Bo Diddley, who referred to himself as “the Originator” to emphasize how much rock and blues music meant to him and he to it, died yesterday in his home in Archer Florida from heart failure. Bo Diddley was one of the first musicians to begin to sound of rock music over 50 years ago. His signature syncopated rhythm became universally known and “the Bo Diddley Beat.”
Unfortunately, his long battle with hypertension, diabetes, and other health problems finally caught up with him. Back in May 2007 he was hospitalized after he collapsed on stage while suffering from a stroke. In August, he was hospitalized for a heart attack during and routine check-up. On June 2nd, his heart gave out and he passed in his home in Florida.
Bo Diddley will always be remembered as one of rocks most influential guitarists and ground breaking sound.
He played a rectangular “cigar box” guitar of his own design, an instantly recognizable visual counterpart to the distinctive chank-a-chank, a-chank, a-chank-chank rhythm that bore his name and provided the backbeat for his own songs, including “Bo Diddley,” “Mona” and “Who Do You Love.”
That beat — fusing blues, R&B, Latin and African rhythms — resurfaced over the decades in countless other rock and R&B songs, among them Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away,” Johnny Otis’ “Willie and the Hand Jive,” Bruce Springsteen’s “She’s the One,”“Panic in Detroit,” U2’s “Desire” and George Michael’s “Faith.”
“Bo’s one of the guys who invented rock ‘n’ roll,” said Eric Burdon, lead singer of the Animals, the British Invasion band that recorded the tribute song “The Story of Bo Diddley” in 1964. “He took two cultures that existed in separate forms — country and western and the kind of blues that used to be known as ‘race music’ — and put them together. His beat was a jungle beat. That’s what he called it.”
Diddley’s most famous songs — “Who Do You Love,” “Mona,” “I’m a Man” and “Bo Diddley” — are the foundation of a huge catalog of songs that have been covered by the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, the Grateful Dead and the Doors and even sampled by the rap group De La Soul.
Photo and quotes by the LATimes.com
Subscribe to our RSS Feed And checkout our coffee competition to win a $30 gift voucher to your favourite coffee shop : click here
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
0 responses so far ↓
Subscribe to our RSS Feed and leave a comment to enter the commentator of the week competition and win a $20 Amazon.com gift voucher.
Leave a Comment