The flower punks take on rock and roll's pioneer Photograph: PR
The news yesterday that Bo Diddley had died didn't really make much of a noise, certainly not as much noise as Bo Diddley himself used to make. The man with the square glasses and the square guitar may have looked like the south side of Chicago's answer to Coronation Street's Roy Cropper, but there the comparison ended.
"I walk 47 miles of barbed wire, I use a cobra snake for a neck-tie," sang Diddley on Who Do You Love?. Today it sounds thrilling; back in 1956 it must have had listeners running for their lives.
I love Bo Diddley. I love the fact his rock'n'roll was about rhythm as much as it was melody. I love the fact that he wrote songs about himself and sang them in the third person (Bo Diddley Is A Gun Slinger, Bo Diddley Is A Lover). What I hate, though, is that Bo Diddley never really got the credit he deserved.
This morning I'm pleased to read tributes from the likes of Mick Jagger, but I'm reminded that often rock'n'roll is not so much about music as it is about perception.
Take Johnny Cash. Always brilliant, it was in the years before his death he became officially cool, a very different proposition altogether. He had a brilliant producer (Rick Rubin) and stylish black album covers; when he died it was easy to proclaim his genius. By any reasonable measure the same acclaim will be due to Merle Haggard when that great countryman's time is up. You can bet the Grand Ol' Opry that he won't get it.
A year or two ago I found myself in Seattle. I was taken to the neighbourhood in which Kurt Cobain's corpse was found, then I was shown the apartment block in which Layne Staley died. You will know the first of these names, but you might not recognise the second. Both men were products of the city's "grunge" scene, both became heroin addicts and, on the way, both released albums that can be described as classics. With Nirvana Cobain created Nevermind, as Alice In Chains' singer Staley put his name to the harrowing Dirt. Both men sold millions of CDs, but today only one is remembered.
The lesson? Not only that life isn't fair, but that death is sometimes even less so. I'm sure you have your own examples of musical geniuses buried in the paupers' graveyard. Feel free to share them. In the meantime, I just hope that Big Bad Bo Diddley finally gets the due he deserves.
Watch the best YouTube clips of Bo Diddley here
