Bo Diddley, 1928 - 2008.

Bo Diddley, a singer and guitarist who invented his own name, his own guitars, his own beat and, with a handful of other musical pioneers, rock 'n' roll itself, died Monday at his home in Archer, Fla. He was 79.... In the 1950s, as a founder of rock 'n' roll, Mr Diddley - along with Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and a few others - helped reshape the sound of popular music worldwide, building it on the templates of blues, Southern gospel, R&B and postwar black American vernacular culture....

Updated through 6/6.

He was a hero to those who had learned from him, including the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. A generation later, he became a model of originality to bands like the Clash and the Fall.

Ben Ratliff, New York Times.

See also: Wikipedia - and Glenn Kenny and Bob Westal.

Updates, 6/4: "For a drummer like me, in a band in 1964, the Diddley song was the highlight of any gig," recalls Richard Williams in the Guardian. "You could abandon the fancy asymmetrical grip on your sticks normally associated with jazz drummers or classical percussionists, turn them around, and use the blunt ends to pile into the tom-toms.... And what happened was that it induced dancers to move in a different way. For three or four minutes, they dropped into a deeper groove, getting in touch with a more fundamental set of instincts. It was the exactly the sort of thing that terrified a generation of parents: the soundtrack to a Dionysian orgy. Each song felt as though it could go on for ever."

At PopMatters: Matt Cibula with "Ten Reasons Bo Diddley Is the Forgotten Heavyweight Champion of Rock."

Update, 6/6: Also in the Guardian, John Moore thinks back to 1981: "The best thing that night was that he let me play his famous rectangular guitar. It was tuned to open E, and he showed me the fingering he used. Moments later, somebody else picked it up without asking. 'Nobody touches my guitar unless I tell them it's all right,' he shouted. As kind as he was, nobody could mess with Bo Diddley."

Posted by dwhudson at June 2, 2008 2:47 PM