MOG

I just read about Bo Diddley being hospitalized after a heart attack.

The last time I saw Bo Diddley play, it was on a cloudy, humid day at Randall's Island in NYC a couple of summers ago. It was a day of garage-rock organized by Steve Van Zandt, and the line-up included the New York Dolls, Nancy Sinatra, The Pretty Things, The Raveonettes. Bo was movin' kinda slow; he was seated through most of his set, but he was confident and commanding, and you could hear how the music he invented has shot a torrent of influence through generations of rhythmic, throbbing rock and roll.

The British Invasion is pretty unthinkable without Bo: his songs were covered by The Stones ("Mona," for one, and their first U.S. hit single, "Not Fade Away," while a Buddy Holly song, was built on the Diddley beat), The Pretty Things named themselves after a Diddley song, The Animals did "The Story of Bo Diddley," The Yardbirds were heavily indebted to him...

And back in the U.S.A., folk singers like Tim Hardin and hippie bands like Quicksilver Messenger Service (whose landmark "Happy Trails" album featured a full side of live variations on "Who Do You Love")showed their Bo roots.

Through the '70s, artists as different as Bruce Springsteen and The New York Dolls dipped into the Diddley songbook. And it could be argued that, with such songs as the spoken-word insult-banter-driven "Say Man" and the prototypical self-promotion of "Bo Diddley" itself, Bo set the musical table for rap.

I got to see Bo a few times, when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and down in New Orleans at Jazz Fest, and at Van Zandt's summer bash. But I never saw him in his prime, except on film.

What's so great about Bo Diddley is that he was right at home amidst the first-generation rockers on Alan Freed's Paramount shows, then a decade later among such artists as The Byrds and The Lovin' Spoonful on the "The TNT Show," and many, many years later alongside such upstarts as The Raveonettes.

Get well, Bo.