Diddley, Bo

ESSENTIAL? ESSENTIAL.It's tempting to say that Bo Diddley recorded 11 full-length albums, each one better than the last; but that would be denying the pure, unsurpassed genius of his first, Bo Diddley.Music historians have wasted so many perfectly good words trying to explain the significance of Bo Diddley. "Bo Diddley liberated the blues from the 12-bar form and melded it to an insistent, infectious rhumba beat," they bleat. "Diddley was the progenitor of all that was to come in the evolution...

Delivering a devastating punch to rock's early '60s doldrums, Bo Diddley Is a Lover bursts at the seams with Bo's uncompromising, rockin' beat. Yep. Industry and the government may have cleaned up fellow '50s rockers like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis and Gene Vincent, but they didn't get to Bo -- a defiant rocker to the core. By the time of the 1961 sessions for this album, Bo had relocated from Chicago to DC, to record at his own home studio. He used his artistic freedom to his complete...

LIVE, DOWN 'N' REALLY DIRTYIt's the beach party of your dreams. Not one of those with the squeaky-clean suburban kids doing the frug at Malibu like in the movies, oh no. This is Myrtle Beach, filled with dangerous bikers and gang members and hot mamas and escaped convicts and god knows who else (best not to ask), all cruising for kicks. It's after midnight but the heat still lingers from a blistering day. Except for a small bonfire, the dark is all-enveloping; couples vanish into it and you'd...

Good Lord. Bo Diddley came out with all guns blazing on his floor-rattling romp from 1960, Have Guitar Will Travel. The LP would become a blueprint for SO much great rock 'n' roll that followed: the Stones covered "Mona" in 1965, the Masters Apprentices walloped "Dancing Girl," the Downliners Sect blasted through "Nursery Rhyme," and "Cops and Robbers" even named one of the baddest mid-'60s UK R&B combos ever! Really... Who in the hell wouldn't be inspired by hearing this opus that followed on...