Farewell Bo Diddley

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He had one of the most borrowed (stolen) signature beats in music history. George Thorogood and scores of others would be stealing hubcaps without that beat. Diddley's influence ranged from Buddy Holly who borrowed the bomp ba-bomp bomp, bomp bomp rhythm for his song "Not Fade Away" to the Rolling Stones' bluesy remake of that Holly song. That gave them their first chart single in the United States, in 1964. The following year, another British band, the Yardbirds, had a Top 20 hit in the U.S. with their version of Diddley's "I'm a Man." Many other artists, including the Who, Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello copied aspects of Diddley's style.

Diddley was also one of the pioneers of the electric guitar, adding reverb and tremelo effects. He even rigged some of his guitars himself.

I remember seeing Bo Diddley play at a club in Pittsburgh's Strip District and meeting the man after the show. He was very kind as he shared some time with a few select people.

Diddley died of heart failure at his home in Archer, Fla Monday after months of ill health. He was 79. He had suffered a heart attack in August, three months after suffering a stroke while touring in Iowa. Doctors said the stroke affected his ability to speak, and he had returned to Florida to continue rehabilitation.

Diddley, like other artists of his generations, was paid a flat fee for his recordings and said he received no royalty payments on record sales. He also said he was never paid for many of his performances.

"I am owed. I've never got paid," he said. "A dude with a pencil is worse than a cat with a machine gun." Diddley said "If you can write the music, you can copyright it, and it was written in the music books. I should be a multimillionaire. That's one thing about America. We got a lot of thieves here, when somebody don't pay somebody and totally take their [expletive] and then put a gate up called statute of limitations to cut cats off. The lawyers that handle this stuff are as crooked as a barrel of rattlesnakes."