Hey Bo Diddley, Oh Bo Diddley!!

One of R&R's greatest drummers passed away today. Did you say drummer?!? Yeah man, drummer! Bo Diddley was a drummer. He might have played the guitar, but Bo Diddley was a drummer. Or like the man said it himself, "I play the guitar as if I'm playing the drums....I play drum licks on the guitar." All Diddley ever wanted to was to be a drummer. Either he couldn't afford to play the drums, or he couldn't get it together, the legend differs on who you ask. But Bo Diddley became the first drummer to play the guitar. Bo Diddley didn't write songs, he wrote beats, pulsing jungle fevers, bomp, ba-bomp-bomp, bomp-bomp. We all know that rhythm as well as we know our heart beat. If you don't know Bo, you don't know Diddley. The Stones, the Strangeloves, Johnny Otis, U2, Buddy Holly, Springsteen, they all called out his name, Hey Bo Diddley, Oh Bo Diddley!! Bo is what flows through the veins of R&R, into our hearts, moving our feet to that Diddley beat. Ellas Otha Bates may have traded this life for the next Bo Diddley aka "the originator" lives on.



Read the obituary in the NY Times