Remembering Bo Diddley

Nils Lofgren (E Street Band): “That groove, however Bo fell into it, I’m sure he realized he had a gem . . . and he called it his own and sold it to us, and it was a beautiful thing and still is. It’s a signature beat that you can play against a four-count bar, but you can’t lose it. If someone’s playing that beat you can improv around it with funk, rock, melodic playing, nasty stuff, pretty stuff—but not at the expense of the beat. The drummer doesn’t have to play it; the guitar player can play it against regular backbeat drums, and it’s going to color the entire picture.”

John Doe (X, the Knitters): “Once you get past the brilliance of Chuck Berry, the next step is the simplicity and the amazing poetry of Bo Diddley. I think everybody wants to be known for something, and that [beat] is a pretty great thing to be known for. What it might overshadow is his sense of experimentation. He came to Los Angeles once in about ’83 and played this place called the Music Machine, and everybody was just out of their minds because Bo Diddley hadn’t played in L.A. since who knows when. They had put together a group of guys that played the blues OK but really didn’t have a clue to what to do with Bo Diddley and, with all apologies, it was terrible. That same night Dave [Alvin] and a few of us went to the owner of the club and said, ‘Get him back six months from now and we’ll put together a band and it will be great,’ and we did. And it was.”

Ted Nugent: “Bo Diddley’s incredible impact on music and America is immeasurable. As my American blues brother Billy Gibbons exclaimed, accurately, that a newborn infant exposed to the Bo Diddley rhythm would begin to gyrate accordingly. We often hear the term ‘primal’ associated with good rock’n’roll music, but clearly Bo handed off the purity of primal direct from our aboriginal campfires straight to the masses via his electric guitar grind. It is pure. Proving that God dearly loves me, I was privileged and deeply honored to jam with Bo and actually play bass guitar in a few of his concerts back in 1970. It changed my life. I wallowed in the belly of the beast and was instantaneously moved to better appreciate and more effectively implement the soulfulness of his music into my own. All dedicated musicians, knowingly or otherwise, directly or indirectly, cannot make stirring music without the immense touch of Bo Diddley guiding them one way or another. He defined the sensuality of rhythm. God bless Bo Diddley.”