- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Bo Diddley is rightfully renowned as one of the founding fathers of rock and roll, but he only made the Top 40 pop charts once with a novelty song, “Say Man”.
Bo Diddley – Bo Diddley’s 16 All-Time Greatest Hits (1964): Bo Diddley had numerous R&B hits and wrote and recorded dozens of songs, like “Bo Diddley”, “Who Do You Love”, “Pretty Thing”, “Road Runner”, “You Can’t Judge a Book by its Cover”, and “Bring it to Jerome”; all are included on this album, his first greatest-hit collection. Bo Diddley of course is a stage name, and his song titles often mention Bo Diddley by name. In his writing credits, his name usually appears as Ellas B. McDaniel or sometimes Elias B. McDaniel. Many of his songs were hits for others, notably “I’m a Man” by the Yardbirds; there was even a completely ridiculous rumor that Bo Diddley specifically wrote “I’m a Man” for the Yardbirds, even though “I’m a Man” is actually the “B” side of his very first single back in 1955.
Bo Diddley is rightfully renowned as one of the founding fathers of rock and roll, but he actually only made the Top 40 pop charts once with a novelty number called “Say Man”. Atop a pounding, infectious beat, Bo Diddley trades hilarious comic insults with his maracas player Jerome Green (actually I have seen Green credited lately with having written “Bring it to Jerome”, though it was originally shown as written by Bo). Green’s crazy laugh and shrill drawl is a perfect counterpoint to Diddley’s baritone, and it is amazing how well “Say Man” holds up to multiple plays. The insults are inventive and offbeat: “You so ugly, the stork that brought you into the world oughta be arrested!”, “You that thing I throw peanuts at!”, “[Your girlfriend] was so ugly she had to sneak up on a glass to get her a drink of water”, etc. In the article on “Say Man”, Mark Deming writing for Allmusic has this parenthetical note of praise for Bo Diddley: “Let’s pause to mention no other artist would be so obsessed with rhythm and such a visionary that they would hire a guy just to play maracas”.