Customer Reviews

Tribute: Hey Bo Diddley

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Bo Diddley is one of the titans of early rock and roll. He also played blues as well. He is perhaps unjustly overshadowed by Chuck Berry. However this tribute disk put out by the Evidence label containing covers of many of his best and most well known songs should help rectify this. Many of the artists on the set are blues artists. Some of my favorites include "Pills" - Coco Montoya, "Don't Let It Go" - Guitar Shorty, "Hey Bo Diddley" - Charlie Musselwhite, "You Can't Judge A Book By The Cover" - Michael Burks, & "Before You Accuse Me" - Roy Gaines. Many of the cuts are good. Sometimes it seems as though the backing band (the same on all tracks) is not totally sympathetic with each individual performer. Letting these artists use their own backing bands might have been more helpful. The disk could also have been longer. It is around an hour. It would have been interesting to hear takes on some more classics like "Cops And Robbers", "Here 'Tis", "Bo Meets The Monster" and takes of some of his instrumental guitar work outs like "Bo's Bounce". While not essential this disk provides a blues take on the highly influential beat and songwriting of Bo Diddley. If you are interested in hearing the excellent original versions after hearing this disk I recommend either the single disk "His Best" or the more comprehensive "Bo Diddley" 2 cd box set.

Bo Diddley is one of the icons of rock and roll but has not gotten the credit he deserves. This album changes all that! This is a great tribute album that captures the essense of Bo. The arrangements and production is superb and the artists do excellent renditions - Taj Mahal, Charlie Musselwhite - it doesn't get much better than that!

Great tribute to a great artist. The production and arrangements are superb. I give credit to all involved for putting this masterpiece together. Son Seals, Charlie Musselwhite, Otis Rush, Coco Montoya, Taj Mahal and many more all paying tribute to the master. It doesn't get much better than this.

I like the idea of 'tribute' CDs. In the best tribute CDs - like the Richard Thompson tribute 'Beating the Retreat' - you get to hear a wide variety of artists reinterpreting songs you know in a hopefully different way. This Bo Diddley tribute is styled after the House of Blues label's 'Paint it Blue', where various blues artists covered Stones songs. That tribute was successful, this one is less so.

Although there are some great artists involved - Taj Mahal, Otis Rush, Joe Louis Walker - hardly any of them sound really inspired. Taj's opener (he seems to participate in all the blues tribute CDs) 'Bo Diddley' sounds a bit half-hearted and the queue of guitarists that follow - Walker, Walter Trout, Tommy Castro all sound lacklustre. I think one reason for this is that the same backing band is used throughout, so whoever is out front there is a sameyness to the sound. It's a relief when Sugar Blue and the ubiquitous Charley Musslewhite step up to the plate to hear a hear a different instrument and consequently their contributions are, to my ears, among the best.

It's not as though the artists involved are too respectful to the material, the arangements are all a lot rockier than Bo's originals, but everything sounds too slick and there are no radical reworkings of the songs. Also, only Guitar Shorty seems to have the humour in his voice that was a feature of so many of Bo's songs.

There are some great R&B songs here, 'Road Runner', 'Who do you love', 'I'm a man', 'Mona' 'I can tell' - that were included in every British R&B bands repertoire in the 60s. However, if you want to pay tribute to a great, original artist go and buy one of Bo Diddley's own CDs rather than this one.