Bo Diddley
I just read that Bo Diddley has shuffled off this mortal coil after 79 years. I guess it can’t ever be said to be a surprise when someone gets to be that age, but it still caught me off guard. It’s weird whenever a well-known rock music pioneer dies in old age. You figure anyone who doesn’t die young will live forever. Of course that’s not true, like the old man used to say “The thing about life is nobody gets out alive. Then again, nobody ever comes back to complain either.”
I saw Diddley a few years ago at that big garage music festival they had on Randall’s Island. The one that had the Stooges and Bo and Nancy Sinatra and the NY Dolls and the Pete Best band and the Dictators and (ugh) The Strokes.
It would be completely hip and appropriate for me to say Bo Diddley was the best thing on the show. It would also be a complete lie and given that Bo was never a man to skirt the truth himself (he was one of the first rockers to talk openly about show biz as a business and complain about all the money he wasn’t paid) I won’t lie just to write a cool eulogy.
If you must know, the best thing on that show was the Stooges. Iggy and the Stooges (with the great Mike Watt on bass) put on one of the best live rock music sets I’ve ever seen. Second best band of the day was probably the Dictators.
Bo Diddley’s set was weird. He rapped. That was really, really weird. Though it was traditional in a sense. It was boasting which is very, very old school. Not as old school as Bo himself, but old school in the 21st century.
The other thing that I noticed was that a lot of his songs had a sameness to them. That chunk-a-chunk chunk, chunk chunk rhythm that defined his sound and was ripped off by so many was so distinctive and overwhelming that it made most of his material sound like the same song over and over. However, you’d listen and then in your head you’d start singing “Too much, the magic bus” or “I want candy” and start wondering if there was an era of rock music that the guy didn’t touch. And I’d have to say that a lot of the nuance was lost in the wind that day (the PA system was often spotty).
Still, I wish I’d had a chance to see him in his prime. Fortunately there’s plenty of footage of brilliant performances out there. On the Internets, even.
Want to see the influence in action? Check this. Then this (after a few seconds of talking).
Rest well Bo, and thanks for helping shape the music that helped to shape so many of our lives.
I saw Diddley a few years ago at that big garage music festival they had on Randall’s Island. The one that had the Stooges and Bo and Nancy Sinatra and the NY Dolls and the Pete Best band and the Dictators and (ugh) The Strokes.
It would be completely hip and appropriate for me to say Bo Diddley was the best thing on the show. It would also be a complete lie and given that Bo was never a man to skirt the truth himself (he was one of the first rockers to talk openly about show biz as a business and complain about all the money he wasn’t paid) I won’t lie just to write a cool eulogy.
If you must know, the best thing on that show was the Stooges. Iggy and the Stooges (with the great Mike Watt on bass) put on one of the best live rock music sets I’ve ever seen. Second best band of the day was probably the Dictators.
Bo Diddley’s set was weird. He rapped. That was really, really weird. Though it was traditional in a sense. It was boasting which is very, very old school. Not as old school as Bo himself, but old school in the 21st century.
The other thing that I noticed was that a lot of his songs had a sameness to them. That chunk-a-chunk chunk, chunk chunk rhythm that defined his sound and was ripped off by so many was so distinctive and overwhelming that it made most of his material sound like the same song over and over. However, you’d listen and then in your head you’d start singing “Too much, the magic bus” or “I want candy” and start wondering if there was an era of rock music that the guy didn’t touch. And I’d have to say that a lot of the nuance was lost in the wind that day (the PA system was often spotty).
Still, I wish I’d had a chance to see him in his prime. Fortunately there’s plenty of footage of brilliant performances out there. On the Internets, even.
Want to see the influence in action? Check this. Then this (after a few seconds of talking).
Rest well Bo, and thanks for helping shape the music that helped to shape so many of our lives.
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