Tell me about the greatness of Bo Diddley.

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Jackson, Dec 21, 2019.

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  1. davmar77

    davmar77 I'd rather be drummin'...

    Location:
    clifton park,ny
    In their later years many artists like bo would use local musicians hired by the promoters. Most of time there wasn't any rehearsal since everyone knew the songs and the artist expected that. I saw bo in 1972 and his backing band was none other than the grateful dead. It was a hell's Angels benefit in NYC. It was during a week residence by the dead and this show was added later.
     
  2. zen

    zen Senior Member

    At Amazzon, it's going for $200 currently.
     
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  3. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    Bo Diddley's guitarist, Lady Bo, has to be the coolest female guitarist ever (sharing equal billing with Sister Rosetta Tharpe)...
    Lady Bo obituary: 'The Mother of the Electric Guitar'
     
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  4. Kingsley Fats

    Kingsley Fats Forum Resident

    I believe the harmonica player was Billy Boy Arnold who deserves a thread of his own. His brother Jerome played bass in Howlin Wolf's band before being poached by Paul Butterfield (along with Sam Lay) & played on his first album as well as East West
     
  5. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    One of the first LP's I owned was the The London Bo Diddley Sessions from 1973. I had no idea who he was when I got it, as I won it in a competition.

    Bo was touring Australia, and the TV Week magazine (our TV program guide) ran a promotional competition to win a copy of the album. I doubt that any of the subscribers of the magazine would have known who he was or his significance. I didn't know him either, but was ravenous to explore as much music as I could, which was difficult were I lived. The competition required people to write and indicate what was unusual about his guitar. I assumed that most people would have written "it is a square shape". However, I had read a book from the school library on the history of jazz (I couldn't get access to hear a lot of music, but I could at least read about it). So my reply, based on what I read in the book, explained how a lot of poor black people couldn't afford to buy musical instruments, so they would make their own, hence the development of tea-chest bass and jugs to emulate bass instruments, and making guitars out of found materials like cigar boxes, hence the square shape. In hindsight I don't think the editors of a basically celebrity-gossip magazine would have expected the sophistication of my entry, with the added bonus of my immature schoolboy handwriting.

    I was surprised to receive the album several months after the competition, and it was like nothing else I had heard before (this type of music was never accessible in the conservative society I lived in), and it took a lot to get my head around it (it was different to the saccharine pop and classical I had been exposed to). But, having very few records, I was determined to learn about the music, and I played it often until I got to love it. I still have the album, and the letter of congratulations that accompanied it is still inside the sleeve.

    [​IMG]
     
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  6. douglas mcclenaghan

    douglas mcclenaghan Forum Resident

    Bo shows the British Invasion a thing or two...
     
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  7. CraigVC

    CraigVC Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    A similar (same?) 4CD set is on Reel to Reel for US$11.26:

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CXBXQ25/

    Craig.
     
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  8. Sneaky Pete

    Sneaky Pete Flat the 5 and That’s No Jive

    Location:
    NYC USA
    I saw Bo back in the late 80’s and it was a great show. I know he wasn’t using a pick up band that tour because his drummer was a friend of mine. He was totally present and put on a great show. I love his Chess albums he was an innovator and a showman.
     
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  9. so I'm guessing that would translate to (using ' to indicate pauses)

    BO did lee BO/did lee HAVE '/ ' ' YA '/HEARD ' ' '

    ?

    I know the accents can shift a bit, as long as the 3/2 is stable


    DOC ta an(a) LAW/ ya AN~ a/in d AN~/CHIEF
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2019
  10. Two Sheds

    Two Sheds Sha La La La Lee

    I only have one compilation of his, but it's a good one. I already had a fair number of his songs recorded by other artists. I should check him out some more.
     
  11. groundharp

    groundharp Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger

    Location:
    California Day
    One thing you don't mention, but I recall reading somewhere 2 or 3 decades back, is that Bo Diddley plays guitar on the Mickey & Sylvia version of Love Is Strange.
     
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  12. Jackson

    Jackson Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    MA, USA
    Interesting that Wikipedia doesn't mention that, time to dig out my Mickey & Sylvia compilation CD, it's been a long time.
     
  13. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    I do NOT believe that Bo plays guitar on the hit version of "Love Is Strange" by Mickey & Sylvia. Bo was based in Chicago, and Mickey & Sylvia were based on the East Coast, around NYC. I doubt that their paths intersected enough to have a recording session together.

    But the rest of the story is VERY confusing:
    Supposedly, Bo might have written the song, possibly ripping off a guitar riff by Jody Williams, a guitarist for Howlin Wolf and other Chess artists, including appearances on some of Bo's recordings. But Bo never released his version at the time, and he claimed songwriting under his wife's name (Ethel Smith).
    On the other hand, Mickey & Sylvia also claim to have written the song apart from Bo, again based on a riff that they saw Jody Williams play in person at some gig. They released the song (based on Jody's riff) and had the hit. Also, Mickey was a superb guitar player, playing on many sessions for other artists, so there was no need to have Bo play on their recording (especially as Bo was much more sloppy of a player compared to Mickey).
    Whatever the case, Jody Williams is the one who lost out completely since he seems in both cases to have written the all-important instrumental riff, but received no songwriting acknowledgement.
     
    Last edited: Dec 23, 2019
  14. Luvtemps

    Luvtemps Forum Resident

    Location:
    P.G.County,Md.
    Bo Diddley wrote for and mentored many early artist-including-the Four Jewels from[D.C.].
     
  15. groundharp

    groundharp Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger

    Location:
    California Day
    Well, I can't cite a source, and in fact, it was MORE than 3 decades ago that I read Bo Diddley had played on Mickey & Sylvia's hit, because I remember briefly discussing the matter with John Cipollina, who was a friend of mine, so I had to have read it somewhere before he died in 89.

    As far as Bo Diddley not having crossed paths with Mickey & Sylvia, keep in mind M&S were recording a song that he wrote (I didn't know until today that he wrote the song), a song that had not been released up till that point, so they had to have had some level of contact with Bo.

    In fact, I've just done a bit of research and learned that Bo Diddley played for a week at the Howard Theater, and Mickey & Sylvia were also part of the show. Bo was playing the song as part of his set, and this is where M&S first heard the song. Although Bo was under contract to Chess, he made a deal with M&S where they paid him a couple thousand dollars and credited the tune to Bo's wife (she wasn't under contract to Chess). So Bo Diddley definitely DID have direct contact with M&S. I find it entirely credible that he played on their record.

    Yes, I'm aware of Mickey Baker's reputation as a guitarist -- which is why I was surprised when I read that Bo played guitar on their version of Love Is Strange. Probably both Baker AND Diddley play on the recording.
     
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  16. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    I have that beauty and this 2fer of his first two UK released albums:

    [​IMG]

    Wonderful.
     
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  17. Jonny W

    Jonny W Forum Resident

    Location:
    Orangeburg NY
    There's a wonderful picture of young Jimi Hendrix in his air force barracks,
    in a rock 'n' roll stance, wielding his guitar--and propped on his bed for the
    benefit of the camera is the album Bo Diddley is a Gunslinger. I think it's
    in the Charles Cross biography of Hendrix.
     
  18. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Thanks for all of that information.

    It may be too late in time though to get a 100% account of what really happened.
     
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  19. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Cool!
    [​IMG]
     
  20. Crimson Witch

    Crimson Witch Roll across the floor thru the hole & out the door

    Location:
    Lower Michigan
    Bo Diddley was a gunslinger, a lover, a twister, a headhunter, taxidermist, and tailor ..
    ;)

    .. purveyor of the five-accent rhythm mojo combined with sub-Saharan African beat, a colossal guitar player ..

    .. and he knew how to have a good time.
     
  21. Jonny W

    Jonny W Forum Resident

    Location:
    Orangeburg NY

    Thank you!! Is that a picture worth a thousand words or what? Think of the hat Jimi was wearing a few years later....
     
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  22. pool_of_tears

    pool_of_tears Searching For Simplicity

    Location:
    Midwest
    That one chord rhythm...yeah, Bo had style.
     
  23. mretrain

    mretrain Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Back in the mid 80s Bo played a show in Glasgow & a show in Edinburgh on the same night- they’re not that far apart - and he wasn’t happy about it.

    i got to interview him after the Edinburgh show - the second - and as it was a previously arranged commitment he rather grudgingly agreed to do it despite clearly not being in the mood.

    He cheered up when I asked about him learning the violin as a child though, and by the end was in fine form. So, I said, how is it Mr Diddley that you don’t currently have a recording contract?

    “ Son” he said, drawing himself up to his full height and giving me a hard stare, “Son, the time ain’t right to sign cats of my CA-LI-BER”

    He signed an album for me which I had to sell when money was tight but always regretted it. About twenty years later I was browsing online & there it was, migrated from Croydon to New Jersey and tripled in price from what I sold it for.

    It’s on the wall now...
     
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  24. CrawdaddySim1

    CrawdaddySim1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indianapolis, IN
  25. CrawdaddySim1

    CrawdaddySim1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indianapolis, IN
    I'm checking out this song again on YouTube and had no idea that it was released in 1956! Pretty sexy tune for '56, and a pop crossover at that...

    As for Bo, I think of him as the original punk rocker (and even rap pioneer)... not only his experiments with noise, but putting the dozens to music like that ("Say Man")... way ahead of his time. If I were living in the mid-50's and heard Chuck Berry for the first time, that sound definitely would have turned my head... but Bo would have blown my mind.
     
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