Go Diddley!

I walk 47 miles of barbed wire
I use a cobra-snake for a necktie
I got a brand new house on the roadside
Made from rattlesnake hide

I got a brand new chimney made on top
Made out of a human skull
Now come on take a walk with me, Arlene
And tell me, who do you love?

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You want badass? check this out, total fucking badass! What an entrance! What a guitar sound! What a dude! What awesome backing singers!

You know what dear listeners? this music thing doesn’t get any better than this. Welcome to Bo Diddley, welcome to 1958.

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Way back in medieval times popular music LPs tended to just be a mopping up exercise, collecting an artist’s singles and whatever additional cuts they had just cooked up. It’s why you are usually best served by a rock ‘n roll artists greatest hits, rather than whichever long player they had out at the time.

Interestingly Bo Diddley, cut between ’55 and it’s release three years later, really is a joyous exception; it really hangs together as a piece of work in the modern manner. Those Chess chaps knew what they were doing.

You know, or should know the drill by now. Bo just slaps down 14 slices of primal joy* infused with that wonderful loping, strutting, swagger beat, slathered all over with that comically endearing braggadocio. You think rappers invented preening boasts, near constant name-checking and ting? Diddley did, while diddling their grandmas; he really Diddley did.

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First up we need to talk about THAT beat. Let’s face it, nobody worth shagging could keep themselves still when subjected to Diddley’s ‘freight train sound’. Songs like ‘Bo Diddley’ and ‘Pretty Thing’ are all rhythm, proving that melody, lyrics, harmonics all those niceties just weren’t worth much of a damn; this is downstairs music. Slide on over and let Diddley and co drive, just give your feets the news.

So, obviously my three favourite tracks here don’t use the Diddley beat, #hypocrite. Again music doesn’t get much better than ‘I’m A Man’, especially when it’s a rip off of Muddy Waters’ ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’**, but originality is always overrated. The track’s relaxed loping strut and daftness is just a tonic, ‘All you pretty women standin’ in line/ I can make a love to you, baby in an hour’s time’^.

Second in the arbitrary affection stakes is the block-busting, souped-up ‘Who Do You Love’. Bo aims for badass here but hits butt-shaking silliness instead, the slide and glide and distorted guitar were like nothing else at the time. Third up is the decidedly weird ‘Bring It To Jerome’, which seems marinated in the same trance like Afro-Americana that John Lee Hooker encapsulated so well – huge chunks of Exile On Main Street were born right here.

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There are some interesting diversions from the floor fillers on Bo Diddley, like the plaintive/pre-emptive blues lament of ‘Before You Accuse Me’ and the deceptively chirpy hard times tale of ‘Say Boss Man’. Both of which change emotional gear before we get to bragging and dancing again, the latter contextualising it too; you got all the power, but we’ve got a cool you’ll never reach^^.

Throughout Bo Diddley the man himself is aided and abetted by some top quality chaps, Frank Kirkland on drums, Jody Williams on guitar and Jerome Green on maracas and backing vox being the most used, Willie Dixon plays bass on three tracks and everything is produced by Leonard and Phil Chess.

So gentle reader, I invite you to join me jiving badly and swinging my pants around my head in time to ‘Hey! Bo Diddley’. It’s fun and important, which after all is the best kind of fun.

Arlene took me by my hand
She said, "Oohwee Bo, you know I understand"

1147 Down.

*12 on the original Chess album. My version is a slightly expanded version on Wax Time Records – the two extras are a distraction, but the sound quality of it all is top notch.

**Waters later slapped the younger man down with ‘Mannish Boy’, itself pretty near the summit of all human culture.

^sadly my mouth would be writing a cheque my bad back couldn’t cash here, so I’d best not sing this one out loud.

^^considering the likely colour of said boss man this rebellious fun only gains in importance.