The cigar box guitar has been silenced,
Bo Diddley has passed on...
"She rolled right up to my front door,
Knocked an knocked 'till her fist got sore,
When she turned and walked away,
All I could hear my baby say:
Hey bo diddley, oh bo diddley,
Hey bo diddley, oh bo diddley."
I think that one of the most incongruous and kitsch album covers I have ever seen was the Bo Diddley record album "Have Guitar Will Travel" from 1959, and now that Bo Diddley has passed on, I was thinking that this also may symbolize the man - a mix of kitsch and flashy facade with the "real thing" to back it up.
What I mean is that behind the gimmick of the rectangular bodied bright red guitar, the flashy clothes, glasses and haircut, this man could really produce the goods!!
He created a new style of playing the electric guitar, a new set of jumpy Blues rhythms, and a treasure of catchy new songs in the Blues and Rock and Roll idiom.
Between 1955 and 1959 Bo Diddley wrote and recorded a number of unforgettable Blues and/or Rock and Roll songs that have become both standards of the Blues and Rock and Roll tradition, as well as identifiable icons for Bo Diddley himself.
Among these are:
I'm a Man,
Bo Diddley,
Who Do You Love,
Hey Bo Diddley,
Diddley Daddy,
Before You Accuse Me
You Don't Love Me (You Don't Care)
Hush Your Mouth
Bring it to Jerome
Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover (written by Willie Dixon)
Rest in peace Ellas "Bo Diddley" McDaniel
the angels up in heaven must now be dancing to a funkier beat!!!
Who Do You Love?
Ellas McDaniel (Bo Diddley) 1956
I walked forty-seven miles of barbed wire, I got a cobra snake for a necktie
A brand new house on the road side, and it's a-made out of rattlesnake hide
Got a band new chimney made on top, and it's a-made out of human skull
Come on take a little walk with me Arlene, and tell me who do you love?
Who do you love? Who do you love?
Who do you love? Who do you love?
I've got a tombstone hand in a graveyard mind,
just twenty-two and I don't mind dying
Who do you love? (4x)
I rode around the town, used a rattlesnake whip,
take it easy Arlene don't give me no lip
Who do you love? (4x)
The night were dark when the sky was blue, down the alley a ice wagon flew
hit a bump and somebody screamed, you should've heard what I seen
Who do you love? (4x)
Now Arlene took a-me by my hand,
she said "ooh ee Bo you know I understand, who do you love?"
Who do you love? (4x)
