Bo Diddley by Mat Vullo

 

Listen/Download – Bo Diddley – I Can Tell

 

Greetings all.

The end of the week is finally here, and I hope you’ve all gotten good and oiled up with this week’s mix as your soundtrack.

The track I bring you today ought to put a nice cap on the whole deal, but first some news you can use.

This Friday night – just like every Friday night – sees the return of the mighty Funky16Corners Radio Show, on the equally mighty Viva Radio. This is the thang where you get to sit down with me (or at least the dulcet tones of my voice) and some of the best in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove vinyl for an hour of sheer, unadulterated musical pleasure. If you can’t be there during the broadcast, you can always fall by over the weekend and pick yourself up an MP3 of the show, or several dozen past shows to stuff into your iPod.

Also, I will be returning to Spindletop @ Botanica (47 E Houston St, NYC) this coming Monday (4/11) to join my man Perry Lane for some more of that good, vinyl-based groove grease. This will be the first gig of an unusually busy month for yours truly, and I’ll be bringing along a pile of new arrivals/discoveries, so if you’re in the area, and feel like a frosty beverage and some hot music, join us.

You should also pop on over to Fleamarket Funk, where my man DJ Prestige has undertaken a redesign, as well as added a new feature called ‘Big Ups’, in which yours truly has been featured. Make sure you stop by to take a look.

I’ll assume that as soon as this page loaded in your browser, the first thing you noticed was the exceedingly groovy illustration of our friend Mr. McDaniels by Mat Vullo.

Mat and I have been Facebook pals for a long time, he an admirer of the Funky16Corners Blog, and I digging his groovy illustrations. We put our heads together and settled on an illo for a Bo Diddley feature, but you really need to go by his site and check out his other stuff. If you dig the sounds herein, you will most certainly dig the visuals over there.
Many thanks to Mat.

That all said, the tune I bring you today is yet another Asbury Lanes Garage Sale find. It was one of those ‘I’ve spent most of my dough and I’m on my way out the door and I think I’ll paw through one last box before I split’ things, and good thing too since I dig me some Bo Diddley and don’t have all that much of his original vinyl in the crates.

He was one of the true elemental forces of the Chess/Checker Chitown arsenal, alongside Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and Chuck Berry (and many others, but those are the stony visages on that particular Mt Rushmore).

The cool thing is, though Bo has shared roots with some of his labelmates, in many ways he is the very definition of sui generis, straddling the worlds of the electric blues and rock’n’roll, existing on a stylistic island all his own. This is not to say that he did not at times record what might be seen as conventional blues or rock, but rather that at his best, with tunes like the eponymous ‘Bo Diddley’, he created something without equal.

One need only look at his impact on the British Invasion (and all that flowed from it) to realize that that darkness you sensed was actually his titanic shadow draped over the whole thing. London in 1963 was almost like Jackson Pollock had dipped his brushes in a huge vat of Bo Diddley and splattered it every which way. The Kinks, Pretty Things (named for a Bo song with no less than four of his tunes on their first album), Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, Rolling Stones, Yardbirds and many others, all quaking in their pointy boots from the reverberato shock wave started by Bo Diddley’s massive stomp and rightly so because even though this lot liked to pay tribute to Messrs Morganfield, Burnett, Reed et al, nobody smacked them in the gob like Bo Diddley, because where all of the others were deep and menacing, Bo Diddley was also fun in his own, oblong, horn-rimmed, wobble-legged way.

Bo was the shit, and the tune I bring you today (which I first heard by the aforementioned Pirates, who lay it down with a rockabilly twang which is also cool since Bo’s version has a little country in it) is just another bit of evidence in that case.

‘I Can Tell’ is Bo’s rough-edged lament at a love cast aside, packed end to end with his ringing guitar, Jerome’s maraccas, and someone pumping a bass guitar con brio.

The fact that he manages to namecheck no less a light than Charlie Brown – the greatest sack of sad that the world has ever known – as the guy that elbowed in on his action speaks volumes.

You can just see his eyes rolling back into his head when he finally loses his shit and shouts ‘I Can Tell You Don’t Love Me No More!!!’

Heavy, heavy stuff, and if someone doesn’t get their shit together and erect a huge statue in his image soon…well…I don’t know what I’ll do but it ain’t gonna be nice.

That said, have a lovely weekend and I’ll see you all on Monday.

Peace

Larry

 

 

 

 

Also, make sure that you check out the POAC link below (click on the logo), in regard to the April 2nd walk. The whole Funky16Corners gang will be walking in support of autism services, and any contribution you could make would be greatly appreciated.

 

If you want one of the new Funky16Corners stickers (free, of course) click here for info.

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

 

3 Responses to “Bo Diddley – I Can Tell”

1. wally24 says:

   April 8, 2011 at 12:15 pm

   MAGNIFICENT!!!

2. porky says:

   April 11, 2011 at 2:46 pm

   I fondly look back on the 80’s (??!!) when MCA re-issued those great Chess LP’s for about five bucks apiece. Think I’ll crank some “Mumblin’ Guitar.”

3. Plasticsun says:

   April 13, 2011 at 8:26 pm

   I recognized this immediately as a song by The Milkshakes – great to hear the original – it’s even better!