The 500 - #216 - Go Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #216
Album Title: Go Bo Diddley
Artist: Bo Diddley
Genre: Early Rock and Roll
Recorded: Checker Records - March, 1955 & September, 1958

Released:  July, 1959 
My age at release: Not born
How familiar was I with it before this week: Not at all

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #455, dropping 238 places
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Say Man

I have lost count of the number of concerts and live events I have attended due to the foresight and generosity of my friend, Steve “Lumpy” Sullivan. Some readers of this blog series will remember Steve as a guest writer for album #417, Boy, from U2, and #345, Stop Making Sense, from Talking Heads. He’ll be back again soon to contribute.

Steve (right) with his favourite comedian, Doug Stanhope.

Courtesy of Steve, I’ve attended the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal; sat in a luxury box, enjoying unlimited food and beer at a Bob Dylan and Foo Fighters performance in London, Ontario; and watched Wrestlemania 18 from the front row. 

We actually had 2nd row seats, but the people in front of us 
did not show and we moved up.

That’s right. I sat ringside and witnessed The Rock defeat Hulk Hogan while more than 68,000 people looked on from behind me in Toronto’s Skydome (now Rogers Centre).

Poster for Wrestlemania 18.

Meanwhile, Steve has used his entertainment industry know-how to arrange for my wife, Angela, and I to meet the Blue Jays on the field before watching their game against the Chicago White Sox next month. His largesse is seemingly boundless.

The Blue Jays face the White Sox May 19 - 22.

In July, 2001, he secured tickets for us to see comedy legends Joan Rivers and Don Rickles perform at the Hummingbird Centre (now Meridian Hall) in Toronto. I have been a fan of Rickles since the ‘70s when I first witnessed his acerbic, insult-based wit on The Tonight Show and Dean Martin’s Celebrity Roast.

Rickles mugging to the audience on Dean Martin's
Celebrity Roast - 1970s.

In preparation for this post, I rewatched several episodes of “The Roast” on YouTube. I realize now that most of the jokes went over my pre-teen head. Regardless, there was something about the rhythm of comedic delivery and the idea of friendly tit-for-tat ridicule that gripped me.

Dean Martin Celebrity Roast.

My recollection of those verbal jousts was ignited while listening to Go Bo Diddley, the second studio record from legendary singer, guitarist and songwriter Bo Diddley. Diddley was born Ellas Otha Bates in Macomb, Mississippi, to the teen-aged daughter of a sharecropper. She and Ellas’ father, Eugene Bates, were unable to support a family, so the infant was raised by his mother’s cousin, Gussie McDaniel, who eventually adopted him.

A young Bo Diddley (1950s)

Gussie moved the family to the south side of Chicago in 1934 following the death of her husband who was, of course, five-year-old Diddley’s adoptive father. Active involvement in the Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church allowed the teen-age Diddley to learn trombone and violin. However, it was the joyful and rhythmic music he heard at the neighbourhood Pentecostal church and from local blues players that inspired him to take up the guitar.

Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago.

Music wasn’t the only rhythm that enthralled the young Diddley. He, like me, loved the cadence and flow of comedic beats and was particularly enamoured with insult humour. The sixth track on Go Bo Diddley is a three-minute ditty entitled Say Man – a song that became his biggest hit, reaching #20 on the Billboard Top 100.

Say Man single on Checker Records.

Say Man began as a rhythmic, instrumental jam session in the Checker studios. However, instead of singing, Diddley and his percussion player, Jerome Green, traded insults in a word game known as "The Dozens".

Green (lower) with Diddley.

The Dozens has its roots in African American communities where two participants exchanged increasingly severe barbs that delighted audiences and themselves. The poisoned arrows of combat attacked each opponent's intelligence, appearance, competency or social and financial status. Many times, members of the family were targeted – particularly each other’s mother –the lightning-fast retorts cringing, but hilarious.

The game goes by a plethora of names. It is called "blazing", "roasting", "hiking", "capping", "clowning", "ranking", "ragging", "rekking", "crumming", "sounding", "checking", "joning", "woofing", "wolfing", “skinning”, "sigging", "scoring", "signifying" and "jiving". The insults themselves are sometimes called "snaps".

There are multiple stories about the origin of the phrase “The Dozens”. Some authors believe it came from a now-forgotten English verb “to dozen” - which meant “to stun, stupefy or daze.” A darker history is suggested by Mona Lisa Soloy. The author and professor posits that the term arose from the New Orleans’ slave trade where mutilated captives (often disfigured by punishment for alleged disobedience) were grouped into lots of a “cheap dozen”.

A sketch depicting the ships used in the Atlantic Slave Trade.

When listening to the song Say Man it is easy to hear the delight in the voices of Diddley and Green as they exchange barbs, such as, “Your girl is so ugly, she has to sneak up on a glass of water to get a drink.” The Dozens work because both participants interact willingly in a display of friendly rivalry. Historian Harry Lefever wrote in a 1981 academic paper titled Playing The Dozens: A Mechanism For Social Control:

“In the deepest sense, the essence of "The Dozens" lies not in the insults but in the response of the victim. Taking umbrage is considered an infantile response. Maturity and sophistication bring the capability to suffer the vile talk with aplomb at least, and, hopefully, with grace and wit.”

Indeed, sociologists believe the game is viewed as a tool for preparing young African American men to cope with verbal abuse without becoming outraged. In the time before the Civil Rights movement (and, sadly, after) this was often a survival mechanism for black men.

Seeing Don Rickles and Joan Rivers perform in 2001 was a high point for me. Both performers perfected the art of the insult and, on that hot July evening, the audience were the beneficiaries. Thanks to Steve, I was there, too.

When I met Steve in 1993, it was our mutual love of comedy that made us click. Over the years, we have played our own variation of The Dozens, friends hurling contrived barbs at one another. The laughter we have shared binds our ever-deepening friendship. And that is no joke.