[Fmpro] Bo Diddley Died

[Pete]

Bo Diddley died of a heart failure yesterday. He had
an arrhythmia for many years. Doctors say the detected
his heartbeat going... boom boom boom, da boom boom.

Pete

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Bo Diddley, rock's rhythm king, dies
June 4, 2008 
ROCK'N'ROLL has lost a founding father. Bo Diddley,
known as "the originator", died of heart failure on
Monday. He was 79. 

Diddley, who continued to play shows despite his
ailing health, died at his home in Archer, Florida. 

"One of the founding fathers of rock'n'roll has left
the building he helped construct," his management
agency, Talent Consultants International, said in a
statement. 

Diddley's syncopated, percussive, propulsive rhythm
guitar playing, backed by shuffling maracas, was
inspired by an African drum beat. That rhythm helped
lay rock'n'roll's foundation. 

"Boom da boom da boom, boom boom. That was basically
an Indian chant," is how Diddley described it in a
March 2007 interview with National Public Radio. 

Resplendent in black Stetson hat and thick-rimmed
glasses, employing distortion and reverb on his array
of self-designed guitars — rectangular or with
Cadillac-like "fins" — Diddley boasted on
self-mythologising songs such as Bo Diddley and Bo
Diddley's a Gunslinger, presaging many cocksure
rockers and rappers. 

The driving beat of songs such as Who Do You Love,
Roadrunner and Pretty Thing inspired artists from
Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley to the Rolling Stones
and the Pretty Things, the Clash, Iggy Pop, ZZ Top, U2
and the White Stripes. 

Along with Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Diddley
constructed a sound that crossed America's racial
divide, appealing to both black and white audiences
and musicians. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
recognised his influence in 1987, and he received a
Grammy lifetime achievement award the following year.
Exploitation by record companies meant he never
received financial rewards commensurate with his
influence. 

"He was a wonderful, original musician who was an
enormous force in music and was a big influence on the
Rolling Stones," Mick Jagger said in a statement. 

Melbourne DJ Mohair Slim, who will be presenting a
tribute to Diddley on his show Blue Juice on 3PBS FM
this Sunday morning, said Diddley was a true original.


"Bo Diddley didn't really have a predecessor, he was
not part of any continuum or musical tradition," Slim
said. "Every '60s R&B band had a Bo Diddley song in
their repertoire but nobody adopted his whole approach
or sound. The guy was such a maverick that he was
destined never to get his due." 

Born Ellas Bates in 1928 in McComb, Mississippi, he
was given the nickname Bo Diddley as a teenager after
moving to Chicago in the 1940s. 

Inspired by John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, he
started performing on street corners. 

While he had just one top 40 hit with Say Man and
collected no gold records, his influence is profound. 

In 1956 a Harlem newspaper, the Amsterdam News, on
first seeing Elvis perform, claimed he had "copied Bo
Diddley's style to the letter". Rolling Stone magazine
described his beat as "the most plagiarised rhythm of
the 20th century". 

Diddley toured Australia many times, including on the
Legends of Rock'n'Roll Tour in the late 1980s, when he
terrified promoter Kevin Jacobsen by staging a mock
argument with Jerry Lee Lewis. 

On his 1978 tour, he was so impressed by Brisbane
guitar maker Chris Kinman that he asked him to build
him a new square guitar, which he dubbed "the Mean
Machine". 

Playing at St Kilda's Prince of Wales Hotel in 2005,
he surprised the crowd by straying from his signature
sound in a genre-defying set of funk, soul, doo-wop,
psychedelic rock, country and even rap, a genre he
often derided. 

Diddley also competed as a boxer and served as a
sheriff in Los Lunas, New Mexico. In recent years, he
worked with his local police department to warn
teenagers about the dangers of drugs and gang
violence.