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He only had a few hits in the 1950s and
early '60s, but as Bo Diddley sang, "You Can't Judge a Book by
Its Cover." You can't judge an artist by his chart success, either,
and Diddley produced greater and more influential music than all
but a handful of the best early rockers. The Bo Diddley beat —
bomp, ba-bomp-bomp, bomp-bomp — is one of rock & roll's bedrock
rhythms, showing up in the work of Buddy Holly, the Rolling Stones,
and even pop-garage knock-offs like the Strangeloves' 1965 hit
"I Want Candy." Diddley's hypnotic rhythmic attack and declamatory,
boasting vocals stretched back as far as Africa for their roots,
and looked as far into the future as rap. His trademark otherworldly
vibrating, fuzzy guitar style did much to expand the instrument's
power and range. But even more important, Bo's bounce was fun
and irresistibly rocking, with a wisecracking, jiving tone that
epitomized rock & roll at its most humorously outlandish and freewheeling.
Before taking up blues and R&B, Diddley had actually studied classical
violin, but shifted gears after hearing John Lee Hooker. In the
early '50s, he began playing with his longtime partner, maraca
player Jerome Green, to get what Bo's called "that freight train
sound." Billy Boy Arnold, a fine blues harmonica player and singer
in his own right, was also playing with Diddley when the guitarist
got a deal with Chess in the mid-'50s (after being turned down
by rival Chicago label Vee-Jay). His very first single, "Bo Diddley"/"I'm
a Man" (1955), was a double-sided monster. The A-side was soaked
with futuristic waves of tremolo guitar, set to an ageless nursery
rhyme; the flip was a bump-and-grind, harmonica-driven shuffle,
based around a devastating blues riff. But the result was not
exactly blues, or even straight R&B, but a new kind of guitar-based
rock & roll, soaked in the blues and R&B, but owing allegiance
to neither.
Diddley was never a top seller on the order of his Chess rival
Chuck Berry, but over the next half-dozen or so years, he'd produce
a catalog of classics that rival Berry's in quality. "You Don't
Love Me," "Diddley Daddy," "Pretty Thing," "Diddy Wah Diddy,"
"Who Do You Love?," "Mona," "Road Runner," "You Can't Judge a
Book by Its Cover" — all are stone-cold standards of early, riff-driven
rock & roll at its funkiest. Oddly enough, his only Top 20 pop
hit was an atypical, absurd back-and-forth rap between him and
Jerome Green, "Say Man," that came about almost by accident as
the pair were fooling around in the studio.
As a live performer, Diddley was galvanizing, using his trademark
square guitars and distorted amplification to produce new sounds
that anticipated the innovations of '60s guitarists like Jimi
Hendrix. In Great Britain, he was revered as a giant on the order
of Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters. The Rolling Stones in particular
borrowed a lot from Bo's rhythms and attitude in their early days,
although they only officially covered a couple of his tunes, "Mona"
and "I'm Alright." Other British R&B groups like the Yardbirds,
Animals, and Pretty Things also covered Diddley standards in their
early days. Buddy Holly covered "Bo Diddley" and used a modified
Bo Diddley beat on "Not Fade Away"; when the Stones gave the song
the full-on Bo treatment (complete with shaking maracas), the
result was their first big British hit.
The British Invasion helped increase the public's awareness of
Diddley's importance, and ever since then he's been a popular
live act. Sadly, though, his career as a recording artist — in
commercial and artistic terms — was over by the time the Beatles
and Stones hit America. He'd record with ongoing and declining
frequency, but after 1963, he'd never write or record any original
material on par with his early classics. Whether he'd spent his
muse, or just felt he could coast on his laurels, is hard to say.
But he remains a vital part of the collective rock & roll consciousness,
occasionally reaching wider visibility via a 1979 tour with the
Clash, a cameo role in the film Trading Places, a late-'80s tour
with Ronnie Wood, and a 1989 television commercial for sports
shoes with star athlete Bo Jackson.
This bio courtesy www.allmusic.com
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