25 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Classic Bo Diddley, no Chuck Berry, September 7, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Chuck Berry & Bo Diddley's Rock N' Roll All-Star Jam (DVD)
The only footage of Chuck Berry here seems to show him refusing to perform his songs for some reason. A little bizzare given the title of the DVD.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Bo Yes, Chuck No, November 18, 2010
This review is from: Chuck Berry & Bo Diddley's Rock N' Roll All-Star Jam (DVD)
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 one hour all-star concert documentary complete with background footage 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' rock. 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 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 amd 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.
Chuck Berry is a "no"show on this one. This is strictly Bo's putting the rock in rock.
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