This is a really cool story, from the pages of the Charlotte Observer:
EDITOR’S NOTE: Bo Diddley, a founding father of rock ‘n’ roll, died Monday at age 79. In 1994, Charlotte guitarist and then Observer staffer Woody Mitchell wrote about his once-in-a-lifetime chance to play with the legendary musician. In remembrance of Diddley, we’re reprinting that story.
By Woody Mitchell
Bo Diddley was a rock ‘n’ roll aristocrat who claimed to have invented the form. And in a sense, he and a handful of others did. Diddley died of heart failure on Monday. He was 79. He’s shown performing in 2006.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Bo Diddley, a founding father of rock ‘n’ roll, died Monday at age 79. In 1994, Charlotte guitarist and then Observer staffer Woody Mitchell wrote about his once-in-a-lifetime chance to play with the legendary musician. In remembrance of Diddley, we’re reprinting that story.Anybody who’s ever thrummed the strings of an electric instrument has had at least the fleeting dream of someday playing with a real rock ‘n’ roll star.
But when the time comes, you have to take the bitter with the sweet. …
The houselights went down that night, and I wished for mere butterflies in my stomach – I had bats. Stepping up to the mike, in my best showbiz voice:
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome … the mighty Bo Diddley!”
And out from the wings, wearing a big black hat, strode the man himself, resplendent in his scarlet-vested jumpsuit complete with strings of little lights along his bell-bottom seams.
He kicked into his patented, syncopated groove and our band, the first incarnation of Woody and the Wingnuts, picked it up and waited for him to start singing.
And waited. And waited. He stopped playing and left us hanging, holding the throbbing riff by ourselves, for a good minute or two. Meanwhile, he scowled at us, at the monitor speakers, out at the crowd and up at the sound booth, then back at us.
We in the band exchanged uncertain glances. It was 1984; we’d been hired as Bo Diddley’s backup group for the grand opening of the Asheville Music Hall, but up until showtime we hadn’t even met him, much less rehearsed. Feeling naked, I had one of those “what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here?” moments.
Then I got hold of myself and remembered: We’re backing up a legend, a true rock ‘n’ roll juju warrior, a hoodoo man of the first degree. A man whose albums on the Chess label more than 20 years earlier had enthralled me as a young teen.
So we churned on, following the prime directive of show business: When in doubt, keep playing. You never saw such stiff upper lips.
When Bo came back in, it was to end the song.
‘Heeey, Bo Diddley!’
He called the soundman to the stage, obviously disgruntled. Desperately we wondered what we had to do to get him gruntled again.
Mollified, he kicked off his first big hit, “Bo Diddley,” whanging on his trademark rectangular guitar with a crude splendor.
Soon the crowd was singing along on the refrain, “Heeey, Bo Diddley!” My bandmates and I began to relax.
But in the middle of song No. 2, Bo stopped singing.
“Wait a minute.”
The room went dead.
“We don’t have no monitors up here.”
I pitied the sound crew, undoubtedly as freaked out as we were. The music hall was so brand-new you could smell fresh paint; since this was its first show, the crew was raw, unfamiliar with the acoustical environment under combat conditions.
By the middle of the next song they’d tweaked the monitors up so loud they generated a shrill squeal of feedback during Bo’s guitar solo. I trembled.
“OK, soundman, get yo’ act together,” Bo rumbled into the mike. The crowd grew restive; Bo, perhaps sensing he’d carried a star’s prerogative for contrariness a tad too far, looked up toward the booth and said, “I’m gone bring you a cheeseburger up there in a minute. Heh heh heh!” That gruff chuckle put the crowd – and the band – at ease.
“Come on now!” He launched into “Bo Diddley’s a Gunslinger,” another of his early hits, and egged us into singing backup vocals. Then he started pitching polyrhythms – sonic curveballs – at us, and when we didn’t crack he shot us a sinister grin and got down to some serious jamming.
That’s when it dawned on me he’d been test-driving us as a band, the way you would a car.
When he segued into his version of “That’s Alright,” we started cooking in the surging rhythmic amalgam I’d envisioned.
“Lemme hear ya say, ‘Yeah yeah!’” he exhorted the crowd; it responded with gusto.
That raunchy, pulsing beat
By now we had a tacit onstage compact: Everything would be just fine as long as we kept the groove going and stayed out of his way. Our stomachs began to unknot, and we made it through the first set feeling like we’d played some music.
During the break, Bo strode to the bar and buttonholed the manager.
“You know, the first set went pretty good and everybody seemed to like it, so I thought I’d just get my pay now. That way, when things are over, I can just get on out of here.”
“Yes, sir,” the manager said, cheerful. “I’ll just write you a check right now.”
Bo laughed from deep down in his gut, slapping both hands down on the bar.
“No no no, son, you don’t understand. I get paid in cash.”
Having a pocketful of money seemed to make him feel better. He even bought the band a beer. The second set went better.
When Bo hit the opening chords of “Can’t Judge a Book (By Looking at the Cover),” we Wingnuts lighted up – we did the song at every gig; it was one of our favorite numbers.
In that song there’s a stop and a punch, and the band hit it dead-on. Bo gave me a sidelong look of surprise: You remember a 20-some-year-old arrangement? I felt competent for the first time all night.
Shortly afterward, he pulled a surprise of his own: several minutes of flying-saucer sounds from his custom guitar, an instrument festooned with every kind of knob and switch imaginable.
But with Bo Diddley it always comes back to that raunchy, pulsing beat. And this time we had it going. Cruising on that timeless tide of rhythm, looking for places nobody’d ever been before. …
… And jolted back to reality when, in the middle of the jam, he stepped up to the mike saying, “We gotta go.”
That was my cue: “Let’s hear it one more time for the mighty … Bo … Diddley!”
He gave the crowd a brief temperance lecture and promised he’d be back. Meanwhile, the rowdy crowd whooped and hollered for more. We in the band braced for the inevitable encore.
But with the audience still screaming, he walked off the stage, put his guitar in its case and vanished, leaving us with our instruments – and our jaws – hanging.