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The death of Bo Diddley robs the world of one of the most eccentric practitioners of rhythm 'n' rock 'n' blues ever to have donned a box-shaped guitar. Diddley's fierce boogie riffs and vocals mesmerized the Stones, the Band and the Quicksilver Messenger Service and continue to influence blues-based Americana in the 21st Century. The great NME writer Charles Shaar Murray wrote this splendid retrospective in early 1975. -- Barney Hoskyns, RBP Editorial Director

Bo Diddley was was by far the weirdest and craziest musician ever to come out of either blues or rock in the 1950s.

Unlike Chuck Berry, he made next to no attempt to relate to white high school kids and articulate their fantasies in a voice that could pass for white on the radio. Diddley was black-ass from the word "funky," and the bemused white critics who referred to his work as "jungle music" weren't as far off the beam as might at first be supposed. Primitive it was, sure, but it had a kind of preternatural sophistication, plus a healthy dose of animal cunning – and you'd best believe you could dance to it.

Where Chuck Berry went for the universals of teen life, Bo Diddley eschewed any such self-effacement. He built himself a whole series of larger than life personas in songs like "Bo's A Lumberjack," "Bo's A Gunslinger," "Bo Diddley Is Loose" and "Who Do You Love." He was lover, fighter and shaman. He attributed himself with enormous physical strength, awesome erotic abilities and mastery of the necromantic arts. He was 500% more man. He was a guitar-humping cross between King Kong, Dr Strange, Casanova and Muhammad Ali. He was completely and utterly mad.

His chief partners in crime were The Duchess (his go'geous sistuh) singing backup and playing a bit of guitar occasionally (not to mention co-writing "You Ain't Bad," the excellent flip of "Hey Good Lookin'") and the redoubtable Jerome Green (author of "Bring It To Jerome") who introduced maraccas to R&B, much to the delight of such honkies as Mick Jagger and Phil May. The rest of the gang were all the Chicago session heavies from the '50s.

He played a strange rectangular Gretsch guitar and he produced an utterly unique sound, rubbery and shimmering, like an elastic band connected to Battersea Power Station, and despite his obvious technical limitations, he was an amazingly subtle and inventive guitarist. The astounding ferocity of his rhythm playing on "Give Me A Break," his hammering lead on "I Can Tell," the effortless way he slides around the beat on "Sad Sack," the humor of "Mumblin' Guitar" are all the work of a musician of considerable calibre.

On top of all that, he sang gorgeous. When he laid aside his patented jive line and got stuck into some serious blues, he proved himself to be almost in the same league as fellow Chess artists like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. For corroboration, refer to classic performances like "Call Me," "Before You Accuse Me," "You Can't Judge A Book," "I Can Tell" and "You Don't Love Me."

Curiously, Bo Diddley's following now seems limited to antiluvian rockers from the '50s, and a few unreconstructed art students from the early '60s. Nobody plays his songs any more, nobody writes about him and he doesn't sell too many records. While Chuck Berry is lionized to hell and gone, Bo Diddley remains almost totally neglected. The fact that he hasn't made a good record since 1965 may have something to do with that, despite Chess' ludicrous attempts to relaunch him by strapping him into black leather fetish suits and promoting him as "The Black Gladiator." Have mercy!

No, the trouble with Bo Diddley is not that his work was too similar, but too varied to be fully appreciated. He did black street-jive (like "Say Man") while today's street-funk bands were still in short pants, he did humorous novelty songs, he did straight blues...and he did all those shave-an'-a-haircut-six-bits Bo-Diddley-beat songs that give the likes of Marc Bolan the right to say things like "Bo Diddley only had three songs." Mind you, Marc followed that up by claiming that Chuck Berry only had eight, so maybe, he's none too reliable on the subject. For further proof of the variety of Bo's writing, one need on only wrap an ear round the bizarre "Mr. Khrushchev," which makes a cute contrast to Dylan's "Hard Rain's Gonna Fall." It is undoubtedly one of the all-time great ludicrous records – almost totally un-produced, chaotically recorded, conceptually ridiculous, politically completely off the wall and lyrically quite absurd. It is also a masterpiece.

Diddley's black street humor pissed off the blues purists who were unable to recognize his abilities as a bluesman. He was too bluesy to be accepted by the rockers in the same way as Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee Lewis; too idiosyncratic to be a prophet of teenage cool, and too sexually menacing (and too black-sounding) to make it on AM radio. It's only because he was a goddamn genius that he made it as far as he did.

In the front half of the '60s, Bo made a heroic attempt to adapt to the times. His music got heavier and more electric, and he brought in a team of female back-up vocalists to shoop-shoop behind him. He issued three singles on Chess, the first of which nibbled at the charts in 1964 and the rest of which vanished without trace.

Right now, an astonishing number of people have gotten rich by selling a kind of sappy plastic phony black consciousness, while a true black pioneer like Bo Diddley is out in the cold. Which is ludicrous when you consider that he has more to do with what soul music should be about than the likes of Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes.

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