Does Bo Know Diddley? Bo Knows a Lot
T he first thing you notice about Bo Diddley is his size. Physically, he’s a big man and a minute into a conversation with him, you realize he’s got a big personality to match.
A vivid storyteller with a sharp eye for detail and a frighteningly good memory, he peppers his speech with lots of jive . The words buns and booty punctuate any sentence he can fit them into. Every anecdote he tells seems to involve a different car and he recalls each vehicle in loving detail as though it were a sorely missed old flame. Born on Dec. 30, 1928 in McComb, Miss., Bo maintains a home in Florida, but he’s spent his life on the road, and cars have special meaning for him.
At 61, Bo--whose real name is Ellas McDaniel--is a great-grandfather and at this point feels he pretty much knows which way the wind blows. The philosophy he’s arrived at is a blend of live and let live, laced with a strong dose of straighten up and fly right.
Briefly in L.A. for a concert, an appearance on “The Tonight Show” and to talk up his new album, “Breakin’ Through the B.S.,” Diddley lays down the law according to Diddley, then grabs his bags and hits the road again.
Human Nature
People are just naturally attracted to trouble--animals are like that and we just a higher form of animal. If you have a good husband don’t be surprised if the chick across the street is trying to figure how to take him away from you. Guys pick on other guys’ wives when they got one at home themselves. Why can’t he leave her alone and deal with the one he’s chosen to live with? People think they’re slick, but the time when you think you’re making your slickest move is probably the very minute you’re about to fall on your buns.
A Word to the Wise
One thing I’ve learned in life is that when you cease to be a dummy, that’s when you in trouble. My mother always told me shut your damn mouth and keep your ears open and you’ll learn a lot, and I use that same technique today. I don’t talk about nothing--I listen. If somebody’s doing something shady around you, the minute you open that hole under your nose, they know you got their number and they change their direction. Now you got to figure out their next trick!
Parenting Tip
When I was a kid I got my booty kicked so much I thought they hated me, but it was good for me because I learned how to treat people. Nowdays kids are running in the streets at midnight when they should be asleep. Some people will hate me for saying this, but I think we should bring back the draft to get some of them off the street. Get ‘em in there and teach ‘em something and they make a few bucks while they’re at it.
Mellowing
I used to be a keg of dynamite with a real short fuse. People that knew me predicted I wouldn’t live to be 21 because every time they turn around I’d punched somebody out. Then one day I finally stopped and asked myself, what am I doing this for? I realized I had to back off because I can’t whip the world.
Music Marches Into the Future
Electronics have brought about the biggest change I’ve seen in music in the past 40 years. I like the gadgets, but I don’t like what it’s doing to musicians. I see a hard damn road ahead for the young musicians that are coming up. When disco came down the pike I started seeing musicians walking the streets that I never saw walking the streets before. I asked what’s happening and they said they got deejays playing records and people are paying to get into clubs to hear ‘em. Club owners made a lot of money during the disco era and musicians were out of luck. It don’t take no college graduate to figure what’s about to come down and the changes brought about by electronics have only just started.
Kids Today
Ain’t nobody today doing what me and Chuck Berry do, and because of that kids today don’t even know what rock ‘n’ roll sounds like. It often happens I’ll be doing a show and some kid will holler, “Play some rock ‘n’ roll!” That happens all the time because kids today think Prince is rock ‘n’ roll. People don’t have the background in blues and R&B; to get what I do. And of course, there’s lots of white kids playing blues who don’t know what they’re doing.
Home Sweet Home
I moved to Florida so I wouldn’t have to get up in the morning and water my horses. I bought property in Hawthorne (Fla.) with two lakes on it and showed my horses where the lakes are, so now they can get their own damn water. I built a mansion there with my wife and I inherited the thing when we got divorced. I tried to give it to my wife but she didn’t want it so I got stuck with the dude. I won’t live in it though. I’m one of them funny type people from the old school. If she’d died or something it might’ve been different, but we had some nasty arguments in that house, so I feel funny about living there.
Superstition
I’m very superstitious. Like, I won’t go to funerals, not even my own mother’s. I was raised by my mother’s first cousin, a lady I called Mama Gussie, and when she died I caught all hell from the family for not going to her funeral. They couldn’t understand that I’m just the kind of person who don’t like to see people in a box. I go to bed and dream about it. And I also don’t like how at funerals, people cry and holler over people they treated like dogs when they were alive. Now they gone and everybody wants to drop tears in the casket.
The Church
My mama was a Sunday school teacher and I spent more time in church than I did at home, and my musical roots are the gospel music I heard there. I don’t go to church now but I still consider myself a religious man. You don’t have to go to church to be in touch with God--it’s about the way you live. No preacher can cleanse my soul, ‘cause if I’m gonna be a dog, ain’t nobody gonna change that but me. Just like drug users--you can talk all you want, but they’re the ones who have to decide to stop.
America
I love it, love it, love it. I been everywhere and I tell you, this is the place because we can sit here and talk like we talking right now. We can speak our piece and you can go out on the street and stomp, scream, holler and do anything you want to. It’s funny, cops won’t bother you if you do that, but if you a drunk sitting quietly on a corner bothering nobody they lock you up. Our laws are good, but some of ‘em are really rigid and screwed up.
Graveyard Grudges
I had a guy who used to drive for me named Speedy. I had a bus at the time, and once we was in a hotel in New York City when the brakes went out, so I sent Speedy to get the brakes fixed and give him $350 to pay for it. We had a show that night in Richmond, Va. so we all sitting there in the hotel waiting on Speedy to come back with the bus but Speedy never came back--he took my money and split.
Being a clever sucker, I decided to figure out just what he might have did. So I checked to see who was making phone calls in the group and Speedy had a bunch of calls to Detroit. I call the bus station and ask ‘em, “Do you have a bus goin’ to Detroit this afternoon?” The man says, “Yeah, one left at four that should be there at 11 tonight.” So, at one in the morning I called one of the numbers and a girl answered the phone. I said, “Can I speak to Speedy?” And she said, “Hold on.” He got on the phone and all I said was, “You’re a dead man.”
Come five years later I was in Birmingham, Ala. and one of the guys in my band says, “That look like Speedy sitting on that park bench over there.” I crept up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder and told him next time I saw him I wanted $350. The next time I seen him was in San Francisco, but I didn’t have the heart to do anything to him. He’d had a stroke and he came to the club where I was playing and asked me for some money to check into a hotel--which I gave him. I don’t hold what you call graveyard grudges ‘cause what is it gonna get you? Let society whip you and believe me, society will do a good job of it. So I gave him some money and all I said was, “God don’t like ugly, baby.”