Hey, nobody! Wanna play a game? Moe Tucker, Billy Bragg, The Clash, and Johnny Marr all had one influence in common. Who might that have been? Elvis? Nah, fuck that cracker. It was a snappy dresser born Ella Otha Bates. Also known as Bo Diddley.
Bo Diddley was Rock and Roll, simply put. Born in Mississippi and transplanted to Chicago’s Southside, Bo took the sound of Delta blues, the West African rhythms from church and added swagger, built his own fucking guitar when he couldn’t find any bad enough to suit him and straight birfed Rock. Love Me Tender your mom’s ass.
I’m gonna take one song as an example, for a few reasons. One, because this song is perfect in design, form and content. And secondly because I am busy right now. Who Do You Love? is THE song. Recorded in 1956, Who Do You Love? has all the elements required for a proper rebel song: sex, violence and death. This song, like many of Diddley’s songs, was a three minute hardcore boast. For this song to even be recorded in the mid 1950’s by a cat as black as Ellas Bates was dangerous, for it to be played for white audiences (snow bunnies) is nothing short of amazingly brave.
Diddley recorded a lot of music, not all of it awesome, but the importance, the sheer heaviness of the good outweighs the corn. If we can ignore Lou Reed’s slipup’s (pretty much everything since Velvet Underground) we can ignore Diddley’s. Bo Diddley, Mona, Who Do You Love?, Pills, Roadrunner… these are the songs we should be beaming into space to show how bad our planet is. May Bo Diddley Rest In Peace. He wore a cobra snake for a necktie. You know, metaphorically.
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