Hey Bo Diddley

This is the story of how rock and roll was born.

In 1955 Ellas McDaniel cut a record for Chess called ‘Bo Diddley.’

It’s a weird mix by the standards of the day. You don’t hear the famous ‘Bo Diddley beat’. The excessive use of tremolo undermines the riff. The drums are the loudest thing you hear, particularly the snare doing a simple 8 bar oom-pah. The words are shite – half remembered from the American lullaby ‘Froggy went a-courtin’, they start in the wrong place and go nowhere.

But dammit, this IS the birth of rock and roll. It’s exciting. Ellas McDaniel is Bo Diddley, and what could be more rock and roll than a stage name like that? He is on the cover standing in front of a drummer, legs apart. He is wearing clothes you can’t buy in the store, he plays a weird shaped guitar. This man is COOL. He is a STAR. Most of his next songs have ‘Bo Diddley’ in the title (‘Bo Diddley is a lover,’ ‘Go Bo Diddley’ etc.)

And those things are more important than the music.

And that has been the essence of rock and roll ever since.

I guess in 1955 they didn’t know what they had. By 1965 they do. In this version, you can’t hear the drums, its guitar and girls out front.