by Chuck Eddy
Bo Diddley, who died Monday at 79, inherited a beat that's been traced back through the '30s fieldworker blues chant "Chevrolet" to the millenium-old West African rhythm Kpanlogo, and he helped invent rock 'n' roll, funk, hard rock, disco, heavy metal, '80s pop, new country and rap music with it. (Via talk-rhymed first-person braggadocio in the latter case -- and "Say Man" has to count as one of the original dis records.)
In tribute to the great man's passing, here's a wide-ranging, five-decade-spanning selection of landmark musical moments that his beat made possible:
Buddy Holly, "Not Fade Away" (1957)
Mickey and Sylvia, "Love Is Strange" (1957)
Johnny Otis, "Willie and the Hand Jive" (1958)
Elvis Presley, "Marie's the Name (His Latest Flame)" (1961)
Chuck Berry, "Chuck's Beat" (1964)
The Rolling Stones, "Not Fade Away" (1964)
The Strangeloves, "I Want Candy" (1965)
Donovan, "Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness)" (1966)
The Stooges, "1969" and "I Wanna Be Your Dog" (1969)
Hello, "New York Groove" (1975)
Clarence Gatemouth Brown, "Mama Mambo" (1976)
Ace Frehley, "New York Groove" (1978)
REO Speedwagon, "Don't Let Him Go" (1981)
Bow Wow Wow, "I Want Candy" (1982)
George Michael, "Faith" (1987)
Guns N' Roses, "Mr. Brownstone" (1987)
Lila McCann, "Down Came a Blackbird" (1997)
Jimmy Ray, "Are You Jimmy Ray?" (1998)
Savage Garden, "The Animal Song" (1999)
KT Tunstall, "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" (2005)
Big & Rich, "Jalapeno" (2005)
Carrie Underwood, "We're Young and Beautiful" (2005)
Redhill, "I Can Make It" (2006)
Disclaimer: Only minutes after I finished compiling this, I noticed that Ben Ratliff at the New York Times had posted a similar list online Monday, with a good deal of overlap. Maybe there's other lists up there somewhere, too. If I were you, I'd use them all.
- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2008 All Media Guide, LLC.
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