Rock and Roll legend Bo Diddley died on Monday. Playboy.com’s Jay Boersma has a personal reminiscence:
Several lifetimes ago when I was just out of high school, I played guitar in a band that, as often as not, had trouble finding practice spaces. One of my band-mates, a drummer who tended to disappear for months at a time, suggested that he could arrange for us to practice in Bo Diddley's basement, and, though we had serious doubts about the drummer's credibility, we knew immediately that we had to give it a try because, well, it was Bo Diddley's basement.
This was before nostalgia rock had become big business and none of us had heard much about Bo Diddley for years (beyond a cut we enjoyed on an Animals album called The Story of Bo Diddley). Regardless, late one summer afternoon the four of us squeezed ourselves and our instruments into a flat-black Mercury Marauder and headed for Chicago's south side. When we pulled up to the address, a large old home on a street of large old homes, a big man wearing a sweatband and huge black rubber boots was cleaning the driveway with a green garden hose. "Go on in," he said, "Studio's downstairs."
The studio was sparsely furnished. At one end of it was a neglected mixing board stacked with junk. Hanging on the walls were some of Bo Diddley's remarkable rectangular and triangular guitars. Some had strings on them, some did not. We set up our equipment and began to practice. (Somewhat embarrassing to admit but) we were working on a cover of Donovan Leitch's Season of the Witch when we saw the black rubber boots coming down the stairway.
Bo Diddley stood at the base of the stairs, listening to us with his hands on his hips. After taking it in for a while, he walked up to the lead singer/guitarist and said, "You play pretty good. Try doing this." And he made a ch-ch-chuh, cha-ch-ch-chuh sound with his mouth while flicking the strings of an imaginary guitar with his fingers. Then he went to the drummer and gave similar instructions with boomp-chabomps replacing the ch-ch-chuhs. To me, the least proficient musician present, he said, "Just follow with the chords." We began to play as instructed and Bo Diddley stood back and listened, a faint smile coming to his face. He nodded. Season of the Witch now sounded exactly like a Bo Diddley song.
We practiced for a few more hours, pausing at one point to discuss how to address our host. "Mr. Diddley" sounded absurd. "Bo" sounded too familiar. We settled on "Sir."
Shortly afterwards we wrapped what wound up being the one and only time we practiced in that location. As we packed the car, Bo Diddley again walked up to the lead singer and offered this bit of professional advice, "Make sure you got more than one song before you get a hit."
Apparently he had not done this and it created a problem on his first tour.
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Comments on this entry:
Thanks for a fascinating glimpse into the life of a pioneer. As for his going out on tour with no song to back up a hit, that's shouldn't have been too great a problem - had he done nothing other than "Say, Man", his place on the musical pantheon would still have been assured.
I'm sorry we never got to hear the Bo Diddley-produced version of Donovan's "Season of the Witch". I can imagine a hard-driving version of the tune based on the version from the Al Kooper / Mike Bloomfield "Super Session", but the "ch-ch-chuh, cha-ch-ch-chuh" version you describe no doubt went a good deal further afield from the original. Just think what a star you could be now on Youtube, if you had made a Basement Tape back then!
i was working as an art director for an indie record label. i saw Bo downstairs from my loft getting his shoes shined. i told Bo about the offices upstairs and he said he would drop by. late that night Bo came in with a paper bag. i asked what he had in the bag? porno? a sandwich? a bunch of cassette tapes were in the bag. he said this is what he had been working on for years. we put out his cd but Bo said, he wanted 100% control over everything because he had been burned to many times in his career.this became a friendship that lasted many years. i am honored to have met him let alone work with him. he was anti drug and a pioneer who lived and loved life.Bo had that old man strength in his face.i learned a lot from him.he is truly a legend.
Incredible man. Flickering subliminally as well as boldly in almost EVERY great rock song ever written.