Classic Albums: His Best by Bo Diddley

So here’s my next 1950’s album for my Thursday’s post this week, well actually a few songs were recorded in the the 60’s. I know it’s a best of comp album but I’ve just got to have Bo Diddley and yeah it’s his best, I’ll justified if you want me to? But it’s my list and didn’t make any silly rules about not haven’t these types of album. In my Classic Albums pile I’ve already have a soundtrack comp of new and old songs with the Trainspotting album and the very first album I wrote about was a comp album of old Aussie 7″ singles called Tales Of The Aussie Underground Vol. 1 & 2.

Pretty much all these cut are from early singles by Bo, it’s a kind-of problem if you wanna call it that with artists like him because at this time singles were not just lifted from the coming soon album or the already out album but both were two different things. So say with someone like Bo he had a a couple or a few 7″ single or the 45’s and then a 12″ album or a 33 1/3 playing record with all different tracks and at this point in the greatest tracks ended up on the singles because they had to stand on their own. They only had the b-side to back it up, there was no next track after that or after that or so on. I guess some of these songs did end up on some of his albums but all of these on the same one.

The first seven songs were Bo’s earliest recordings all from 1955 then his maybe his most well known track Who Do You Love? was the only one from 1956, it’s missing Cops And Robbers which I love but I’ve got it on something else. The singles slowed down after because he had his debut album in 1958 and by 1960 he had three albums in the one year. So it’s three tracks from 1957, three again in 1958, two in 1959 and off course none from 1960 because of those albums. One from 1961, two more from 1962 and the last track is from 1966 but in that time he had 12 full length albums too. So I could really could have picked one of these albums but I just love these songs so much they all just have to be included here.

So anyway it’s pretty much Diddley’s first ten years, not all his 7″ singles from that time but maybe just his best as the title says. It’s 20 tracks in the end and I think this comp album is by far the best out of almost endless comp albums of all his stuff. Original it was released in 1997 to go with the Chess Records 50th anniversary.

Bo is an incredibly import artist with Pink Floyd writing a song about him, everyone of from The Rolling Stones to U2 ripping of him off and covered by everyone like: Janis Joplin, Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, Buddy Holly, The Who, The Doors, New York Dolls, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Kinks, The Animals, Townes Van Zandt etc. and off course The Rolling Stones has done versions of heaps of his tracks over the years. Anyway I can’t believe he’s missing from 1001 albums book, Chuck Berry not in it so I don’t know what the hell they’re doing.

Anyway who else out there loves Bo Diddley?

His Best track listing and times:

1. Bo Diddley – 2:48
2. I’m A Man – 3:02
3. You Don’t Love Me (You Don’t Care) – 2:54
4. Diddley Daddy – 2:29
5. Pretty Thing – 2:52
6. Bring It To Jerome – 2:30
7. I’m Looking For A Woman – 2:35
8. Who Do You Love? – 2:31
9. Hey! Bo Diddley – 2:14
10. Mona (a/k/a I Need You Baby) – 2:23
11. Before You Accuse Me – 3:08
12. Say Man – 3:17
13. Dearest Darling – 2:54
14. Crackin’ Up – 2:07
15. Story Of Bo Diddley – 2:54
16. Road Runner – 2:49
17. Pills – 2:52
18. I Can Tell – 4:36
19. You Can’t Judge A Book By Its Cover – 3:16
20. Ooh Baby – 3:49