4 out of 5

Label: Geffen/Chess

Produced by: Leonard Chess, Phil Chess

Will this be my shortest review ever?  I know, you can only hope.  But I’m not even going to try to approach this from a historical perspective – anything I could possibly say wouldn’t be from listening experience with this era of blues or rock, it would just be nabbed from Allmusic or Wiki.  Er, which, I guess, is generally where I get my info, but I’d like to think I try not to speak to it unless I feel like I have an opinion on it.  Since Bo Diddley is the only record in my collection from Chess Records or of The Definitive Collection (wait… I think my Bruce Willis album is the Definitive one), or of anything even close to its genre, I’m not yer guy for the studied review.  Alas, this makes me just like every singles-stuffed iPhone owning dickwad on Planet Download Everything right now, but at least I’ll refrain from #hashyhashin this bitch up and linking to it on my facebook read my new review y’all here’s a photo of a hot dog i ate u’ve never ate it with mustard like me.

Newp.  I’m here because of The Fire Show, and their cover of “Who Do You Love?” which is so weird I had to track it down.  The original – on this collection – is equally weird, and equally catchy.  The last word being the operative value to this set, which is apparently a reissue of an earlier 1997 set.  Ever heard of the Bo Diddley Beat?  Neither had I, but now I have.  It’s all over this album, the bawomp-a-bomp that kicks in after 15 seconds on any given track, and it is hugely responsible for getting any given song stuck in your head when its paired with an equally catchy and hummable guitar riff and Diddley’s easy-on-the-ears chanting of lyrics straight-forward or silly or strange.  The limitations of the recording of the era (I believe) limits us to about three minutes for each of these 20 songs, and with the limited setup of beat and guitar strum, there’s certainly some repetition to be found.  But it’s interesting, then, how listenable the album is for its hour runtime, that this repetition doesn’t become noxious.  Diddley has just enough tricks up his sleeve, and just enough flourish to those base construction elements, to keep almost all of the tracks recognizable despite their similarities.

There’s a story here about BD bridging the gap from blues to rock.  Again, I’m not even going to try to expand on that point, but to the lay listener, that concept is here: there’s the slow blues thump churning on many of these songs, which then gets amped up by Diddley’s light-hearted playing and singing style.  The combination is what makes it stand out, as well as whatever mixing or refining was done on this to clean the recordings up into something wonderfully timeless sounding.

I don’t know what your starting point will be to get you here.  But I think if you’ve a generally open ear and someone hands you this – or any – Diddley collection, while it might not stay in your listening queue, the historical relevance (and enduring popularity) can be easily understood.