BO DIDDLEY: A MAN AMONGST MEN (1996)
1) Bo Diddley Is Crazy; 2) Can
I Walk You Home; 3) Hey Baby; 4) I Can't Stand It; 5) He's Got A Key; 6) A Man
Amongst Men; 7) Coatimundi; 8) That Mule; 9) Kids Don't Do It; 10) Oops! Bo
Diddley.
This is Bo's one and only «proper» studio LP in
the last thirty years of his career — «proper» meaning «distributed on an
official commercial basis» (through Atlantic Records), but also «properly
recorded», meaning a professional studio instead of Bo's bedroom, and also
«properly available» (meaning it's still out of print, but at least you can ruffle
through used CD bins on a regular basis with high chances of success).
It ain't no great shakes, and it might even be
a bit below certain expectations (and a bit above other certain expectations),
but in any case, it is a respectable career bookmark. A Bo Diddley album from
a nearly 70-year old Bo Diddley has only one point to prove — namely, that the
rock'n'roll spirit can, and should, be still alive in 70-year olds — and it
does that in the form of a test: can you guess
that the album was recorded by a 70-year old, or does it sound ageless? Naturally,
for everybody who has the faintest idea of who Bo Diddley is, the test is
rigged from the beginning, but my own guess is that I probably couldn't guess.
As Bo was drawn in more and more into the
Stones' circle of contacts — first the Ron Wood alliance, followed by a joint public
appearance in 1994, singing ʽWho Do You Loveʼ — it is no wonder that much of
the playing and production here is masterminded by Ronnie and Keith, and that
fact alone ensures a certain level of gritty quality. Other pieces of the
puzzle include Stevie Ray's brother Jimmie Vaughan, lending a proper Texan
flavour to the proceedings; Johnny "Guitar" Watson, deepening and
nearly-monopolizing that Texan flavour; and such old vets of the business as
Billy Boy Arnold on harp and Johnnie Johnson on piano. Throw in «The Shirelles»
on back vocals (quotation marks reflect my lack of knowledge as to how many of
the original «Shirelles» are actually involved — one? two?), and that is
altogether more guest star presence than Bo ever had to back him up at any
single moment in his career, including even the primordial soup of 20th Anniversary Of Rock'n'Roll.
This actually creates a problem — the end
result looks too much like a glitzy all-star jam, with Bo merely guesting on
his own record, something of which you could never accuse any of his original
albums right up to 1974. Worse, even though most of the songs are credited to
Bo (they must have all agreed that the old man needed the royalties more than
anybody else), they don't really always
sound like Bo Diddley songs. There is too little syncopation, too little funk,
too little «tribal jamming» involved — in fact, about a third of this stuff
sounds like typical Ronnie Wood boogie, another third is «Texan roots rock» à la Stevie Ray, and the final third is
«modernized Bo Diddley for today's kids» material: glossy, even, and way too
loud due to a whole army of cooks stirring the broth at the same time.
That said, it is still a fun record, and a fun «Bo
Diddley-blessed» record, at that. ʽBo Diddley Is Crazyʼ is rigidly based on
ʽWho Do You Loveʼ, and even if Bo's own rhythm guitar nearly gets lost under
all the overdubs, his singing does not — and that deep caveman rumble is
certainly far from an old man's croak. And he certainly ain't lost his wits,
either: verses like "All I wanna do is play my music and make people happy
/ I don't wanna be an old drunk like my pappy" pretty much summarize the
man's lifelong credo like nothing else. So even if the backing track is not
very imaginative, the whole thing is still a fun-filled fast-paced romp — as is
ʽOops! Bo Diddleyʼ that bookmarks the album from the other side (although the
latter is seriously overlong, with the band fooling around for over seven minutes
repeating the same licks over and over again).
In between, we have some slow boring 12-bar
blues (ʽThat Muleʼ, mainly for fans of Billy Boy's harp blowing); Texan
blues-rock shuffle (ʽCan I Walk You Homeʼ), occasionally used as a new bag for
old wine (ʽA Man Amongst Menʼ, which is basically like a sped-up ʽI'm A Manʼ); one
obligatory tribute to the «Diddley beat», adorned with harmonica vs. slide
guitar conversations (ʽHey Babyʼ); one slow swampy funk groove (ʽI Can't Stand
Itʼ); one reggae tribute to ʽCrackin' Upʼ (ʽCoatimundiʼ, definitely running
overtime); and even one exercise in funkified hip-hop, targeted at the young
ones, with Bo's own grandson joining in on the messaging (ʽKids Don't Do Itʼ) —
«stay in school and get your Ph.D!» hints fairly well at the scope of Bo's goal-setting.
(Problem is, I wouldn't mind the corniness if I knew for certain there'd be
even one kid in the world, black or
white, who could ever claim that his or her life was irrevocably changed by a
thorough listen to this song. As it is, I suppose it was mostly the
grandfathers who heard it).
So, at the very least, even if not all of this
is typical Bo Diddley material, it's still a diverse set of moods and styles, which
makes for a fitting conclusion to Bo's career — reminding of the good old days
when the man was ready to try out nearly everything. Add it up to the perfect
vocal form throughout (Bo even makes a fairly good rapper, much as I tend to
snuff that form), and the fact that,
whatever be the faults and flaws of the production, Keith Richards, Ronnie
Wood, and Jimmie Vaughan are far more exciting guitar players than... (well,
they could have gotten him Lenny Kravitz, or a stiff academician like Robert
Cray — there's millions of them out there) — and altogether, it's almost
awesome that Bo did get a chance to give us a proper musical goodbye with this
record. And it is not bad, either, that although he still had twelve years left
to try and repeat it, he either chose not to or did not get a second chance — one was perfectly enough for a solid thumbs up,
two might have been excessive: A Man
Amongst Men as a «goodbye» is far more effective than as a «welcome back».
Check "A Man Amongst Men" (MP3) on Amazon
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