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Prowlin' with Matt The Cat: Record Review: Bo Diddley "Ride On: The Chess Masters, 1960-1961" (Hip-O Select) (Part 1/2)
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Friday, June 05, 2009
Record Review: Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley - Ride On: The Chess Masters 1960-61
Bo Diddley was a true artist. Maybe not all of his recordings are classic or completely developed, but you can never say that Ellas McDaniel didn't have a vision and didn't work hard to fulfil it. Hip-O Select has put out the third volume in its series of 2 CD sets gathering all of Bo's recordings for Chess' Checker imprint. This one is called "Ride On" and it focuses on the recordings he made in 1960 and '61.
I'll tell you up front that this is not a collection for the casual Bo Diddley fan. Not many of the tunes here fall into the class of "essential" Bo Diddley material, but if you really dig Bo and love music history, then this collection has a lot to offer you. "(Bo Diddley's A) Gunslinger" is the only track on this compilation that made the national charts (Cash Box #34, it didn't make Billboard for some crazy reason). No matter, as there are plenty of blues, doo *** ballads and just plain ol' Bo Diddley craziness to keep your toes tappin' and your ears exlodin'.
Remarkably, all 54 of these songs were recorded in the basement of Bo's home on Rhode Island Ave. in Washington, DC (not too far from where I live now, by the way). He set up his own studio as he was becoming more and more frustrated with the control Chess had over his music, so he left Chicago to record his own way on his own schedule. This was unheard of for any artist at this time, let alone an African-American artist to set up his own facility. The music was laid down on a crude 2 track tape machine, but it sounds amazingly good, considering. He took his great band with him to DC. It featured Bobby Baskerville on bass, Clifton Jones on drums, Jerome Green on maracas and the fantastic and much underrated Peggy Jones on guitar. The legendary Otis Spann even drops in to play piano on a few tracks. Bo is of course the star, but it must be said that on many songs Peggy Jones simply steals the spotlight. She is amazing and can play as well if not better than Bo himself.
Disc one kicks off with a great unreleased burner called "My White Horse", that'll get you in the mood to rock. "Love Me" is a beautiful doo *** ballad that was featured on the LP, "Bo Diddley In The Spotlight". It has one of the sweetest melodies you'll ever hear on a Bo Diddley record. "Love Me" is followed up by one of the strongest cuts on the entire compilation, "Walkin' And Talkin'". Originally this song was edited down for its inclusion on the "Bo Diddley In The Spotlight" LP , but thankfully, we get the unedited version here. If you've never heard Bo Diddley cover Frankie Laine's 1949 classic, "Mule Train", then you're in for a surprise. Four different takes of the song are included here, which ends up being a few takes too much, but it's fascinating to listen to them all for an insight into Bo's recording process. "Say You Will" is a previously unreleased burst of call and response, right out of the church "soul", that reminds me a little of "Shout" by the Isley Brothers.
Prowlin' with Matt The Cat: Record Review: Bo Diddley "Ride On: The Chess Masters, 1960-1961" (Hip-O Select) (Part 2/2)
"Ride On Josephine" begins a string of songs that appeared on Bo's great 1960 LP, "Bo Diddley Is A Gunslinger". Some of the songs from that album appeared at the end of the previous 2 disc Bo Diddley compilation that Hip-O Select put out last summer, Road Runner: Chess Masters 1959-1960. It was a superb LP on its own, but the unreleased tracks featured here make it all that much better. The great Billy Stewart, Harvey Fuqua of the Moonglows and Johnny Carter and Nate Nelson of the Flamingos drop in to sing backup vocals on a few tracks, but I'm going to let you discover those yourself.
The first 20 songs on disc 2 are all previously unreleased in the USA. Many of them are crudely recorded, but you must remember that Bo probably never intended for these songs to be released. I love "Hey, Hey (What Are You Going To Do" and we get two versions of it here (one fast and one slow-er). You can tell that Bo is having a great time recording these raw tunes. There's lots of call and response, nonsense lyrics and tremendous guitar playing by both Bo and Peggy Jones throughout these tracks. Peggy really shines on the instrumentals"Mess Around" and "Doodlin'". If you liked "Say Man" and "Say Man, Back Again", well there's plenty of craziness and bad jokes on "Funny Talk" and "Bring Them Back Alive (Funny Talk)", with Bo playing his partner's voice under the name Frank Jive.
The set is rounded off with several tracks that would appear on the LP, "Bo Diddley Is A Lover." Also included are great photos and wonderfully insightful liner notes by George R. White of York, England. Overall, it's a fantastic set for the Bo Diddley fan, but not a necessity for the casual Bo Diddley collector. After almost 2 years of chart silence, Bo would come raging back in 1962 with "You Can't Judge A Book By It's Cover", but that's a story for another day and a future Hip-O Select Bo Diddley compilation. I'm just going to settle down, put on the great Bo Diddley instrumental, "Shank" and groove!
-Matt The Cat
http://www.mattthecat.com/2009/06/record-review-bo-diddley.html
Allmusic.com review:
Ride On: The Chess Masters, Vol. 3 - 1960-1961
Bo Diddley
Rating
4.5 Stars
Release Date
Jul 21, 2009
Recording Date
Jan 1960-Feb 1961
Label
Hip-O Select
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
One of the great things about Bo Diddley, something that often goes unmentioned, is that he was a home-recording pioneer, building his own studio years before any other rocker.
The full fruits of this labor can be heard on Ride On: The Chess Masters, Vol. 3 -- 1960-1961, Hip-O Select's third installment in their complete Bo Chess/Checker masters and easily the weirdest set yet. All 54 songs here were recorded over the course of 13 months: a whopping 17 them have never been released (an additional seven have never seen release in the U.S.), every one of them was cut in his home studio in Washington DC, and not a one reached the charts. That lack of commercial success should in no way be seen as an indication that the music on Ride On is subpar -- odd and messy, yes, but the music here is fueled by a mad genius that could only have flourished in a hothouse setting like a personal home studio. Bo wound up succumbing to every studio habit that would eventually become cliché: he messed around with tempos, tinkered around endlessly with the same theme, left instrumental backing tracks without vocals, sped up his own voice to create an alter ego (Frankie Jive, who jousted with Bo on the "Say Man" rewrites "Funny Talk" and "Bring Them Back Alive"), kept sloppy notation so records by other musicians were called his (Peggy Jones claims to have recorded everything on the instrumental "Aztec").
On top of this, Diddley wrote a clutch of cheap, infectious dance-rock cash-ins, appropriated old folk tunes as his own, wrote plenty of self-mythologizing tunes ("(&Bo Diddley's A) Gunslinger," "Bo Diddley is an Outlaw," "Bo Diddley is an Outlaw," "Bo Diddley Is a Lover," "Bo's Vacation"), tossed off some killer-diller jokes and a few classic rockers like "Ride on Josephine" which gives this collection its name.
Much of this music was heard on the classic LPs Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger and Bo Diddley Is a Lover, but in many ways the way to hear it is on this wild, wooly complete compilation, where all the flights of fancy sit next to the big, booming rockers, where the variety proves Bo to be the visionary he is.
Dusty Groove America review:
Ride On -- The Chess Masters 1960 to 1961
Bo Diddley
CD (Item 490160) Chess/Hip-O Select, 1960/1961 -- Condition: New Copy
Another stellar collection of Bo Diddley's Chess Masters -- incredible material from the beginning of the 60s -- with Bo's incendiary, influential beat -- but in a bevy of styles!
Bo is justifiably most famous for his oft-imitated beat, getting lifted by everyone from Johnny Otis, to Buddy Holly, to The Who over the years, but he doesn't get enough credit for working it into some pretty far out, wildly divergent styles over the years. These early 60s numbers find Bo working in more wild styles than ever before, from from bluesy soul, to Latin influences, to old folk tunes -- but it's all down in the Diddley style, as well as variations on his proto rock, late 50s genius.
Amazing stuff, with lots of previously unreleased stuff, as well has gritty classics! The first disc includes tracks recorded at Bo's DC home studio in the first couple months of 1960, with "My White Horse (take 4)", "Live My Life", "Scuttle Bug", "Love Me" and unedited version of "Walkin And Talkin", previously unreleased versions of "Mule Train", "Marengue (Limbo)", and "Say You Will", "Ride On Josephine", "No More Lovin", "Do What I Say", "Cheyenne", "Googlia Moo", "Working Man", "(Bo Diddley's A) Gunslinger" and more.
The second disc has tracks recorded in the DC home studios in late 1960 and early '61, "Hey, Hey (What Are You Going To Do)" (fast version and slow version), previously unreleased numbers like "Can You Shimmy?", "I'm Hungry", "Hey Pretty Baby" (fast version and slow version), "Doodlin", "Watusi Bounce" and others, plus great tracks like "Bo Diddley Is A Lover", "Call Me (Bo's Blues)" and more. 54 tracks on 2CDs!
(Limited edition of 5000 non-numbered copies.)
© 2009, Dusty Groove America, Inc.
The Napster Blog: Bo Diddley Chess Masters Series:
July 21, 2009
Bo Diddley Chess Masters Series
There's that beat, that Bo Diddley beat. It's been utilized by almost every rock band ever. From Buddy Holly ("Not Fade Away") to The Stones ("Please Go Home") to Bow Wow Wow ("I Want Candy") to U2 ("Desire") to The Smiths ("How Soon Is Now") to Black Eyed Peas ("Electric City") to KT Tunstall ("Black Horse and the Cherry Tree"), its pervasive impact on pop music will be felt forever. Diddley, the man who invented it, had a remarkably small number of hits in the '50s and '60s, but his overall influence on rock and roll is massive and cannot be easily summarized.
Hip-O Select/Geffen Records has released a series of Diddley retrospectives over the last few years. These albums are invaluable as a means to experience and enjoy Diddley's music. They depict an artist possessed of amazing depth, creativity and joy and one whose value extends well beyond his namesake beat.
I'm a Man contains tracks recorded from 1955 to 1958, Road Runner presents material from '59 and '60, and Ride On, the most recently released addition to the series, covers '60 and '61.
This is a fantastic series covering one of rock and blues music's essential pioneers.
http://blog.napster.com/napster/2009/07/bo-diddley-chess-masters-series.html
"Record Collector" magazine, London, England, (September 2009, Issue #366):
Bo Diddley - Ride On: The Chess Masters 1960-1961
A pivotal year in the life of the maverick blues man
After a string of US R&B hits for Chess' Checker imprint that had begun in 1955, in 1960 Bo Diddley upped sticks and moved from Chicago to Washington DC, where he set up his own studio in the basement of his house. The informative sleevenotes to this set, written by Diddley's biographer George R White, reveal that there were so many comings and goings from the house that the police thought Diddley was running a brothel.
Frustrated by record company interference, what Diddley really yearned for was creative autonomy and, in this respect, setting up his own studio established a new, almost revolutionary precedent for African-American artists. Once ensconced, Diddley got down to the business of recording with a vengeance, churning out a slew of tracks dominated by his jangling guitar and shouted vocals.
This 2-CD set - the third instalment so far chronicling Diddley's Chess output - features previously unheard demos and alternate takes, as well as official singles and album cuts. Some of the demos, such as the wonderfully low-fi Aloha and Funny Talk, are wild and raw, but capture the visceral energy and hypnotic appeal of Diddley's idiosyncratic guitar-led grooves.
4 stars
Hip-O Select | B 0012946-02 (2-CD)
Reviewed by Charles Waring
http://www.recordcollectormag.com/reviews/review-detail/4431
© 2009 Diamond Publishing
A member of the Metropolis Group
Ride on, Josephine, ride on....Man, it's hard to accept that Bo's gone, but his music lives on forever.
You mention some raw & unpolished materia as well as polished materia. I recall on one album, "Gunslinger" I think. While in midst song, Bo gets a 'frog' in his throat...and never misses a beat.
