Go Bo Diddley.

June 12, 2008. Day .

I got so many messages yesterday about Bo Diddley's dying; I appreciate them all. We knew it was coming. It wasn't quite the same (to me) as when K-Doe died. When Ernie died, it seemed too soon, because he was on such an upswing in life; with Bo, he'd had a bad stroke, on stage, and we knew he'd done his work as long as he could and longer than most, and more uncompromisingly than all.

It's great to go watch the incredible performances on the internet (and I'll be hunting for a copy of Let The Good Times Roll a '70s film about moldy oldies shows, in which Bo is actually in his prime, playing a one-chord, one-word song (just google "Bo Diddley best video", get a can of something, and enjoy getting your head knocked off). I'm just happy I got to see him live --four times, the last two forgettable, the first two (on the same day) incredible, and probably the reason I still can't keep myself off a stage.

It was Summer 1984 and Bo Diddley was playing Lake Winnepesaukah, Chattanooga's Coney Island. My brother later worked there and got to meet the cats from Rare Earth and drive the Drifters lead singer around in an antique car (long, great story). It was outside. Before the show Bo came out to check the gear dressed in a cop outfit. Nobody paid him any attention. I couldn't believe it. He came back a few minutes later to start the show with a different hat on (still wearing his badge, which was apparently real) and everybody went nuts. His guitar spelled out Bo Diddley in lights that pulsed along with the tremolo. At the night show, he played "Love Is Strange" and complained that nobody knew he wrote it (I didn't). That was a treat. But at the day show, the one for kids; shit, he did this robot dance that he accompanied with harsh scrapes on the bass string, all culminating in his pretending to wipe his nose and fling snot on the ground at the same time he smacked the guitar and made all those 80s electronics sound EXACTLY like a giant dancing robot flinging snot on the ground--I have never seen a cooler trick on the guitar, and don't expect to.

After the show we got to go in his trailer and meet the man. He looked at my Chess reissue like he'd never seen it before (probably hadn't), motioned to the former band members pictured there, and said, "Them two guys is dead." Then he shook my hand (his fingers were gigantic; ridiculously so) and signed my album with a skipping Paper-Mate pen.

Bo Diddley's autograph