Dublin Opinion

I am once again informed by the French radio news, in a half awakened state, that another great has left this earthly stage. In this instance it was the man who invented probably the most recognisable beat in rock history - Bo Diddley. In time-honoured fashion, I’ve spent at least 15 seconds trawling You Tube and come up with the following, from the late 60s - 4:38 of magic from the man :

Every master has his apprentices - and Bo Diddley has had more than most. From the clip, we can hear that he could out-garage garage rock and he certainly provided inspiration for a good few out leftfield.

The Jesus and Mary Chain covered his ‘Who Do You Love’ for ex. and many of their songs were to hyper-Spectored Diddley beats. The Mighty Fall were also in his debt - no more so than in that early to mid-80s phase when 50s rock loomed large. I can’t find any example of ‘Rolling Dany’ but here’s ‘Cruiser’s Creek’ that’s of the same vintage :

MES is taking the ‘my leather jacket’s longer than yours’ approach to life. Apparently, Bo Diddley appeared on the same show and confided in MES that he thought they were the only other ‘rawk’ band on that night. I’m not too sure who a rudely interrupted Jools was about to present next - Rick Ghastly or some such…

The Diddley beat even filtered through to 80s Dublin and gave our national rawk monument the inspiration for their ‘Desire’ single. Here’s a version from some session where Harry Crosby lent them the Point (the promo video on You Tube has embedding disabled - ostensibly by the record company - in case we bloggers might corrupt the poor wee thing) :

If anyone can figure out in what way the framing interview might be ‘hilarious’ * apart from to a sycophantic yank camera crew, please send on the answer on a postcard.
Diddley Daddy, sleep well..

* quoting the You Tube preamble