https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs8FJergjas
He burst into pop music in 1955 with a song named after himself and topped the R&B charts shortly afterward. A few years later, he built his own rectangular Gretsch, nicknamed "The Twang Machine," which he would use to play thousands of concerts across decades of rousing performance. Along the way, he influenced everyone from Buddy Holly and Jimi Hendrix to The Stooges and The Sex Pistols, before passing away in Florida on Monday.
He was 79.
When it came to rock and guitars, Bo Diddley was a resolute pioneer, hacking his own instruments and jamming them into submission for the sake of sublime performance. His live-wire standards "Bo Diddley," "Mona," "Road Runner," "I'm a Man" and "Who Do You Love?" have been copied, simulated and recombined from one end of the entertainment spectrum to the other, setting the table for artists like Bowie, U2 and even George Michael, all of whom made more money than Diddley could ever have hoped to make.
Even homages and tipped hats from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, politicians and other well-wishers did nothing to take away the sting of not being paid royalties from any of his early hits until the too-late date of 1989.
"I am owed. I've never got paid," Diddley once argued. "A dude with a pencil is worse than a cat with a machine gun."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=979rwnVPG4A
But the legend's cash problems paled in comparison to the amount of artists who have either borrowed from him or ripped him off entirely.
It's arguable that George Thorogood wouldn't even have a career were it not for Diddley's influence, and it's practically a certainty that all those Sam Adams commercials in which Thorogood's version of "Who Do You Love?" appears have brought little other than small comforts for the lifer who actually wrote that classic.
But Diddley was a true original, in a popular culture gone viral with simulations. He was too busy shredding six strings or hacking delay and effects directly into his guitar to be bothered with copying anyone around him.
"I don't like to copy anybody," Diddley explained. "Everybody tries to do what I do, update it. I don't have any idols I copied after. They copied everything I did, upgraded it, messed it up. It seems to me that nobody can come up with their own thing, they have to put a little bit of Bo Diddley there."
And everyone did: Diddley's music was sampled or performed for everything from the political galas of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to films like Ghost Rider, Wild Hogs and Gone in Sixty Seconds. His passing is a sobering reminder of the power of performance and singularity in the age of Pro Tools, as well as a warning for starving artists to save and retain ownership of their masters at all costs.
Rock has lost one of its unclassifiable virtuosos. Rest in peace, Originator.
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