BO DIDDLEY: GO BO DIDDLEY (1959)
1) Crackin' Up; 2) I'm Sorry;
3) Bo's Guitar; 4) Willie And Lillie; 5) You Don't Love Me (You Don't Care); 6)
Say Man; 7) The Great Grandfather; 8) Oh Yeah; 9) Don't Let It Go; 10) Little
Girl; 11) Dearest Darling; 12) The Clock Strikes Twelve.
There was literally no way that any second, or
third, or fourth LP of Bo's could have the same impact or be as consistent as
the first. Go Bo Diddley isn't
exactly «scraping the barrels»: its bulk consists of new singles that the man
released in late 1958 / 1959, and it actually shows him trying out some new
styles and directions. But not all of these new ones should have been tried,
and some of the old ones should have been left on the shelf as well.
Bad news first. ʽI'm Sorryʼ transparently
proves that doo-wop, of all things,
is completely incompatible with Bo's style of doing stuff — awfully produced,
with almost parodic back vocals rising out of coal pits, and Bo himself
sounding completely out of his pattern. Elvis, perhaps, could be slick enough
to sing doo-wop; Bo Diddley trying to be «The Cardinals» is more like the Sex
Pistols trying to be «Van Der Graaf Generator». ʽLittle Girlʼ seems to intrude
on the turf of New Orleanian barroom bluesmen like Professor Longhair, and Bo
doesn't quite master the sort of nonchalant drunken swagger that it takes to
make these things loveable (just go for the real thing instead — the Professor
has a great knack for getting you all sauced up without a single physical drop of
the stuff). Then there's the rehashing: ʽOh Yeahʼ is a response to Muddy's
ʽMannish Boyʼ which was a response to Bo's ʽI'm A Manʼ which was a response to
Muddy's ʽHoochie Coochie Manʼ... well, you get the point.
The most oddball selection is ʽThe Clock Strikes
Twelveʼ, which starts out as one more variation on the same subject, completely
instrumental this time, with Bo playing the violin
— original as hell, but it's safe to say that Jascha Heifetz probably wouldn't
be impressed. Still, for a few moments out there, I am ashamed — or thrilled?
— to say, I couldn't actually understand if it really was a violin, or if it
was a particularly inventive part blown by Little Walter on his harmonica. I am
not sure if this counts as a positive recommendation, it's just the way it is.
But in between the clear-cut failures and the
odd, controversial moments there are still plenty of unassailable highlights.
ʽCrackin' Upʼ, later «informally» covered by the Stones and formally by Paul
McCartney in 1988, is the man's finest Latin-groove-based number, with an
incredibly catchy guitar loop firmly ensuring that misogyny will live forever
(actually, the lyrics aren't strictly misogynist — «frustrated husband»-ist
would be more accurate). ʽYou Don't Love Meʼ is the ever-on-the-watchout Bo
stealing the carpet from under the feet of Slim Harpo — it's a variation on
ʽGot Love If You Want Itʼ that, in terms of sharpness, energy, and
professionalism, destroys the original completely, although it did not help Bo
expropriate the original: British bands like the Kinks and the Yardbirds still
got stuck covering Slim Harpo. And ʽSay Manʼ, with Bo and his maracas shaker Jerome
Green trading off stupid jokes and friendly mutual insults to a samba beat, is
yet another first — a mixture of time-honored «Afro-American comedy» and
new-fangled R&B that all the white kids around the world must have been
really thrilled to hear. (That said, the jokes themselves are really, really dumb. They probably should have
hired some of Louis Jordan's songwriters instead).
Much less known — and lacking on most of the
short compilations — are such clever little nuggets as the instrumental ʽBo's
Guitarʼ, which combines a distant variation on the «Diddley beat» with shards
of surfing-style melodies (Bo the Omnivorous must have been intensely listening
to Duane Eddy's earliest recordings), and ʽThe Great Grandfatherʼ, Bo's take on
something really archaic — ye olde
Negro working song, a style he tackles with much more convincing force and spirit
than doo-wop. Maybe his moans and groans that bookend the verses aren't nearly
as authentic as, say, Leadbelly's, but «authentic» is a relative term; for a
hard-working black guy on the 1950s Chicago scene, you couldn't expect any
better.
For some reason, they also reissued ʽDearest
Darlingʼ from Bo Diddley — by
mistake, perhaps — but in the end, Go Bo
Diddley does not have even a single
clear example of the «Diddley beat», even if ʽBo's Guitarʼ and ʽSay Manʼ come
somewhat close. Instead, we get a smatter of diversity that, in sheer objective
terms, might even beat the debut, with the subjective exception that not
everything works so well this time. Most things do, though, confirming
Diddley's reputation as «the man who wanted to do everything» and somehow got
pigeonholed into one single, simple formula anyway. Well, that is why we are
here to try and remedy this with a single, simple thumbs up.
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