gts178 “bovitish”
Still think they should’ve paid Bo Diddley.
01-01 Bo Diddley – The London Bo Diddley Sessions 202 – Do The Robot (1973)
— this LP came out on Chess, like most of his best stuff.
01-02 8 Eyed Spy – 8 Eyed Spy 101 – Diddy Wah Diddy (1981)
— Of course, this is Lydia Lunch singing, in her first band after the collapse of Teenage Jesus And The Jerks.
01-03 The Monterays – T-Hee 700 – Bo-Did-It (1964)
— the Bo Diddley Beat penetrated even the heart of Oklahoma. Everyone could tell this was the devil’s music.
01-04 Claude McLin His Sax & Combo – Mac-Jac 1208 – Jambo (1963)
— after serving in The War, Claude returned home to South Side Chicago to shepherd late jazz into early rock ‘n roll, where a saxophone like his was the lead instrument, before people like Bo Diddley made the guitar into the lead R’n’R instrument voice. Here, McLin shoves the juice harp to the front. Mac-Jac was Claude’s own label, though he only released two of his own singles on it.
01-05 Willie Joe And His Unitar – Specialty 618 – Twitchy (1958)
— right in that fluid period, this was released both on 45rpm vinyl and 78rpm shellac-encased cardboard. William Joe Duncan invented the “unitar” which, as you can hear, is a 1-stringed guitar. Essentially a “diddly bow” but electrified and played without using the broken neck of an old beer bottle as a slide.
01-06 Curley & The Jades – Music Makers 109 – Boom Stix (1961)
— this is not The Jades out of Michigan in the mid-1960s. The Music Makers label only released a dozen 45’s out of New York City in 1961-62 before being gobbled up by Frank Sinatra’s Reprise label. Coincidence: Reprise released a tune called “Music Maker” by Jimmy Cliff in ’74. Wishing a good journey for ya, and we’ll miss you Jimmy Cliff!
02-01 Thee Milkshakes – Live 106 – Bo-Us Diddley-Us (1984)
— album released in 1986, from a concert in Canterbury on 1984-09-23. Side 2 of the album is from the same show, the set by The Prisoners.
02-02 Bo Diddley – Bo Diddley & Company 101 – (Extra Read All About) “Ben” (1962)
— only 1962 and already Bo’s eighth album!
02-03 Kenny Wayne Shepherd – A Little Something From The Road Vol1 03 – You Can’t Judge A Book By The Cover (2014)
— that’s what you get when Dad introduces you to Stevie Ray Vaughn when you’re 6 years old. This was a Record Store Day release in 2015, comes from a concert in New Jersey in 2014.
02-04 Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks – Roulette 4483 – Who Do You Love (1963)
— The Hawks at this time were: Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, and Richard Manuel. Later pretentiously called themselves “The Band”, after time spent fleshing out tunes by some other guy: Bob Dylan.
02-05 Hot Boogie Chillun – Schwarz 6670 – I Just Wanna Make Love To You (1993)
— before being the eponymous face of the band The Boss Hoss, Sascha Vollmer powered this German band in the 1990s.
02-06 Ike & Tina Turner – The Hunter 102 – You Don’t Love Me (Yes I Know) (1970)
— Ike Turner’s band The Kings Of Rhythm was contracted by a fellow Clarkesvillian (Mississippi) who was 2 1/2 years older than Ike, to back him on a new record in 1951. “Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston (“And His Delta Cats”) is called the first rock and roll record. I believed this for many years, but now we know this is not true. Tina sounds particularly abused on this track.
02-07 Bo Diddley – Heart-O-Matic Love
— recorded for Bo’s debut album in 1958 but didn’t make the cut. Later released on various compilations (and as a ‘bonus track’ on a 2016 CD re-issue of 1959’s “Have Gun Will Travel”). Bo’s self-titled debut album in 1958 ranked #216 On Billboard’s Top Albums in 2012, but only at #455 in 2020. This tells us that someone at Billboard had been busy for eight years, shoving their own head up their own ass.
03-01 The African Beavers – RCA Victor 47-8530 – Jungle Fever (1965)
— three singles in ’65 then quits. Notable, because the children of the members of this band had fond memories to share on the internet 50 years later.
03-02 Muddy Waters – Muddy Waters At Newport 1960 105 – Tiger In Your Tank (1960)
— a few years later, Bob Dylan was crucified for playing electric instruments at Newport. How does Muddy Waters survive? This is from the Newport Jazz Festival, not the Newport Folk Festival. Picky, picky.
03-03 The Truth – Deram 105 – Hey Gyp (Dig The Slowness) (1966)
— cover of a Donovan song based on one from Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe McCoy (neither of whom was from Memphis nor Kansas). Although The Truth out of London was a label-mate of Donovan on Pye Records in 1966, this was not a Pye record. Must be a story behind that?
03-04 Dee Clark – Abner 1029 – Hey Little Girl (1959)
— Abner Records was a subsidiary of the Vee-Jay label, spun up by Ewart Abner. After roaring success with The Four Seasons and despite securing US rights to some Beatles singles, Abner’s gambling problem ruined Vee-Jay. Pye Records finally killed off the labels in 1965, after the Four Seasons switched to Philips Records and rights to those Beatles tunes were poached by Swan Records. In 1957, Dee Clark filled in on tour dates Little Richard abandoned when he found jesus. Clark later sold a million copies for Vee-Jay with “Raindrops” in 1961.
03-05 Bo Diddley – Checker 965 – Signifying Blues (1960)
— Checker was a sub-label of Leonard & Phil’s Chess Records, but was sold off to General Recorded Tape in 1969.
03-06 Hipbone Slim And The Kneetremblers – Ugly Mobile 102 – Ugly Mobile (2013)
— a band out of Oxford England, this one originally released on vinyl in France three years before the 2016 UK release on CD.
03-07 Billy Bland – Old Town 1016 – Chicken In The Basket (1955)
— the ‘baby’ of 19 children (!), Billy quit music at age 31 and eventually had his own soul food restaurant in Harlem.
03-08 The Typhoons – Presenting The Fabulous Typhoons 205 – Not Fade Away (1964)
— later became the band Ten Years After.
04-01 Cub Koda – Cub Digs Bo 02 – I’m A Man (1991)
— Cub founded the band who were “Smokin’ In The Boy’s Room”: Brownsville Station.
04-02 Sha Na Na – Grease OST 304 – Born To Hand Jive (1978)
— thirteen singles released off this soundtrack… this was not one of them, but the effort garnered a TV series for Sha Na Na.
04-03 Fleetwood Mac – 1968-10-13 Top Gear Programme 03 – Bo Diddley (1968)
— earlier, Mick Fleetwood’s band was called The Bo Street Runners.
04-04 Bo Diddley – Go Bo Diddley 204 – Little Girl (1959)
— off his second album.
04-05 Hank Mizell – Jungle Rock 202 – Sweetie Pie (1976)
— album named for his 1958 hit spawned four singles, none of which charted in the US though he found fame in Europe.
04-06 Steve King & The King Row – Sonovox 871S-5957 – Listen Buddy (1966)
— his last release before hitting the air as a DJ. By 1984 he was on radio station WGN in Chicago as the overnighter. Due to the perks of its pre-FCC license and peculiarities in the physics of the AM broadcast band, WGN’s late night show was heard in the majority of North America. A long-term friend of Les Paul, Steve and his wife Johnnie retired from WGN in 2011 after 6,207 broadcasts.
05-01 Bo Diddley – The Black Gladiator 203 – Hot Buttered Blues (1970)
— his first new album in 5 years, lots of folks thought he was getting “soft” by settling back into standard blues, less energy than his earlier ground-breaking sound. Screw those people.
05-02 Townes Van Zandt – Sunshine Boy: The Unheard Studio Sessions & Demos 1971-1972 102 – Who Do You Love
— this would later make it onto his 1978 album Flyin’ Shoes, as the only cover tune out of the ten songs on the album.
05-03 Corey Harris – Hey Bo Diddley- A Tribute 06 – Crackin Up (2002)
— search the goog for this tune, and you get “dash skin installation for old trucks”. Which is how atrificial intelligence [sic] is killing off human history. Corey went from Colorado to college in Maine, to being a teacher in Louisiana, and wound up in West Africa studying under Ali Farka Toure. In 2007, Corey Harris got a MacArthur “genius grant” which, last I heard, are worth $800,000.
05-04 The Pleasers And Peter Sinclair – Let’s Go 103 – Mona (1965)
— short-lived New Zealand group, the title “Let’s Go” was just Sinclair’s TV programme. He didn’t contribute to this song in any way, but Peter Sinclair is known as the Father Of The New Zealand Internet.
05-05 Bo Diddley – Bo Diddley & Company 103 – Diana (1962)
— released in mono because it’s 1962, later versions have a highly-sought-after sticker saying ‘Electronically Altered For Stereo’.
06-01 Count & The Colony – Pa-Go-Go 121 – Can’t You See? (1966)
— not a Bo cover, an original sung by Butch Burden, who is apparently still jamming in Michigan.
06-02 Richie Valens – Guitar Instrumental (1959)
— the Alan Freed Christmas Jubilee ran ten dates at the Loews Theater in NYC starting on 1958-12-25. On 1959-02-02, Valens tossed a coin against Buddy Holly’s guitarist Tommy Allsup for the last seat on a comfy plane ride from Clear Lake Iowa to Fargo North Dakota instead of riding the smelly bus. Allsup lost the coin flip.
06-03 The Hermits – Nonymous
— no release info other than later compilations of “pasta punk” bands. This is a band out of Piacenza Italy in the 1990s, fronted by Lord Picchio on “vocals and screams”.
06-04 Bo Diddley – The Black Gladiator 202 – Shut Up Woman (1970)
— perhaps another reason this album was panned on release, just as the women’s liberation movement was gathering steam.
06-05 John Shur – Caricature 104 – I Got Caught In The Washing Machine (And I’m Gonna Twist All Night) (1962)
— the goog pretends that the label Caricature Records never existed, because Atrificial Intelligoop [sic] is killing off human history. His real name was John Suhr, and this was the A-side to the song “Mashed Potato Sue”. Per the label, backing vocals are by The Abstracts and The Charmettes.
06-06 The Gorgons – Push That Sputnik In! 16 – Ming’s Bite (And His Huge Genitals) (1994)
— apologies for the mis-name in the back-announce, the proper title is listed above, not ‘ming’s bit’. A French band, sometimes tricked into supplying drinks to English charlatans.
07-01 John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band – Some Time In New York City 301 – Cold Turkey (1969)
— an Apple Records double-LP release in ’72, the second disc is live recordings: Lennon/Ono on side 3, Lennon/Zappa on side 4. This is from the Lyceum in London, recorded 1969-12-15. The original keyboards on this song were played by Billy Preston, but recording errors ruined his performance. For this vinyl release, the keys of Nicky Hopkins were over-dubbed onto the live recording.