In Memoriam Bo Diddley

The first time that I heard the term “Bo Diddley Rhythm” I was 16 and really into the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was at my guitar lesson and we were going through Blood Sugar Sex Magik song by song when my guitar teacher casually remarked that it all goes back to Bo. He then demonstrated the basic rhythm and all of its derivatives through rock history. I was fascinated. It took away some of the gee-whiz impressiveness of the funk metal I was listening to, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I could have grown up a RHCP fan.

Bo Diddley and his playing style was a eureka moment in rock history. I guess you can credit him with being the first musician to really focus on developing dancy grooves. Some of his songs predate the dub idea of getting a rhythm going and improvising vocalizations on top. Personally I love his eccentricities. He was great at combining the truly clever with the truly absurd, which could have been the genesis of some of his more radical ideas. I mean, rock at that point had always been fairly minimal but reducing it to one chord and a rhythm was pretty ballsy. To make it work was brilliant.

Bo pointed us towards the future of R&B and gave us the launching pad for funk. He gave us Who Do You Love? and Love Is Strange. Bo Diddley was a gun slinger, a twister, and a lover. He walked 47 miles of barbed wire, he wore a cobra snake for a necktie, and he invented the elephant. He was active for fifty years and had five decades’ worth of musicians look up to him and continue to find inspiration in his example. Hey, Bo Diddley! I think you did alright.

December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008