Bo Diddley dies, farewell and R.I.P.
June 2nd, 2008 by moose
Sad news today. Bo Diddley, a rock and roll pioneer who helped transition blues to rock, passed away at his home in Florida, he was 79.
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Pampelmoose is a blog run by Dave Allen founding member of UK Post-Punk band, Gang of Four. The blog's focus is exclusively on music and online music distribution. Our huge MP3 collection, all free and legal, grows by the day so please feel free to download at your leisure. Thanks for visiting.
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June 4th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
If memory serves, Bo Diddley gave props to The Clash for making everything louder. He was an early adopter of accepting the next big wave in music, rather than dismissing it out of hand because it is new and different, ala Sinatra re: Elvis. Nice one, Bo–we’ll miss you.
Does anybody else feel that people covering Bo Diddley usually sound half-assed? I chalk it up to the original recordings having something very edgy that transcended the lo-fi recordings….like all excellent music, it overcomes any technological shortcomings…
June 5th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
if ever there was an unsung hero in music… this guy is it.
June 10th, 2008 at 11:44 am
in response to j.wallace:
I am in agreement that generation of time (60’s ~70’s) the music appeared to transcend the technology. It appears today the pendulum may have swung the other way in a large segment of our entertainment media. Todays technology (HD, Bluray, SACD, 24/96 bit recordings, downloads, etc) has shot way ahead of the majority of entertainment content. 500 TV channels and nothing worthy to watch. Imho, 98% of the top 100 popular music charts are dreck.
On the other hand, the demand for loud, attention getting tv commercials and radio broadcasts has compressed the shit out of any audio dynamic range. Way too much content sounds like a loud wall of flat, one dimensional sound. Yin and Yang I guess.
Looking back now, some of the best recordings I’ve heard are from good ol’ analog tape and tube recording gear. Check out the latest recordings from Wilco, Norah Jones and Jack Johnson (all recorded on vintage tape & tube gear). Maybe we’re in a state of devolution, not evolution?
June 10th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Yes–and now albums are coming back in a major way. It’s funny. We have finally arrived at that moment I have been DYING for now for DECADES—I’ve been saying for about 15 years now that we will eventually come to a critical mass in the culture where nostalgia has finally gone to ground because we’ve used up all the stuff to be nostalgic ABOUT, and finally we are being forced to mash up things and create new culture out of the remnants rather than simply retread the 60s, 70s, 80s…the 90s I think was the decade where we started running the well dry, heh.
Granted, these are hideously broad generalizations, and I fully realize that 70s and 80s cheese are still resources for our current crop of indie kids….
Me personally, I don’t have a problem with digital–what bugs me is that with digital you can endlessly doink with the drum sounds and presets to achieve non-cookie cutter results, but many people just don’t bother. Give me David Bowie with his endlessly gated microphones (Heroes)….