“You Don’t Know Diddley!”

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It’s an expression my wife often uses. She’s somewhat younger than I am, but she still likes, obviously, the “silent thud” of name dropping when she wants to make a point. So she invokes the name of “Diddley” on such occasions. She has all these variations on the theme, like, “I ain’t got Diddley,” or they “don’t know Diddley,” or, “if you had Diddley…” Well, you get the point.

My usual response is, “Bo Diddley? If they had Diddley, they could start a great band.” Or something like, “I may not have Diddley, but I can play his Beat.” She gives me this look, bordering on exasperation, and I just return a silent smirk, because I do know “Diddley.” But I always get this pang in my chest when I think of Bo, and Buddy and even the Rolling Stones. It reminds me that once there was this music known as “Rock n’ Roll,” and it changed the world. It started “Fading Away” in the late 70s and probably died in the 80s, but no one bothered to go to the funeral. It didn’t matter much at that point, probably because it had reached a point of exhaustion, from which there was no recovery. But it’s comforting to know that it’s probably resting in a tomb somewhere next to its cousin, Jazz music.

But Bo Diddley stood like a giant, at the foundation pillars of Rock n’ Roll when it was young, and vital and it meant something more than just more corporate “product.” There’s a story that Keith Richards likes to talk about when he and Mick Jagger made their pilgrimage to Chicago, early in their careers, to “sound out” the early blues rockers, like Bo, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. They were shocked to find them playing small venues, and hanging out in rundown dives and tenements; they were recording on small record labels like Chess Records. They were hardly the “slick” properties of fat corporate moguls who would later devour the ghost of Rock n’ Roll in its entirety.

But Bo was “the Man,” banging out tunes like “I’m A Man,” “Hey, Bo Diddley” and, of course, the much covered, “Who do you Love?” And then there was the Bo “Diddley Beat.” Buddy Holly used it in “Not Fade Away,” which was later covered by the Stones. Any drummer who has ever picked up a pair of sticks in any serious manner learned the Bo Diddley Beat. One can even hear a slight variation on it in U2's “Desire.” With that beat you can rock the plaster off the walls, trust me.

Bo passed away on June the 2nd, at 79. I've been thinking a lot about Bo since then, and I still get that pang in my chest, which really feels more like a lump now. But Bo lived a good long life, full of great music. Yet, he was always a bit bitter about not being as well-recognized as his peers, Elvis and Chuck Berry. It would seem that if you don’t know Bo, “you don’t know Diddley.” And I agree.

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