Bo Diddley - Hey! Bo Diddley/Bo Diddley

Mostly great, with some weak spots

This CD combines two LPs originally released in England in the early 60's when Bo Diddley was finally catching over there. "Hey! Bo Diddley" is definitely the strongest of the two. It features many of Bo's best known songs (Before You Accuse Me, I'm A Man, Hey Bo Diddley), a couple of funky instrumentals (Detour and Shank), as well as some lesser known tunes. There's really not a bad song on the set.
"Bo Diddley", also the title of Bo's first album in 1958, was identical on both sides of the Atlantic. Many of the songs are just fantasically great to a Diddley fan such as myself. The instrumentals Diddling and especially Sad Sack show Bo's experimental side, with trebly, off-kilter reverb-drenched lead guitar played over repetitive bass and drum rhythms. Mama Don't Allow No Twistin and Bo's Twist are two of my least favorites, half-hearted attempts at cashing in on the twist fad. Bo's Twist is also completely out of tune, which doesn't help.
Anyway! If you are a fan of Bo Diddley there is no reason you should not get this CD. It's worth the price just to hear Bo singing "Hee-eey Krushchev!". October 18, 2006

Excellent starting point (with reservations)

There are any number of excellent Bo Diddley compilations that cherry pick the man's work and if you merely are after a concise overview, several do the job perfectly, especially if you don't mind hearing A-sides, album tracks and B-sides from different periods all side by side, often with insufficient information to unravel what comes from where and when. Problems will ensue if you then start looking for complementary discs to supplement your collection, however, as many of the same titles will crop up over and over again, and you may soon start to think you would have been better of buying original albums to avoid duplications, if only you could find them in catalogue.
This 24 track release from 1995 would seem to be an excellent starting point as it comprises complete reissues of two albums from 1962 and 1963 and furthermore has a strong sprinkling of those very titles that reappear on so many collections. The first 12 tracks comprise the album Hey! Bo Diddley, released in the UK on Pye International in April 1963, and the second 12 made up the album Bo Diddley which followed 5 months later. 
There are a couple of caveats, however. Note that Hey! Bo Diddley was actually a British compilation, put together at Pye to introduce Bo Diddley to a British audience who were beginning to seek out authentic black American rhythm and blues music. It featured recordings spanning the period from his first Checker single in 1955, Bo Diddley/I'm A Man, up to a recent import album from 1962, Bo Diddley Is A Twister, which provided 5 tracks, including two of his classic guitar instrumentals, Detour and Shank, featuring Peggy Jones. In between were singles like Hey! Bo Diddley, Hush Your Mouth and Road Runner, and the album closed with the 1956 B-side I'm Looking For A Woman, which featured Robert Parker on guitar. On this re-issue the track Bo Diddley has been mistakenly replaced by the remake Bo Diddley '69, a single Checker had out in 1969 (and actually rather rarer than the much anthologized original - but obviously not as good).
The second album, Bo Diddley, is a straightforward UK issue of the best-selling album released by Checker in 1962 (a 1957 album was similarly eponymous), and includes the monumental You Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover (written by Willie Dixon) and its much covered original B-side I Can Tell, as well as a sprinkling of Bo's always popular dual-guitar instrumentals, probably with Peggy Jones (Diddling, Give Me A Break, Bo's Bounce, Sad Sack, Bo's Twist), his comment on the Cold War (Mr Kruschev), the Howlin' Wolf-like Who May Your Lover Be, the doo-wop stylings of Babes In The Wood and a twist update on the traditional Mama Don't Allow.
Although predominantly monaural, Mr Kruschev, Give Me A Break (Man), Mama Don't Allow No Twistin' and You All Green (all from the second album) are in stereo mixes June 27, 2005

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