Customer Reviews

Bo Diddley/Go Bo Diddley

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This CD is Bo's first two Chess LPs (originally released in 1958 & 1959 respectively, from tracks recorded 1955-58) combined into one album. It's great! Contains many many Diddley classics that have been redone countless times over the years: "Who Do You Love?", "Diddy Wah Diddy", "I'm A Man", "Bo Diddley", "Dearest Darling" plus a lot of terrific "lesser" tunes as well. Essential listening for all Blues & Rock fans. This is where it all began... forget George Thorogood etc and listen to THE Originator! I wish Chess/MCA would release more of Bo's pre-1970 LPs on CD (he recorded a good 20 LPs between 1958-1968!!) Long-forgotten LPs like "Have Guitar Will Travel", "The Originator", "Hey Good Lookin'", "Bo Diddley's Beach Party (Live)" deserve to be heard by a new generation of potential Diddleyphiles. But for the moment, revel in this wonderful CD, a masterpiece of understatement, and one rockin' disc!!

A two-for-one deal of absolutely timeless music-- and some of the most influential of all time. Listen to "Bring It To Jerome" or "Pretty Thing" and you can hear early Rolling Stones, for example. So, not only did Bo Diddley alter the course of R & B and help establish rock & roll, he was a great influence on what would one day become British Blues.

His first two CHESS albums, BO DIDDLEY and GO BO DIDDLEY are thus Elias McDaniel's most important historically. Both are presented here in their entirety, with original playing order intact. Source material transfers are top shelf-- clean and full fidelity. Includes an eight-page foldout booklet.

TOTAL RUNNING TIME -- 63:44

Bo Diddley is responsible for popularizing (if not inventing) the most recognized beat in rock and roll. His "shave-and-a-haircut" signature sound-- Chink-a-Chink-a-Chink...Chink-Chink --propelled such songs as "Bo Diddley" and "Hush Your Mouth."

While Diddley frequently hit the R&B charts with songs like "I'm a Man," "Diddley Daddy," "Say Man," and "Crackin' Up," only "Say Man" would crack the Top 40 on the pop charts.

The "Bo Diddley Beat," however, would become a mainstay of pop music. [Listen to the Strangeloves' "I Want Candy" or the Who's "Magic Bus" to hear how widespread his influence was.]

This pairing of Diddley's first two albums gives us such classic songs as "Who Do You Love" and "Pretty Thing" which should leave little doubt as to his influence and innovative style (including Jerome Green's maracas on almost every track).

If this set leaves you wanting more, consider springing for the 2-disc, 45-track Chess Box. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Bo Diddley was one of only several who influenced what became known as R & R. I first heard and learned to play his music from 1954 as a youngster in Nashville, Tennessee. I still have some of the original 45 rpm recordings, slightly worn but still playable. Impossible to correctly emulate (his guitar and amps were the keys), in 1959, I attended a "street dance" held by 3 Vanderbilt frats who hired Bo Diddley and his 7 members...Jerome, the girl singer and numerous other stand me ups. At the break, I had the good fortune to meet him and he ushered me around his stage showing me the various features of his several guitars, the most famous being the "box" that he had had built for himself....Bo used a number of tape loops in his music: he would play the chorus, record it on loop then return to accompany himself as lead...the sounds were blood moving and greatly influenced many of us from the 1950's and 60's and into the 21st century. In Memphis, in 1961, I had an opportunity to sit in with him, what an eye opener!!!!! Despite the rumor of his short temper, he always took the time and effort to help young and old musicians further their guitar playing. In the 1990's, I heard Bo at The Exit Inn accompanied by one of my friends, Mac Gayden and even years later, he still had "zing" in his music. Now, Bo is gone but his music will live on for many years. He never really gained the stardom of an Eric Clapton or SRV but he had dramatic effects on both of them and more....For those of us reared in the 50's and 60's, a legend has passed...RIP BD June, 2008

If you are a fan of Bo Diddley , you will love this CD. The music sounds great, with no skips or scratches that you hear on the original record.
I enjoyed hearing songs that I never heard before, and it's great to
hear Bo Diddley playing the guitar on his classic songs.

This CD features Bo Diddley's first two albums on one CD. Almost all of this material is great, with the first album being slightly better. Stupidly, "Dearest Darling" appears twice here, because it was on both albums. This is great, classic early rock and roll, but unfortunately it's out of print now.

Well, there is no need to pussy foot around on this one. The question before the house is who put the rock in rock `n' roll. And here in this Chess Records double CD, Bo Diddley unabashedly stakes his claim that was featured in a song by the same name, except, except it starts out with the answer. Yes, Bo Diddley put the rock in rock `n' roll. And off his performance here as part of the 30th anniversary celebration of the tidal wave of rock that swept through the post-World War II teenage population in 1955 he has some "street cred" for that proposition.

Certainly there is no question that black music, in the early 1950s at least, previously confined to mainly black audiences down on the southern farms and small segregated towns and in the northern urban ghettos along with a ragtag coterie of "hip" whites is central to the mix that became classic 1950s rock `n' roll. That is not to deny the other important thread commonly called rockabilly (although if you had scratched a rockabilly artist and asked him or her for a list of influences black gospel and rhythm and blues would be right at the top of their list, including Elvis'). But here let's just go with the black influences. No question Ike Turner's Rocket 88, Joe Turner's Shake , Rattle and Roll and, I would add, Elmore James' Look Yonder Wall are nothing but examples of R&B starting to break to a faster, more nuanced rock beat.

Enter one Bo Diddley. No only does he have the old country blues songbook down, and the post- World War II urbanization and electrification of those blues down, but he reaches back to the oldest traditions of black music, back before the American slavery plantations days, back to the Carib influences and even further back to earth mother African shores. In short, that "jungle music," that "devil's music" that every white mother and father (and not a few black ones as well), north and south was worried, no, frantically worried, would carry away their kids. Well, it did and we are none the worst for it.

Here is a little story from back in the 1950s days though that places old Bo's claim in perspective and addresses the impact (and parental horror) that Bo and rock had on teenage (and late pre-teenage) kids, even all white "projects" kids like me and my boys. In years like 1955, '56, '57 every self-respecting teenage boy (or almost teenage boy), under the influence of television, tried, one way or another, to imitate Elvis. From dress, to sideburns, to swiveling hips, to sneer. Hell, I even bought a doo-wop comb to wear my hair like his. I should qualify that statement a little and say every self-respecting boy who was aware of girls. And, additionally, aware that if you wanted to get any place with them, any place at all, you had better be something like the second coming of Elvis.

Enter now, one eleven year old William James Bradley, "Billie", my bosom buddy in old elementary school days. Billie was wild for girls way before I acknowledged their existence, or at least their charms. Billie decided, and rightly so I think, to try a different tack. Instead of forming the end of the line in the Elvis imitation department he decided to imitate Bo Diddley. At this time we are playing the song Bo Diddley and, I think, Who Do You Love? like crazy. Elvis bopped, no question. But Bo's beat spoke to something more primordial, something connected, unconsciously to our way back ancestry. Even an old clumsy white boy like me could sway to the beat.

Of course that last sentence is nothing but a now time explanation for what drove us to the music. Then we didn't know the roots of rock, or probably care, except our parents didn't like it, and were sometimes willing to put the stop to our listening. Praise be for transistor radios (younger readers look that up on Wikipedia) to get around their madness.

But see, Billie also, at that time, did not know what Bo looked like. Nor did I. So his idea of imitating Bo was to set himself up as a sort of Buddy Holly look alike, complete with glasses and that single curled hair strand.

Billie, naturally, like I say, was nothing but a top-dog dancer, and wired into girl-dom like crazy. And they were starting to like him too. One night he showed up at a local church catholic, chaste, virginal priest-chaperoned dance with this faux Buddy Holly look. Some older guy meaning maybe sixteen or seventeen, wise to the rock scene well beyond our experiences, asked Billy what he was trying to do. Billie said, innocently, that he was something like the seventh son of the seventh son of Bo Diddley. This older guy laughed, laughed a big laugh and drew everyone's attention to himself and Billie. Then he yelled out, yelled out for all the girls to hear "Billie boy here wants to be Bo Diddley, he wants to be nothing but a jungle bunny music N----r boy". All goes quiet. Billie runs out, and I run after, out the back door. I couldn't find him that night.

See, Billie and I were clueless about Bo's race. We just thought it was all rock (read: white music) then and didn't know much about the black part of it, or the south part, or the segregated part either. We did know though what the n----r part meant in our all-white housing project and here was the kicker. Next day Billie strutted into school looking like the seventh son of the seventh son of Elvis. But as he got to the end of that line I could see, and can see very clearly even now, that the steam has gone out of him. So when somebody asks you who put the rock in rock `n' roll know that old Bo's claim was right on track, and he had to clear some very high racial and social hurdles to make that claim. Just ask Billie.

Although there are probably cheaper, more readily available places to get these songs, Bo Diddley's first two LPs are among the greatest in the history of rock 'n' roll. Released at the tail end of the 50s, these records are nothing short of musical goldmines, positively gushing with the sweaty, rhythmic, blues-plastered weirdo genius of this most singular rocker. The self-titled record alone plays like a greatest hits collection. After all, its got the surrealist gin-joint macho anthem "Who Do You Love," and the blues rock juggernaut "I'm A Man," as well as the smug rhythmic attack of "Bring It To Jerome," the bizarrely autobiographical and utterly hypnotic masterpiece that is "Bo Diddley," and the relentlessly addictive ballad "Pretty Thing." All the while, we're treated to Bo's tremolo-laden guitars, hypnotic poly (sorta) rhythms, and blues-informed lyrical surrealism. In classic 50s rock style, album number two gives us...more of the same! Especially in the case of "Dearest Darling," which also appeared on the self-titled. Gotta love those patchwork 50s record making techniques! But aside from that unintentionally humorous glitch, there's plenty of good stuff on the second album- the stunningly hilarious, old-school insult battle "Say Man" is a highlight, as is "the churning blues of "You Don't Love Me (You Don't Care)" and the Diddlified doo-wop of "I'm Sorry." So, two rock classics on one disc. Get it!