Box Set Debunks the Bo Diddley Myth

Why would anyone want to listen to 45 records by Bo Diddley when everyone knows that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer-guitarist made the same record 45 times?

That question is what many rock fans may ask when coming across MCA Records’ new Bo Diddley box set.

The belief that Diddley (real name: Ellas McDaniel) was a one-dimensional artist is so widespread that Robert Palmer, a pop critic and author of the widely respected book “Deep Blues,” devotes much of his essay in the booklet that comes with the two-disc set to refuting the notion that Diddley simply made the same record over and over.

“Even in 1955, when new artists such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard were turning American popular music upside down, everything about Bo Diddley’s records sounded different,” writes Palmer.

“There were the game songs, the boasts, the high-spirited verbal exchanges, the shimmering, fluid tremelo guitar. But . . . for a listener (from today’s perspective) who has seen black music develop from soul into the more skeletal song forms and harder rhythmic edge of funk to the current emphasis on rhythm and verbal inventiveness in rap, the most strikingly original quality of these recordings is Bo’s utterly unique reorganization, or reimagining, of the rhythm section.”

Diddley wasn’t above trying to tap into the commercial R&B; strains of the day in hopes of improving his sales figures (he had only eight Top 20 R&B; singles during his entire Chess/Checker tenure, as opposed to 53 Top 20 singles for Fats Domino).

But the McComb, Miss., native was far more interesting when he followed his own musical instincts, unleashing the patented Bo Diddley sound--a nervous, eccentric guitar-based rhythm pattern--in his first, landmark single, “Bo Diddley.”

While Diddley did return to, or build upon, that rhythm often, he also injected novel and absorbing elements in his music. They range from the railroad-accented color on “Down Home Special” (one of numerous songs that were previously unavailable on album in this country) to the rock aggression of “Road Runner.”

Indeed, the best of these eye-opening tracks--recorded between 1955 and 1968 for Chess Records’ Checker subsidiary--suggest a man with a rich, restless musical imagination. A valuable, enlightening set.

TRUE DOMINO: Speaking of Fats Domino, EMI Records, which owns the rights to the Imperial Records catalogue, has finally released a respectable CD on this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member. “My Blue Heaven/The Best of Fats Domino” offers 20 songs and much better sound quality than in an earlier, skimpier EMI collection.