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Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley

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Bo Diddley - Bo's a Lumberjack!

Essay by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 8 February 1975

THE WHOLE THING about Bo Diddley was that he was by far the weirdest and craziest musician ever to come out of either blues or ...

Audio interviews

Bo Diddley (1969)

Interview by Mike Quigley, Rock's Backpages audio, July 1969

The Chicago gunslinger talks about his stage show; about being ahead of his time; about how, influenced by Joe Louis, he avoids being boastful, and his message to the people.

File format: mp3; file size: 1.5mb, interview length: 12' 12" sound quality: **

Bo Diddley (1970)

Interview by Michael Lydon, Rock's Backpages audio, September 1970

When Bo's not being a boxer, truck driver, gunslinger, lumberjack etc. he's being A Man - a husband and father, dealing with life in the USA. The Gunslinger tells Michael Lydon of record company rip-offs, dealin' with the po-lice and the very meaning of life itself.

File format: mp3; total file size: 76.9meg, total interview length: 1h 20' 04" sound quality: **

List of articles in the library

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The Man With A Hundred Guitars... Diddley the Great

Retrospective by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 20 April 1963

ABOUT EIGHT years ago, a sound called Rock and Roll started to penetrate the music scene in a big big way, taking over completely from ...

Buddy Holly Scores Fourth 'Bo' Hit!

Report by Ian Dove, New Musical Express, 14 June 1963

ONCE AGAIN, 'Bo Diddley' is a hit — the fourth time it has been in the pop music charts, this time steered there by the ...

Bo Diddley: So Ethel Mae stayed — and so did the guitar

Interview by Maureen Cleave, The Evening Standard, 12 October 1963

'THE BIGGER THE CLOWN YOU ARE, THE MORE RECOGNITION YOU GET,' SAYS BO. 'WE DO EVERYTHING EXCEPT STAND ON OUR HEADS.' ...

Chuck and Bo May Tour Here Together in March

Report by June Harris, Disc, 7 December 1963

WHAT DO you think of having Chock Berry and Bo Diddley headline a rhythm and blues package in England? Promoter Don Arden, just back from ...

Rhythm and Blues

Report by uncredited writer, Pop Star Pictorial, 1964

The latest and greatest on the Beat Scene? — Yes, it's R&B groups like the Rolling Stones ...

Bo Diddley, Ben E. King, Alan Bown Set: Saville Theatre, London

Live Review by Penny Valentine, Disc and Music Echo, 22 April 1967

BO and BEN: the rock-soul truce men! ...

Bo Diddley, Ben E. King, Alan Bown Set: Saville Theatre, London

Live Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 22 April 1967

THE AUDIENCE stole the show at London's Saville Theatre on Sunday, presenting their polished performance of Mass Idiocy — the new art form. ...

Bo Diddley: Bo'N'Chess

Interview by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 6 May 1967

The tender story of a love-hate relationship ...

Bo Diddley, Bukka White: Avalon Ballroom; Muddy Waters: Jazz Workshop, San Francisco CA

Live Review by Philip Elwood, The San Francisco Examiner, 25 August 1967

Blues from City and Country ...

Albums from Nancy Sinatra, Etta James et al

Review by Peter Jones, Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 11 May 1968

ETTA JAMES Tell Mama — 'Tell Mama'; 'I'd Rather Go Blind'; 'The Love Of My Man'; 'I'm Gonna Take What He's Got'; 'The Same Rope'; ...

The Men Who Make the Blues: Bo Diddley

Profile by Max Jones, Melody Maker, 20 September 1969

BO DIDDLEY was born in Mississippi, in or near McComb, on December 30, 1928. Like many bluesmen from the South, he made the journey up ...

The Second Coming Of Bo Diddley

Special Feature by Michael Lydon, Ramparts, May 1971

"A person is an individual, and being an individual person is a gas. I have my own way of expressing my soulful feelings. I never ...

Bo Diddley, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tower of Power: Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, New York NY

Live Review by Mike Jahn, The New York Times, 19 July 1971

Bo Diddley Returns on Guitar At Forest Hills Rock Concert ...

What Have They Done To My Roots, Ma? Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley

Comment by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 30 October 1971

WHEN JOHN LENNON ended a recent epistle to Mailbag with a line saying "LP Winner: I’d like Chuck Berry, please," he wasn’t joking. Modern rock ...

Sounds of the Seventies: A Bo Diddley Revival

Profile and Interview by Mike Jahn, Baltimore Sun, 28 November 1971

LAST SUMMER at a Creedence Clearwater Revival concert there was an unannounced special, a warm-up band. Its leader was a middle-aged black man carrying a ...

Hey! Bo Diddley: The Man Whose Sexuality Was Too Much For America

Report by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 26 August 1972

Diddley Freak Charles Shaar Murray, in the presence of the main man... ...

Keep On Rockin': Interview with film director D. A. Pennebaker

Report and Interview by John Pidgeon, New Musical Express, 30 September 1972

KEEP ON ROCKIN' is in town, and so is the rock film revolutionary who created this celluloid spectacle of Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck ...

Bo Diddley: The London Sessions (Chess)

Review by Bob Fisher, Cream, September 1973

AFTER THE release of Golden Decade and Got Another Bag Of Tricks, which really put Bo in perspective, Chess undo all their sterling work by ...

Bo Diddley

Book Excerpt by Michael Lydon, Boogie Lightning (Da Capo), 1974

Everything I know I taught myself.– Bo Diddley ...

What Does It Feel Like to Create Today's Music?

Interview by Loraine Alterman, Family Weekly, 21 July 1974

"I guess there are some people who sit down and say, 'All right, I want to write a hit single. Let's see, what's a big item ...

European Blues and R&B Festival

Report by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 22 November 1975

TEN YEARS AGO Britain was set to become the R&B capital of the world. Between 1962 and '67 we were visited by so many legendary ...

Sha Na Na: Madison Square Garden Rock & Roll Spectacular, New York City

Live Review by Steve Turner, New Musical Express, 27 November 1976

THERE ARE some memories we have which are straightforward memories, but then there are other memories which are more like memories of memories and we're ...

Bo Diddley's a Gunslinger

Interview by Brian Case, New Musical Express, 6 May 1978

That was the title of one of the influential, flamboyant R'n'B man's hits, for you punks too young to remember. But nowadays, believe it or ...

Bo Diddley: Lyceum, London

Live Review by Pete Wingfield, Melody Maker, 17 March 1979

Diddley grandaddy ...

The Clash, Bo Diddley,Pearl Harbor & The Explosions: Community Theater, Berkeley CA

Live Review by Howie Klein, New York Rocker, April 1979

EXCEPT FOR the fact that they're probably the best performing band around, there's something almost superfluous to Clashness about the band's shows. Wait a minute ...

The Clash, Bo Diddley: The Palladium, New York NY

Live Review by Roy Trakin, New York Rocker, April 1979

DON'T EXPECT the back-Clash to start here. Since the Clash's smashingly successful Palladium debut, I have had some second thoughts, but none of these contradict ...

This Here's The Review Of Bo Diddley

Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 14 July 1979

Bo Diddley/Ray Campi And The Rockabilly Rebels/Whirlwind: Lyceum, London ...

Bo Diddley: University of East Anglia, Norwich

Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 27 February 1982

BO DIDDLEY, as we all know, spans a 27 year career permutating a single riff to a sole conclusion: he is Bo Diddley! ...

Bo Diddley & Ron Wood: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Cathi Unsworth, Sounds, 9 July 1988

AND WHAT a delightful pair they made, Bo 'Jesus' Diddley and Ron 'Not Exactly Picasso' Wood. The main difference between them, I suspect, is that ...

Bo Diddley: The Note For Note Interview

Interview by Steve Roeser, Note For Note, Summer 1988

IT IS A Monday morning in March, in the coffee shop of a hotel located on Highland, near the Hollywood Bowl. ...

Black Rock & Roll

Essay by RJ Smith, L.A. Weekly, 4 October 1990

RJ Smith on Living Colour and pop's buried history ...

Bo Diddley's Bar Mitzvah Beat Box

Report and Interview by Hank Bordowitz, Guitar Player, October 1993

BO DIDDLEY GETS into rap and even whips up tropical flavors on his first major-label release in 20 years, A Man Among Men. But he's ...

The Bo Diddley Beat Just Keeps Jangling Along

Live Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 19 December 1995

Bo Diddley: Chicago Blues, New York, NY ...

Bo Diddley: He's Fighting Mad and Mad That He Has to Fight

Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 27 February 1996

Q&A with Bo Diddley ...

Bo Diddley: Godfather Back On The Beat

Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Daily Telegraph, 11 May 1996

If guitar rhythms could be copyrighted, Bo Diddley would be a millionaire. As it is Mark Cooper finds him warily hitting the comeback trail again ...

Man Among Men, Guitarist Among Guitarists

Interview by Hank Bordowitz, Guitar Player, October 1996

YOU KNOW BO Diddley invented that beat, one of the driving forces of rock and roll. You know he had a bunch of seminal ...

Bo Diddley: His Best: The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection

Sleeve notes by Don Snowden, Chess/MCA Records, 1997

TO PARAPHRASE the titles of two of the 20 Bo Diddley nuggets contained on His Best: The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection , you can't judge ...

Jim Dickinson & The Regents: A Memphis Tale

Report by Joss Hutton, Bucketfull of Brains, 1997

IT WAS ABOUT half an hour past midnight on a hot and humid Sunday evening in late September when your intrepid Bucketfull team, aided and ...

Bo Diddley: Still Rockin'

Interview by Bill DeYoung, Goldmine, 28 February 1997

ELLAS BATES McDaniel, a.k.a. Bo Diddley, has lived the life of a rural squire in North Florida since 1983, when a dentist, making small talk, ...

Little Steven's International Underground Garage Festival: Randall's Island, N.Y.

Live Review by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, October 2004

Forty-five bands plus Van Zandt's Boss defy failing weather and technology for New York's biggest garage rave-up. ...

Bo Diddley

Obituary by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 2 June 2008

American pioneer of rock'n'roll who influenced the Beatles and the Rolling Stones ...

Bo Diddley and the Beat Surrender

Retrospective by Andy Gill, The Independent, 6 June 2008

Bo Diddley has shuffled off, but his trademark rhythm, and his part in the creation of rock'n'roll, will remain. ...

Bo Diddley: Bo Meets The Maker

Obituary by Neil Slaven, Blues & Rhythm, August 2008

Neil Slaven turns up the volume as his hero refuses to go quietly into the night. ...

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