Bye Bye, Bo Diddley

When I was in middle school I walked into a used music shop intending to buy a Rolling Stones CD, picked up all three CDs in the Stones' sections and sat down at the listening booth to test them out. I've since forgotten the names of the first two CDs but the third was Stone Rock Blues, a compilation of the original versions of songs the Stones covered by Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Arthur Alexander, and, of course, Bo Diddley.


I didn't think of it as a revelatory experience at the time but in retrospect leaving those two rock records on the table in favor of Stone Rock Blues proved to be the most fortuitous and formative moment in my personal music listening history.

Bo Diddley died Monday at age 79 and while the whole world of popular music owes him a tremendous debt (listen here for his explanation of the "Bo Diddley Beat", seriously, LISTEN, he's a fun guy), I feel personally obliged to him for opening my ears up to a whole world of music that a decade later still has new thrills and surprises to discover.

Bo Diddley gets it RIGHT