#455: Bo Diddley, 'Bo Diddley/Go Bo Diddley'
Chess, 1958
Bo Diddley is famous in very niche musician circles for what is called the “Bo Diddley beat.” I researched this beat and found nothing conclusive. Journalists tried to describe it in a trillion different ways. Even Diddley described it in a way that gave me no direction, the beat is “mixed with kind of an African religious chant.” No value added.
A lot of secret treats are hiding in this album. There is an entire diss track balancing the blues and rock & roll underneath a neverending string of “Yo mama” jokes.
The thing that has bothered me for the last however many weeks that I’ve neglected this newsletter (but also suffered under the weight of figuring out what to write about), is that I really can’t put a finger on Bo Diddley’s legacy.
Some critics wrote that without Bo Diddley there would be no rock & roll. There would be no Elvis Presley and the teenage revolution would never have happened.
I don’t know if that is true. I also don’t know if that is not true.
What I do know is that no one in my life, and I have a rich inner life, knew how to respond when I brought up Bo Diddley.
My friend is slowly dying (she writes about it here) from a terminal disease called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. We talk about legacy a lot.
I wonder how deep of a mark a person has to leave for the mark to be considered a “legacy.” Is there a certain number of people that must remember that person for the word, “legacy” to be used by mustache-ed men and women with huge earrings?
Yes, more people should know about Bo Diddley and maybe there should be a movie about him. But also, listening to this album was fun for me. It made me smile and gave me release from the news and the daily drama of simply living. If those are the parameters of the legacy I leave behind, I think that is fine.
Top songs: Say Man, The Great Grandfather, I’m Sorry