According to Bo Diddley, he and he alone is the one true father of the devil's own music, rock'n'roll. What's more, he'll fight his corner with anyone who doubts his word for a second.
Rock history has it that three musicians - Chuck Berry, Little the start, in the early 1950s.
"Where'd you get that from?" Gainesville, Florida. "Is it because Little Richard been running his mouth?
"
"My record was released six months ahead of Chuck Berry."
to Leonard Chess. "Little Richard came two or three years later, along with Elvis Presley.
In other words, I was the first dude out there," Diddley says.
Who Do You Love, Mona, and Diddy Wah recorded.
( How Soon Is Now?
), the Strangeloves ( I Want 1969), to mention only a few.
That beat came by accident, explains the man known as the Originator, whose trademark instrument is a rectangular-bodied guitar nicknamed the Mean Machine. "I heard this song by cowboy and I was trying to play it and I couldn't play it.
I messed around and stumbled upon an extra note. That's where it came from. So I got me a drummer [Clifton James, who died last year] and it all started from there.
"
groups such as the Yardbirds, the Animals, Manfred Mann and, in particular, the Rolling Stones, took his devastating rock riff and dried up in the US.
Sullivan Show, in 1955. He was banned from further appearances Sullivan called him a coloured boy and Diddley thumped him.
Trading Places. He has received numerous accolades,
Hey! Bo Diddley, a three-part BBC documentary narrated by the Who's Roger Daltrey, was broadcast in Britain in January.
touring and only rarely perform, Diddley is still going strong. "I ain't near 'bout through," he says.
As a result of an injury two years ago, when he broke two vertebrae in his back getting out of bed ("I'm OK, I'm not jumping around and doing karate kicks.
They got me walkin'.") he now performs sitting down. "The diabetes has got me.
I wanna warn you now, look after yourself. It's a mess. It's because of the junk I was eating.
"
Born Ellas Otha Bates in McComb, Mississippi, and later adopted McDaniel, he learned classical violin for 12 years. At the age of six he was taken to live in Chicago. He was given his first guitar in Chicago.
"I haven't the slightest idea where it came from, my man. They just started calling me that." He incorporated the name, probably derived from southern black slang, into his early songs, such as his first double-sided 45, Bo Diddley/I'm A Man and Hey!
Bo Diddley, Diddley Daddley and Bo Diddley's Again, Diddley is quick to debunk any story that his style was influenced by the blues or blues players from Chicago. "No, I wasn't influenced by any of them," he declares. "If you notice, I don't sound like any of them.
I knew what they were doin', man. I used to play on Maxwell Street, Chicago, with Muddy Waters and all those people. Make yourself $45 or $50 that'd sometimes keep the wolf from the door.
But I had to create my own thing."
first British tour. "No, that didn't happen," he says abruptly.
"Somebody wrote another lie, y'know. We worked on the same tour but they weren't in my room on the floor. I was the one who told them music-making is that he needs the money.
If he hadn't signed away all his Chess royalties and copyrights in the early '70s, he would be a rich man.
"I didn't get paid before I signed them away. I can't mention something about somebody.
I won't talk about that.
There were people back then who were ripping off a lot of people, because we trusted the guys. And they were a bunch of thieves and you couldn't do anything.
I couldn't find a guy to be honest with me about the deals I made."
In 1979, at the invitation of Joe Strummer, a bitter Diddley opened several shows for the Clash on their US tour. According to legend, he insisted on being paid in cash every night before he went on stage.
He refused to play classics such as Who Do You make somebody else rich.
day," he says. "I wish somebody would make my mailbox look like there's footballs in it.
Keywords: Bo Diddley, Do You, Chuck Berry, Who Do You, Who Do, Little Richard, Diddley Is
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