As Lee Ridgewell noted earlier Bo Diddley died today at his home in Florida.  Bo was a good person and before the obituaries appear tomorrow – here are a few stories from long ago about the Bo I knew.

 

 

Back in October 1963 I travelled around for five weeks with a tour that was headed by the Everly Brothers. It also had Bo Diddley, a German group called the Rattles, Mickie Most, a new group called the Rolling Stones and a backing band called “The Flintsones – the same band that later backed Jerry Lee Lewis on the 1964 Granada TV Special.”

 

Initially I planned to follow the tour for a week.  It started reasonably at London’s New Victoria Theatre but the box office bookings for the five weeks ahead were terrible.  To boost ticket sales Little Richard was added to the bill for the last four weeks. Business picked up and Richard, instead of Bo now closed the first half of the show.  The tour was such fun that I stayed for another four weeks.

 

On that tour Bo brought a lady guitar player called “The Duchess” and she could really play too!  The Duchess died in 2005.

 

 

He also brought the late Jerome Green who played maracas and was the other voice on Bo’s 1959 hit “Say Man”.  The drummer on most of Bo’s early records was the late Clifton James and he visited Britain too.

 

On that 1963 tour the MC was the late Bob Bain who played bagpipes and their sound fascinated Bo and he even tried to play them.

It was a very happy tour and Jerome discovered the joys of drinking in British pubs and he was often stuck in a bottleneck when he should have been in the theatre. Sometimes Bo would go to a nearby pub too but he only ever had soft drinks. 

 

The tour manager was late Peter Grant, who went on to become Gene’s road manager before taking care of Led Zeppelin.  Peter was a 400lb ex-wrestler and, after the first show, he told the Rolling Stones that they hadn’t learned the very basics of show business.  Nobody argued with big Peter and when he called a rehearsal for the Rolling Stones at 3pm on the next day, it wasn’t to let them check their music – Peter taught them how to do “Entrances and Exits”.  The previous night they had ambled on-stage and literally shoved each other off – Peter liked things to be theatrical – to have proper entrances and exits and to use the “tabs” – the theatres curtains.

 

Often Peter would command Keith Richard to go and get Bo and Jerome out of the pub.  Imagine anyone today telling Keith Richard what to do.  But Keith liked Bo and he got on great with Jerome.  Keith watched Bo’s show every night and so did Phil Everly.  They also watched Little Richard’s performances.

 

On the tour Bo offered a lot of encouragement to the youngsters on the show and he wrote a tune called “Safari” especially for the Flintstones – it came out on an HMV record that must be very rare, as it did not sell many copies.

 

Bo’s group had unusual sleeping arrangements.  Bo always booked a single room and they all slept in it!  If the room was cramped they would turnover wardrobes so they could sleep on top of them.  One night at the Queen’s Hotel in Cheltenham, I asked Bo why he stayed in expensive 4 star hotels and he replied, “Because the single rooms are much bigger!”

 

I can remember lots of funny occasions with Bo.  Like the time I took him to Lewis’s department store in Liverpool to buy a portable, two ring gas cooker.  Bo couldn’t understand why the British musicians liked fish’n’chips. He cooked on that little stove in dressing rooms, hotel rooms and even on the tour bus. Bo liked to make “Soul Food” long before anyone in the UK had even heard the term. Mickie Most, Brian Jones, and Glen Willing’s (guitarist for Little Richard) used to like the spicy food Bo prepared. Sometimes Richard would pick at a plate and Bo would joke that he was really eating pork and Richard would spit it out.  He didn’t think that was funny and Bo would reassure him that it was “Bo Diddley chicken” – then he would laugh loudly and say “or maybe it was it chitlins” and that of course was even worse for Richard.

 

All this happened 45 years ago and over the years I would still see Bo occasionally. He once visited my home and couldn’t believe how many Jerry Lee records I had.  He was also fascinated to see that I had Bo Diddley records on all kinds of labels and he assiduously wrote down the details of every one. Bo had often been ripped off and he once told me, ““I’ve got a great name all over the World but I hardly get paid any royalties and it seems like every damned group is copying me.”

 

I have not really said anything here about Bo’s music but “it stands up for itself “ as the Killer would say.

 

Bo was a really good man and we are all going to miss him.