Bo Diddley - Who Do You Love?

A Fitting Third for Rock and Roll's Holy Trinity

1. In the beginning, Man created Rock and Roll out of Blackness, and the Blackness was good and right. And lo, a trinity emerged and it was understood as Chuck, Richard, and Bo. Chuck, forever known as Johnny B. Goode, was to serve as Lord of Duck Walks, 12-Bar Blues, and would reign over his divine kingdom as the first poet of Rock and Roll. Then Richard, the Little One, who would deliver unto the kingdom Wop Bop a Loo Bop a Lop Bom Bom. He served as Lord of 88 Ivory Keys and howls of ecstatic freedom. Alas, piece the third of the Holy Trinity was Bo of the Rectangular Guitar and the Good Time Beat. Let the Bomp, Ba-Bomp-Bomp, Bomp-Bomp echo with mighty blasts. Bo was born of Tombstone Hand and Graveyard Mind. In the beginning, it was thus and thus built the Kingdom of Rock and Roll. And the Lord said “Bring forth unto the new kingdom teenagers from all the lands and let them revel and partake,” and it was goooooooood.

2. Let’s address this immediately: what kind of life do you have to lead to write this lyric?

   Tombstone hand and a graveyard mind
   Just 22 and I don't mind dying

   Bo, born Ellas Bates McDaniel, recorded that line at age 28 in 1956, but I’m certain it was lodged in his head from the time he was 22, if not earlier. (Side note: Bluesmen and Jazz players have the greatest names outside of Italian racers. Ellas McDaniel, McKinley Morganfield, Chester Burnett, otherwise known as Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf. I mean come the fuck on. It’s unreasonably cool.) Back to that lyric… it’s so absurdly aggressive and fantastic that it wouldn’t be rivaled until 1995 when Mobb Deep released Shook Ones Part II:

   Don't make me have to call your name out
   Your crew is featherweight, my gunshots'll make you levitate
   I'm only nineteen, but my mind is old
   And when the things get for real, my warm heart turns cold

   I’m serious about that Bo lyric. I could listen to the song ten times consecutively if I was alone and I would likely spin it 11 times, but Bo Diddley, I’m a Man, and Before You Accuse Me as well as Who Do You Love? are all on that blistering 1958 debut. Say that line to yourself in a low growl, like you’re responding to a gambler in a John Ford movie who just accused you of cheating and drew his pistol on you. “I got a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind. I’m just 22 and I don’t mind dying.” Then you sneakily pull your pistol and shoot your would-be assassin down. Who Do You Love? is a potent and rumbling braggadocio because self-created mythology is as essential to American music as the music itself. Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil, Sonny Rollins practicing his saxophone under the Williamsburg Bridge, and the Bo Diddley Beat (more on that in a moment). There’s such great visuals here. My man uses a cobra snake for a necktie. He rides a lion into town and uses a rattlesnake whip when the urge strikes him. This is entirely befitting a man who built his first guitar out of a rectangular piece of wood and used turntable parts. He called it the “Twang Machine” and the vibrating fuzz emerging from that rectangular box of wood altered the trajectory of that instrument’s galvanic power and range.

3. Bo’s straddle reached from the 3-2 clave rhythm of sub-Sahara Africa to modern Hip-Hop across two centuries. One can play anything over that Bomp, Ba-Bomp-Bomp, Bomp-Bomp beat, but there’s more. Ellas Bates McDaniel renamed himself Bo Diddly, named his first album Bo Diddley, and yes, his first single was Bo Diddley. Bo was elf-curated mythology at maximum density - a lesson in cool that would become second nature throughout the history of popular music following him. His work has been sampled by the likes of Q-Tip, the Jungle Brothers, Gorillaz, Method Man, Outkast, Kool & the Gang, The Who, Aerosmith, Hank Williams Jr., the Rolling Stones, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. The swaggering presence, the ferocity of the guitar tone, and the universality of the beat that bears his name exist in the DNA of incalculable songs in the modern era. We build on the shoulders of giants.