouble child
I'm evil
My middle name is misery
I'm a...
Bo mumbles and hits a chord: he's running out of ideas.
I'm ... evil
I'm a ...
I'm also very untrustworthy
Very untrustworthy! Next he'll be telling us that his library books are overdue."
Rather more prosaically, I saw Bo once at the Red Lion in Brentford, and a fine gig it was too. My mate Stuart and I often reminisce about it. The Red Lion has long since been knocked down and replaced by a drive-through McDonald's, and now Bo's gone too. Ah me.
Bo Diddley is Jesus
The Jesus and Mary Chain ~ Barbed Wire Kisses
Bo-wie
Sound & Vision
Here's another one...
... Up The Hill Backwards (from Scary Monsters...)
...and another
...Panic in Detroit from Aladdin Sane