The Pedigree of PETER GUNN

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This Music Player contains 5 hours of covers, clones, and cousins of "Peter Gunn",
from 1958 to today in chronological order, spanning all musical genres.

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The Pedigree of PETER GUNN

"Louie Louie" is a riff that underlines the whole history of Rock'n'Roll, and "Peter Gunn" shadows it on the same trail.

It was created by unusual supsects who would become the world's most wanted. Writer/director Blake Edwards created the 1958 TV show, bringing in Henry Mancini to compose the themes, who cloaked the worldly detective in a jazz-noir score of torrid sax and motor engine riffs. (They went on to make their fame with the Pink Panther films.) The pianist on the sessions was future film composer John Williams.>

It was a surprisingly sophisticated and yet street-lethal score for the fresh new world of television. In fact, with its liberal use of West Coast free jazz, it opened the door for using Jazz in movies and television from then on. The bestselling soundtrack became a hinge into modern jazz for mainstream audiences. And its fusion of dramatic intrigue and brashly sensual bop created the Crime/Spy Jazz sound, paving the grooves for the soundtracks of James Bond and all his clones.

More immediately, it captured the dangerous allure of the modern city in the fantasies of young people nationwide.

Craig Stevens (r), starring as Private Eye "Peter Gunn".

Most of all, it was the power of that striding strain that arrested their attention. "Peter Gunn Theme" was the sound of walking cocky, punching felons, chasing roadsters, talking cool, and entangling hot. It was steamy and unseemly, a grinding prowl, a hungry stare, a hip-grinding dance. It was the entirety of the forbidden side of adulthood that teenagers ached to have. "The Peter Gunn title theme actually derives more from rock and roll than from jazz," Mancini clarified.

Rock'n'Roll guitarist Duane Eddy snuck his way into the club first. His twang-bar style, with its extra heavy reverb, amped the walking bassline into a tougher strut on his 1959 cover version. While Mancini's was sassy horns swinging in a hot nightspot, Eddy's was horny young nightowls on the prowl down midnight tarmac. At least in teen fantasies, it was a sidedoor into the sleazy twilight underworld they longed to slink into. The hard clang instrumentals of Duane Eddy and Link Wray ushered in Dick Dale and Surf guitar, which kept the edgy heart of Rock'n'Roll alive into the British Invasion.

Duane Eddy; Sarah Vaughan; Dick Dale.

Beyond simply the riff, the moody sound evoked by Eddy mutated into a shroud of instant atmosphere. For instance, the mid-60's English bands The Lost Souls ("This Life Of Mine") and The Syndicats ("Crawdaddy Simone") aren't playing "Gunn" specifically, but their songs are clearly rewrites of its chords and sound. Same thing for instrumentals by Freddie King ("Hide Away") and James Brown ("The Scratch"). When The Monkees broke free of their producer to play on their own records, the first thing they tried was a shambling pastiche called "Peter Gunn's Gun". Its status as a standard in any upstarts' repertoire carried it through the rehearsal holes of the world. Somebody somewhere would always don its instant cool, no matter whether honest or bootleg. Jazz queen Sarah Vaughn sang a lyrical version called "Bye, Bye" in '64. Dick Dale, Jimi Hendrix, and myriad garage bands donned its trenchcoat for some midnight rambling.

In the 70's, as rock began rebelling against its overblown indulgences, the tight riff became crucial. It was like cutting to the chase with a switchblade. Boston's Jonathan Richman had admired the lethal lyrics and blunt buzz of the Velvet Underground; he and the Modern Lovers trawled the city's dusky deadends in Peter Gunn's roadster in 1974's "Pablo Picasso". (This song is most remembered for its immortal lines, "Pablo Picasso was never called an a$$hole/ not like you.") His terse hum would soon transport punks.

X-Ray Spex; The Cramps; The B-52's.

For punkers, this edgy sordid nightscape was their reality. It became a theme song where the usual suspects were now the heroes. You can detect it in the surging buzz of X-Ray Spex's "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo" in '78. The Cramps crimped that stalking stocatto for their mix of pychobilly, garage, and horror movies by mutating it into 1979's "Human Fly". Duane's rival, the original psychobilly Link Wray, sprungload it with new edge in his "Switchblade", with punkabillies nodding in approval. The B-52's relay that riff into an alien signal via throbbing satellite with 1979's "Planet Claire", cut through with the stabbing clang of silver surfer Ricky Wilson.

The Blues Brothers; Nina Hagen; REPO MAN soundtrack.

The BLUES BROTHERS movie (1980) may have done more to expose the song to a new generation that any other source; their version is fueled by the guitar of Steve Cropper and bass of Duck Dunn, of the legendary Booker T And The MG's. Conversely, out in some bleak no man's land, Bruce Springsteen hears it on his dashboard as "Mr. State Trooper", burning through the ebon byways with some bad menace in his heart. His stripped down acoustic seethes like a harrowing confession before something terrible happens. Also in 1982, German alien Nina Hagen germinated the riff with Captain Beefheart's rasp, quotes of Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust", and cascades of cosmic clang and shrill in "Iki Maska".

The title theme of the 1984 REPO MAN film, by Iggy Pop, has definite treadmarks of Peter's ride. To underscore the point, fellow acolytes Burning Sensations repo-ed Richman's carriage, putting a Duane Eddy kit on it in their "Pablo Picasso" cover for the same movie. This version is so popular that many thought it was the original.

The shamus haunts the darks of Bauhaus' "Hair Of The Dog", Front 242's "Body To Body", and L7's "Uncle Bob". Grandmaster Flash and Tthe Furious 5 flipped fresh spin on the theme with "Style (Peter Gunn's Theme)", where Flash honed back in on the horn riffs. The British Art Of Noise chopped that HipHop with some orchestral flourish, congas, and the hard twanging strut of the actual Duane Eddy himself in their "Peter Gunn", an alternative dance smash in 1986. Aussie rebels Midnight Oil called in the lawman's ghost to bust its country's guilty conscience over issues of Aboriginal land-rights with "Beds Are Burning", with the riff's phantom flickering through their 1988 breakthrough hit. (There's also brief chops of Chuck Berry's "Little Queenie" in there, too.)

The TWIN PEAKS soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti.

Much of Mancini's original score haunted Angelo Badalamenti's brilliant music for the TWIN PEAKS TV series (1990); the clanging reverb takes possession of the title theme, while the fingersnapping hipster jazz tunes take their cues from Mancini tracks like "Brief and Breezy". Poison Ivy, the axe-slinging dominatrix of The Cramps, claims to own about every cover of "Peter Gunn" ever made; she puts her stiletto all the way through the floorboards in her ultimate version. Covertly, Peter dogs the footsteps of '90s era songs by Living Colour, Diamanda Galas, and The A-Bones.

England's vastly underrated Elastica, known for their chop shop tricks, trysted Peter with The Beatles' "And I Love Her" for a scintillating twist in their fuzzy stomp, "Love Like Ours" (2000). Iggy & the Stooges refueled their reunion in 2003 cruising Peter's night haunts with "Skull Ring", skewering the mugging partystars and glampires who have gentrified his beat. It's the propulsive bassline of The Strokes' "Juicebox" (2005). On the eternal trail, the flatfoot still pounds the beat of The Come Ons, Los Explosibvos (Mexico), and Django Django.

Have riff, will travel. That memorable hook and the atmosphere that surrounds it always resonate beyond the moment, transporting anyone who ever hears it, and forging new paths into the future.



© Tym Stevens

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See Also:

• The Legacy of LOUIE LOUIE, with Music Player!

• Shock Waves: How SURF MUSIC Saved Rock'n'Roll!, with 2 Music Players!

• JOHN BARRY: The Influence Of The JAMES BOND Sound On Pop Music, with 2 Music Players!

_____________________

• John Barry > Fatboy Slim

• "Misirlou!" -The Deep History of Dick Dale's Surf Classic

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The Legacy of LOUIE LOUIE

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This Music Player contains 11 hours of covers, clones, and cousins of "Louie Louie",
from 1957 to today in chronological order, spanning all musical genres.

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The Legacy of LOUIE LOUIE

Sometimes a single song is the refrain. You can group music by genres or eras, but one song can tie all of them together. Or even one riff.

In 1957, Richard Berry created one of those. His ode to Jamaican love was inspired by a few surprising sources: a variant of a Cuban Mambo song called "Cha Cha Chá Loco", and Chuck Berry's "Havana Moon" (which had in turn responded to the brief Calypso boom after "Day-O" broke big). It was a regional hit around San Francisco and made its way into many West Coast 45" collections and jukeboxes. It had a lurching stairstep riff that kids had gone crazy for, one that stuck to your brain and feet.

Richard Berry; The Kingsmen.

Up in Seattle, where cold and rain made the emerging early '60s rock'n'roll courser, bands battled each other for supremacy in frats, bars, and proms. Someone latched onto "Louie Louie" and then everybody had to. But The Kingsmen stumbled into the studio first, one day before their rivals Paul Revere And The Raiders. In their haste, they didn't know it well enough. The singer slurred the words to hide it and his false starts after the bridge got left in. The riff lost a beat and became the classic 1-2-3/ 1-2, 1-2-3/ 1-2 that made it The Riff. That arresting combo of jang-ing riff and sloppy attitude built the Garage of the future. It also got them investigated by the FBI on suspicion of slipping obscenities into the unintelligle lyrics.

Great riff + Attitude + Controversy = cultural phenomenon.

In comes imitation and mutation, the catalyst of all culture. There's a moment in music where a riff becomes a general rhythm, and a bedrock for new songs.

It sure stuck in its originator's mind, because Richard Berry did one of the first clones of his own song with 1960's "Have Love Will Travel". His original was a splice, and now that the chords have now become standard chops in any band's repertoire, the re-splicing by his followers begins. East L.A. Mexican rockers The Premiers used the riff under their cover of a different song, "Farmer John". The Trashmen combined both songs openly as "Farmer Louie". The Bobby Fuller 4 medley-ed the two together right into their own clone, "Jenny Lee". Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders' "The Game Of Love" trysted the Bo Diddley beat into the middle.

Meanwhile, Surf naturally caught the wave, such as "Surfin' Louie" by The Shockwaves and The Surfaris' "Go Go Go For Louie's Place". Fresh from "My Boyfriend's Back", the girl group The Angels went tough chick with it, even preserving the false start in harmony! The Wailers, The Raiders and The Who wrote sequels to it (The Raiders also got 'revenge' on their friends for the lost hit with "Just Like Me"). David Bowie's first recording was a cover of The Raiders' sequel, as Davie Jones And The King Bees (1964). Meanwhile, the Seattle scene was still on fire with the song in every band's repertoire; The Kingsmen's rivals, The Sonics, virtually invent garage rock and punk with a 1965 take so brutal, even the Sex Pistols would wince in admiration.

The Sonics; The Troggs; The Rolling Stones.

Now the covers have turned into clones and cousins.

The riff has now become so common that everyone went from a cover into new creations. The Drifers usher in a new standard with "Sweets For My Sweet". The Castaways pull a cover-up with "Liar Liar"; the Soul group The Vibrations scooped a baldfaced substitute as "My Girl Sloopy", and The Real McCoys inserted irony by covering the clone as "Hang On Sloopy".

In Boston patois, The Barbarians' drummer plied his hand with the hook in his autobiographical "Moulty". The Kinks tried to cover it and instead found "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All Of the Night", two new standards. As garage and pop started colluding on radio hits, The Rare Breed ("Beg, Borrow, and Steal"), The Troggs ("Wild Thing", another new standard), The Rolling Stones ("Get Off of My Cloud", another), The Remains ("Why Do I Cry"), and The Eyes ("I'm Rowed Out") heisted the Jamaican ship for new ports.

Culture is typically cyclical based on response, and a song that was first inspired by Mambo cha-cha-cha rhythms was in turn covered extensively in Spanish-speaking countries (including its clones) by acts like Los Loud Jets, Sonia, and The Sandpipers.

Julie London; Bob Dylan;
Toots And The Maytals.

From covers, to clones, to cousins, and finally to culture. At this point it became a free-for-all. An idea has become universal, and every response transforms it with new perspectives. It's everybody's party, and everybody has a part in it.

Quincy Jones did a jazz cover of a clone with "Hang On Sloopy". Conga god Mongo Santamaria sailed back to Cuba in his take on "Louie Louie". Torch damsel Julie London gave it a sultry shoreleave it will never forget. Ike & Tina Turner gave it an soulful shakedown at the Apollo while Otis Redding cruised it through Memphis.

It lazes under the bridge of "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" by The Righteous Brothers. A twist on it rolls through Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone". It twined through Frank Zappa's work continously, including firing a guitarist when they couldn't play it. Quietly, the sing-song riff sways under The Rascals' "Good Lovin'", Erma Franklin's "Piece Of My Heart", and Tommy Roe's "Dizzy".

It was wham-bammed by Glam bands in the early '70s, of course. The funk-pop band Hot Chocolate familiarized it into their hit "Brother Louie". Toots & the Maytals brought it home to Jamaica in reggae stylee. It grooves under "Summer Days, Summer Nights" from the movie musical GREASE. Barry White got up close and personal with it. Stanley Clarke and George Duke funked around with it.

The Stooges; Lou Reed; Motorhead.

But the song never forgot its edge. The song had become less a riff and more of a shorthand writ of young swagger and rebel sneer. In the '70s and '80s it often took on a seedy and dangerous allure, continuing to kick against the pricks.

Garage rock had spat out the crazed stepchild, The Stooges. On a bootleg of their last gig in '74, Iggy Pop uses "Louie" as a frame to taunt his audience out of boozy complacency. One patron purportedly beans him with a beer bottle, which is the thump and buzzing mike heard at the end. Lou Reed's "Vicious" helped inspire Sid's name. The Clash lashed it and The Fall sneered it in concert in '77. Johnny Thunders stumbled through it on his way to the glass table.

"Louie Louie" was now being unfurled like a Jolly Roger. L.A. punks X flash glimmers of its sway within "We're Desperate". Some of its ghost can be traced in the swaying buzz of The Dickies' "You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla)". It was Motorhead's first single. Black Flag refuses surrender with it in 1981. "Love Sinks", by The J. Geils Band, is a revamp of it via "Wild Thing". Acts as diverse as D.R.I., Joan Jett, The Pretenders, The Fat Boys, The Ultra Magnetic MCs, Sisters of Mercy, and more shanghaied its course through the '80s. For Russian emigres Red Square it was a very real rejection of repression and a charter to deliverance.

Nirvana.

Then it came full circle. From the hinterlands near Seattle, Kurt Cobain corrupted the chords into a splice with Boston's "More Than a Feeling" in 1991. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a perfect summation of everything that made "Louie Louie" great in the first place: a kicking riff, a sloppy attitude, mysterious lyrics, and a combustible audience. Again, it had become the rallying cry for fun and foment, which is Rock'n'Roll incarnate. Perfect.

From culture into community. Ultimately, a riff becomes a communal experience, a rallying cry, a Morse-code beacon, a universal bond like the heartbeat; this is Us, this is home.

In 1993 Iggy Pop revolted from style back into sting, using the song to navigate modern protests and soul-searching. He said the song always steadies him when he goes off course. Likewise, the insanely prolific punk Billy Childish keelhauled it for a sequel with his garage band Thee Headcoats in '95: "Louie Louie (Where Did She Roam)" sets course for new shores in pursuit of that elusive island love. Which, beyond the riff and its attitude, may be the secret refrain of the song that haunts the memory; ache at the landlocked present and longing for an open future.

Great idea + varied response + shared experience = culture.

Culture is formed and maintained by the interchange of community; like the ocean, every current, crosscurrent, ebb, flow, swell, and wave remolds it while holding it together. "Louie Louie" is an undercurrent of raw Rock'n'Roll spirit driving the tides across time. It is ever-current, from Jane's Addiction, The A-Bones, and Blur, to The Black Keys, Boonaraas, Foxygen, and The Love Me Nots. Set course. Said we gotta go now.

"Okay, let's give it to 'em, right now!"
A-A-A, D-D, Em-Em-Em, D-D...


© Tym Stevens

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See also:

• The Pedigree of PETER GUNN, with Music Player!

• Shock Waves: How SURF MUSIC Saved Rock'n'Roll!, with 2 Music Players!

• DON'T TREAD ON ME: The Original Punk of 1960s Garage Rock

• ROCK Sex: Rock Revolution = Busted Amp! - Ike Turner > Burnette Trio > The Kinks > The Beatles

• NIRVANA - "Our little group has always been, and always will until the end"

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BO DIDDLEY: The Rhythm King and His Disciples

...with 2 gigantic
Music Players!

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Today, the romp-bompin' Bo Diddley, the baron of the beat!
Hear 2 massive music players, one of Bo and one of all his disciples from the 1950s to today!

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𝟭 Bo Diddley
𝟮 Bo Diddley's disciples: 1950s-Today

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𝟭
The Rhythm King
of Rock'n'Roll

BO DIDDLEY
by Tym Stevens
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It's that rhythm.

It had been around before in variations. "Shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits." His band says it came from a song called "The Hambone" (based on a rhythm and dance descended from the Juba dance of Haiti). Bo Diddley says it actually came out of his love of the insistent cadence of Country & Western star Gene Autry's "I Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle" (1942). Anything comes from anywhere, it's all in how you use it.

Chess Records in 1955 Chicago was the home of the electric blues gods; Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, their writer and bassist Willie Dixon, harpist Little Walter. Mature men from hard lives in the sharecropper South. When that gave out they migrated among millions to the Rust Belt states around the Great Lakes for factory jobs and record deals. Muddy's was the first all-electric Blues band, plugging Rock'n'Roll in in 1948. Wolf was the leer of the forbidden, crackling through the night airwaves. With the edgy John Lee Hooker, they stoked the souls of rambunctious young listeners, squirming to bust out.

You can hear it on those first singles by the new upstarts at Chess; when Chuck Berry> and Bo crashed the party, it was like someone had flung writhing livewires onto the dance floor crowd. There is a jolting rush and breakneck intensity to those songs that had never been there before. Suddenly the Blues seemed plodding by comparison. It is alive, rude, both mean and joyful. So fast and so fuzzed out it made everything else trip over itself tepidly. What the hell was this? That hard stomping snarl of "Maybelline", that thundrous gallop and phasing tremolo of "Bo Diddley".

BOOM-da-boom-boom, Da-BOOM-Boom. Dag!

Little Walter, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry (1986)

Bo's sound was the past and the future. The crossroads.

It was tribal drumming under an eerie richochet of distorted guitar. In your midnight bedroom, preening your ear covertly to the alien voices sparking out of the radio static, it transported you to some beyonder badlands where mad hooves cascaded like hailstones. BOOM-da-boom-boom, Da-BOOM-Boom. Above this thunderground shimmered an aurora of electronic reverb. Through this nether void Bo would ride hard on sheer pride. He was ego ("I walked 47 miles of barbed wire/ Wear a cobra snake for a necktie"), identity ("I'm a man/ I spell M-A-N"), insane ("You shoulda heard just what I seen"), and hilarious ("I came into this world playing a gold guitar!").

Surging sidesaddle was maraca man Jerome Green, comedic foil and timekeeper. And whiplashing with him lick for lick was Peggy "Little Bo" Jones, her guitar striding beside on "Roadrunner", "Pills", and "Hush Your Mouth". After her came Norma-Jean "The Duchess" Wofford to kick more ruckus. And Bo, a cracked inventer and inverter of sound with his square-box guitar he cobbled from stray junk. These incomparable compadres carried him through more classics than you can shake a drumstick at.

L: Peggy "Lady Bo" Jones;
R: Norma-Jean "The Duchess" Wofford

To reiterate, the M-A-N was adult enough to respect the women. Female guitarists of the era often got spotlight specifically as the singing front, but weren't routine band members. While Bo Diddley could have hogged the light, he instead had a woman in his band as his equal sparring partner, not once but twice. Bo knew that well-rounded inclusion was the right way to go.

That persona. That rhythm. That attack. That fusion of the earthy and the eerie. That booming voice on "I Can Tell", that delirious giggle on "The Story of Bo Diddley", that gutteral sneer on "Oh Yea", those mournful highs on "Mona". What kid wouldn't fall in love with that? And around the world many did and would for years and years. The story of Bo Diddley would amplify every time a new movement plugged in a guitar.

When someone recently mentioned him in relation to the Blues, Bo calmly but clearly set them straight. "I'm not a Blues artist. I'm a Rock'n'Roller."

You're the Man. M-A-N.

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2
Diddley Daddy:
The Disciples of Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley and The Clash


BO DIDDLEY
by Tym Stevens
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Hear the unlimited Playlist here.)

All songs in order from the 1950s to today.

40 hours and seven decades of music
influenced by Bo Diddley, including:
Buddy Holly • Muddy Waters • Etta James
Chuck Berry • The Coasters • Gene Vincent

Dick Dale • The Beatles • Booker T + The MGs
Lonnie Mack • The Crystals • The Byrds
The Yardbirds • The Animals • The Small Faces
The Supremes • Marvin Gaye • The Miracles
The Who • Bob Dylan • The Sonics
Stevie Wonder • James Brown • Cream
Sly And The Family Stone • The Meters • CCR

Led Zeppelin • Funkadelic • T.Rex
Capt. Beefheart • The Band • Al Green
David Bowie • The Stooges • The Stooges
ZZ Top • Roxy Music • Eno • Pointer Sisters
Elton John • Fleetwood Mac • Queen
The Clash • The Police • Iggy Pop
The B-52's • Cheap Trick • Motorhead
Blondie • Chic • The Slits • Gang Of Four

Pretenders • Talking Heads • John Lennon
The Kinks • The Go-Go's • Elvis Costello
Girlschool • Bruce Springsteen • Minutemen
The Cure • Los Lobos • Echo + The Bunnymen
The Smiths • Love And Rockets • Wire
Crowded House • Beastie Boys • U2
Happy Mondays • Stevie Ray Vaughan • Prince
Billy Bragg • Jane's Addiction• fireHOSE

The Gories • Lush • Thee Headcoats
Public Enemy • Throwing Muses • PJ Harvey
Meat Beat Manifesto • Cowboy Junkies
Consolidated • Tori Amos
Cocteau Twins • Living Colour • Lenny Kravitz

The White Stripes • Gorillaz • The Roots
Outkast • Fatboy Slim • Rihanna
Gogol Bordello • Tune-Yards
Thee Oh Sees • Amadou And Mariam

Ty Segall • Lykke Li • Las Pistolas
Summer Twins • Django Django • Bleached
Pond• Foxygen • Nicole Atkins
Whitehorse • Thee Tsunamis • The Coral
Dustaphonics • Los Mambo Jambo
Black Joe Lewis • Janelle Monae • Habibi
Holly Golightly • Bananagun • Larkin Poe
and many, many more!


The Riff that will not fade away.

Bo's 1950s friends were the first to jibe handily with the hand jive. Buddy Holly>, like Bo from South America ("south Texas"), was among the first to give Bo the thumbs up weaving his rhythm into "Not Fade Away". Johnny Otis, famed Jump Jive bandleader, bumps it lively with his "Willie And The Hand Jive", Elvis Presley with "His Latest Flame", and Mac Rebbenack (a.k.a., Dr. John) with "Storm Warning".

Gene Autry, Buddy Holly, Muddy Waters, Etta James

Bo had transmuted Gene Autry and now others were transfiguring him. This is that fluid moment in creativity when a unique riff or beat transcends to a consensual pattern -like the shuffle, the rhumba, the bossa nova, and the waltz- which pollinates laterally. Lawyers, accountants, and separatists aside, this is inevitable and natural. A creator does deserve credit for their efforts or innovations. But then every good idea takes on new lives in the responses of others.

Creativity is intrinsically cyclical and progressive, a crossroads relay of past and future. Muddy Waters's "Hoochie Coochie Man" (1954) had inspired Bo's "I'm A Man". Muddy then answered Bo's song with his "Mannish Boy" (1955), and later they did "I'm A Man" together with Little Walter (1967). And Etta James set them all straight with "W-O-M-A-N".

While Bo took great pains to distinguish himself as a Rocker instead of a Blues man in the press, his influence still reverberated through bluesers anyway. Straight away with peers like Howlin' Wolf, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy, Slim Harpo, and John Mayall And The Bluesbreakers. And across the decades with noted successors like Delbert McClinton, Koko Taylor, Roy Buchanan, Marcia Ball, and Joe Ely. Nurtured by the Blues, Bo in turn bolstered the Blues.

Blues and Country have always been intertwined, constantly trysting into new forms. Pulsing with Bo's beat were rural stalwarts like guitarist extraordinaire Chet Atkins, balladeer Tom Rush, and sassy Jeannie C. Riley. It throbbed in the pensive Folk of Simon And Garfunkel, and the devil-may-care Country Rock of The Flying Burrito Brothers. In time, Bo's surge coursed through notables like Jerry Reed, Jim Stafford, and songwriter Townes Van Zandt.

As the original big bang of Rock> surged into early-'60s Surf>, Bo's sense of rhythmic propulsion undergirded the rumbling attack of Surf and Hot Rod instrumentals. Rolling through the tidal roar were Dick Dale's "Surfin' Drums", The Imps "That'll Get It", and Lonnie Mack's "Memphis". Bo's crosscurrents lifted acts like guitar acts like The Sentinels, Surfers De Los Campeones, and The Bobby Fuller Four. Our man Bo even did a 1963 album responding back called "Surfin' With Bo Diddley". (Ax murderer Link Wray foreshadowed Punk in 1962, churning through a hyperspeed "Bo Diddley" like his sleeves were burning.) In covers, homages, or in sonic spirit, Bo's influence was now encoded in Pop's DNA.

For proof of that in unexpected places, listen to the Beat's cadence in Leonard Bernstein's score for WEST SIDE STORY (1960), in the song "Act 1: America".

Lonnie Mack, Marvin Gaye, Olivia Molina, The Pretty Things

It hipshakes through Soul> in hits like The Dixie Cups' "Iko Iko", The Shangri-Las' "Simon Speaks", and Shirley Ellis' "The Clapping Song" (and Olivia Molina's cover version, "Juego De Palabras"). BOOM-da-boom-boom, Da-BOOM-Boom. King Curtis, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Ben E. King, Doris Troy, Roy Head. And later in the '70s, still oscillating unexpected behind O.V. Wright, The Jackson 5, Lloyd Price, Betty Wright, The Spinners, and Willie Hutch.

It became the go-to beat at Motown for awhile, propelling classic songs like Smokey Robinson And The Miracles' "Mickey's Monkey", Marvin Gaye's "Baby, Don't You Do It", The Supremes' "When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes", and The Marvelettes' "He's A Good Guy (Yes, He Is)". It was used so much, they had to vary up and re-interpolated it as a new signature beat, starting with The Supreme's "You Can't Hurry Love", which launched hundreds more songs.

England always values our culture better than we do. From their perspective the Blues masters and the rocker rogues were gods raining from Olympus in sheaths of steam. The resultant mid-'60s British Invasion> was the second ring of the big bang, and Bo's beats pulsared through it as much as Chuck's comet flares. You can clearly hear Bo's influence on The Beatles' "I Want To Be Your Man", written for The Rolling Stones, who then had a big big breakthrough covering Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" with extra emphasis on Bo's beat. Their tougher older brothers, The Pretty Things, took their name from Bo's song and his rhythm for their classic "Rosalyn". (Then later, Bowie borrowed their name for three songs and covered "Rosalyn"!) The Animals made up a fake tale of meeting him in their homage to his mythos, "The Story of Bo Diddley". The Liverbirds' sent a father's day card covering "Diddley Daddy". Manfred Mann (covering The Exciters) practically name-check him with their hit, "Do Wah Diddy Diddy". The thump pumps up other songs by The Moody Blues, Donovan (Scotland), and Them (Ireland).

Bo's strut further disordered borders worldwide with artists like Jacques Dutronic (France), Owe Thornqvist (Sweden), Les Chaussettes Noires (France), The Rattles (Germany), Moğollar (Turkey), Lone Star and Els Xocs (Spain), Los Rockin' Devils (Mexico), Roland Alphonso and Laurel Aitken and Dawn Penn (Jamaica), and The Brims (Indonesia). A rhythm is beyond limits, language, time, fashion, and expiration.

As the bluesy vamps of The Stones, The Yardbirds, The Animals, The Kinks, and The Pretty Things snarled their way into the emerging Garage Rock>, Bo's legacy blew cheap speakers in rehearsals worldwide. English bands like Stovepipe No. 4 ("Pretty Thing"), Rey Anton And The Peppermint Men ("You Can't Judge a Book"), and The Who (Jerome's maracas live in their "Magic Bus"). American bastards like The Juveniles ("Bo Diddley"), the garage gods The Sonics ("Diddy Wah Diddy"), and The Preachers (who throw some immortal 'twist-and-shreik!' into their "Who Do You Love" cover) all bomped the bomp.

If "Johnny B. Goode" was now the Rock in all solos, then Bo's beat was the Roll in all rhythm sections. Thee Midniters, Buffalo Springfield, The Strangeloves, The 13th Floor Elevators, The Remains, The Shadows Of Knight, El Xocs (Spain), and The Iguanas (with young Iggy Pop on drums).

Once a template becomes universal, it expands beyond its mandate. Besides covers and clones, the Beat was now splicing into interpolated cousins, the natural course of all creative response. Most famously, The Strangeloves stomped the streets with their beat repeat "I Want Candy", a hit that would keep on hitting in future cover versions. The Byrds married The Beatles' "I've Just Seen a Face" to Bo's beat with their "Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe". Bob Dylan brought it all back home to Jerome with "Maggie's Farm".

Bob Dylan, The Strangeloves, The Who, The Stooges

The roar and fuzz of Garage Rock splayed out into the multi-facets and flange of Psychedelic Rock>, and the Love-In for Bo's tremolo was abstracted into new songs by Jefferson Airplane, The Chocolate Watchband, The West Coast Experimental Band, and Traffic.

As the boisterous social revolution escalated in the late'60s, music got rougher and wilder and angrier with Hard Rock. In came insurgents like Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band, screaming Howlin' Wolf in Bo's clothing with their corrosive cover of "Who Do You Love". Soon enough The Doors expanded that song into a panting rant in panavision. Hard on their heels bristling with fury and ennui were the The Stooges with their homages "Little Doll" and "1969", stripping the excesses of Psychedelia down to a primal, throbbing buzz that would invent Punk. (In later years, Iggy wrote a loving essay about Bo for Rolling Stone magazine: "Bo's hands are about a foot long from the wrist to the tip of the finger. He really controls his guitar." It's all about concentrated chaos.)

If the Beat had been about dance or groove before, it was now about sex and triumph. It is the thunderous hooves of artists such as Cream, Steppenwolf, MC5, and Flower Travellin' Band, cresting over the ridge on stallions, screaming. Or cruising on a chopper, flipping you off.

As the revolution absorbed in to society to seed the future, a back-to-basics perspective took over the new decade. As early-'70s Glam vamped on '50s Rock>, David Bowie expressed that pulse as "Panic In Detroit", The New York Dolls spilled their ills with his "Pills" in 1973, and Bo footed the platform for songs by Fancy, Roxy Music, Brian Eno, and The Sweet. His pattern also pulsed laterally in unexpected parts, like Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" and Jethro Tull's "Aqualung", in the Funk-Rock of Mother's Finest and the Swamp Rock of Little Feat and the Prog-pomp of Queen.

David Bowie, Talking Heads, The Slits, Bow Wow Wow

Clearing out all excesses, Pub Rock stripped everything back to '50s Rock and '60s Soul basics. The English movement was spearheaded by dissenters like The Count Bishops, Dr. Feelgood, The 101ers (with Joe Strummer), and Kilburn And The High Roads (with Ian Dury), profiling like Teddy Boys and twisting like Northern Soul 45s. As it was endlessly reverbed, Bo's Beat became a signifier of furtile evolution, the metronomic verse of a griot telling the history of Rock and all of its turnovers.

When late-'70s Punk turned the basics into bombast, they were also aflame with the direct fury of '50s Rock. Chuck and Bo's riffs ricocheted through reverb in squalid alkie-holes planetwide all over again. On The Clash's first tour of America, they insisted that Bo Diddley be their opening act. "Every time I look at him, my jaw just drops," said Joe Strummer. It was a middle-finger salute to their coked-and-clueless record label and a laurel leaf to their Dionysus. Their songs "Hateful" and "Rudie Can't Fail" pound with the maestro's pulse. It quickens the blood of compatriots in subversion like Johnny Thunders, Generation X (with Billy Idol), Buzzcocks, The Fall, and Pretenders. That ferocious pound echoes again in Minutemen's "Case Closed", Husker Du's "Hare Krsna", and songs by X, Throwing Muses, and Jane's Addiction. In 1987 the Jesus And Mary Chain declared in wax their proclamation that "Bo Diddley Is Jesus".

The impulse of PostPunk bands to marry primal polyrhythms with sharp abrasive textures, such as The Slits, Talking Heads, Gang Of Four, Bush Tetras, Adam And The Ants, and Kleenex/LiliPUT, is Bo's crossroads recrossed again.

As the '80s went progressively slicker than oil wells, multiple creative undergrounds rejected it for the raw, the classic, the felt. The Beat animated Power Pop acts such as Nick Lowe, The Knack, 20/20, The Soft Boys (with Robyn Hitchcock), Cheap Trick, The Romantics, and The dB's. It kicked up new ground in Roots Rock by The Del Fuegos, Lone Justice, Buckwheat Zydeco, and Steve Earle. There it is stalking Rockabilly by new cats in the alleys like Sleepy LaBeef, Hank C. Burnette, The Bopcats, The Meteors, Big Daddy, and Chris Isaak. That's it spiking the Psychobilly of miscreants like Batmobile, Torment, and Furious, and the Trashabilly of Flat Duo Jets, Bodeco, Oblivians, and Dex Romweber. Colluding secretly with The Cure, The Smiths, and Billy Bragg. Electrifying the Go-Go with new Garage Rock from The Milkshakes, Thee Mighty Caesars, The Times, Hoodoo Gurus (Australia), and The Smithereens. It has become the underlying codex of cadence.

The mainstream wasn't safe either. Bow Wow Wow made it big on their cover version of a swipe, with The Strangeloves' "I Want Candy". '80s kids didn't know to judge a beat by its cover because it was too busy moving their backsides. And did so again with George Michael's "Faith". It strobes through Lyndsey Buckingham's swirling "Loving Cup" and The Smiths' amazing "How Soon Is Now" U2's heart bumpathumped with "Desire". Chris Isaak may have been Elvis Orbison, but he still brought it to Jerome with his take on "Diddley Daddy" in '89. Guns'n'Roses free-bass'ed it as "Mr. Brownstone".

In HipHop, Public Enemy's radical cocktail of hardbumping rhythms with sheets of flanging noise is the very spirit of Bo. (Chuck D is a deep fan of the pychedelic Chess albums of Wolf and Waters, and Bo in his SM fetish belts on 1970s "Black Gladiator" cover freaked him out). Deconstructing the past reconstructs the future, as proven by acolytes like 3rd Bass, Consolidated, and Fatboy Slim.

Public Enemy, The White Stripes, Janelle Monae, The Love Me Nots

As a pattern beat or polyrhythmic approach, Bo's hooves steadily galloped through the '90s and '00s. The beat was a pathway, of knowing where you came from to know where to go next. And to spite any currently popular trails you didn't want to go near. Whether Dick Dale, The Gories, Shonen Knife, The White Stripes, Gorillaz, 54 Nude Honeys, tUnE-yArDs, Ty Segall, Janelle Monae, Bleached, or The Love Me Nots, the original primal beat of Rock'n'Roll strode on and on...

It's that rhythm. The riff that will not fade away. BOOM-da-boom-boom, Da-BOOM-Boom. This is the continuing story of Bo Diddley...

"Bo Diddley", by Peter Blake (1963)


© Tym Stevens

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See Also:

• Revolution 1950s: The Big Damn Bang of Rock'n'Roll!

• 1950s PUNK: Sex, Thugs, and Rock'n'Roll!

• CHUCK BERRY: The Guitar God and His Disciples

• BUDDY HOLLY: Rock's Everyman and His Disciples

• LITTLE RICHARD: The Voice of Rock and His Disciples

• JIMMY REED: The Groover of Rock, From Motown To Sesame Street

_____________________

• 1950s Rock, A: The '60s Disciples, with Music Player!

• 1950s Rock, B: The '70s Disciples, with Music Player!

_____________________

• The Real History of Rock and Soul!: A Manifesto, A Handy Checklist

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CHUCK BERRY: The Guitar God and His Disciples

...with 2 roaring
Music Players!

RockSex
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Today, the road-rippin' Chuck Berry, emperor of electric guitar!
Hear 2 massive music players, one of Chuck and one of all his disciples from the 1950's to today!

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𝟭 Chuck Berry
𝟮 Chuck Berry's disciples: 1950s-Today

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𝟭
LET IT ROCK:
The Music of Chuck Berry

CHUCK BERRY
by Tym Stevens
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It was all new.

Sleek aerodynamic autos clacking down all that fresh freeway tarmac, silver bullets soaring you from city to city, idyllic neighborhoods where families could breathe in space and television, and the mystery world of airwaves whispering melodies in the night. The Depression was a sepia memory, the War a receding ache.

Everything was wide open in 1955.

Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, circa 1970

Bo Diddley> was the beat, Little Richard> was the voice, but Chuck Berry was the total.

He was the rhythm and the roll, the voice, the theater, the instrument, the speed. "If you're going to give Rock'n'Roll another name," John Lennon opined, "you might try Chuck Berry." The hard-charging riff into a stomping 4/4 beat, that comes from this man. The terse clang of a guitar (rock) with the rollicking laughter of piano (roll), that's Chuck.

The attitude, whether flush with adrenalin, joyful in youth, scornful of entanglement, celebratory of lust, outrunning the Man, or spinning cinematic fantasies, that's our hero. Though older, Chuck was careful to articulate the triumphs and tensions of the new post-War youth. Better yet, his rapier wordplay staccato-ing at a breakneck tear was rich, vibrant, eagle-eyed, and silver-tongued. He was haughty, hilarious, and horny. He was the brown-eyed handsome man and he was perfect.

His show and persona were absolute style: sharp suits, hair to die for, duck walks, wild kicks, and cocky ease. No rocker would exist without his granduer and theater. And the guitar, well, come on: the Riff, the rhythmic hum, the bristling leads, the fretboard as an arm a lover a battering ram a communal tuning fork a divining rod of the soul. And that clackclackclack roar straining the speedometer. Every king and queen in the '50s rock pantheon gave us great gifts, but Chuck had it all in one gleaming caddy.

Jerry Lee Lewis; Little Richard; James Brown

He wanted it fast and free.

From a large St. Louis family, he dreamt big and wide. His early gigs fused bluesy boogie with hillbilly gallup and bluegrass flux. When he walked into Chess Studios with a homemade demo, his cover of Western Swing king Bob Will's "Ida Red" startled them. He retorqued it as "Maybelline" and hit the tar a star. Most bought a suit, car, and house. Chuck bought real estate and blueprinted a theme park. He opened a nightclub mixing the musics and the audience to the city's ire.

As his breakneck classics redefined Rock and empowered him, he was suddenly hit with a suspect charge that undid him; he'd once given a ride across state lines to a club greeter later busted for prostitution. That thin association was used to put him in prison for two years. Meanwhile Elvis was drafted by his neighbors, Buddy and Eddie died, Richard went God, and Jerry Lee redefined 'young love' badly. Rock'n'Roll got pulled over to the shoulder.

Chuck came back out in the early '60s embittered. But his influence was suddenly all around again in the British Invasion. He spun a new bluestreak that reflected the Beatles reflecting him. He rocked the hippies at the Fillmores, and rolled into the 1970s on the '50s revival spurred by AMERICAN GRAFFITI and Glam and then Punk. He may never have matched that bracing blast-off, but migod what a fabulous ride he gave us!

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AROUND AND AROUND:
The Disciples of Chuck Berry

CHUCK BERRY: Disciples 1950s-Today
by Tym Stevens
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All songs in order from the 1950s to today.
24 hours and seven decades of music
influenced by Chuck Berry, including:
Buddy Holly • Carl Perkins • Gene Vincent
Fats Domino • Duane Eddy • Link Wray

The Beach Boys • Dick Dale • The Shirelles
The Beatles • The Crystals • Rolling Stones
The Kinks • Bob Dylan • The Small Faces
The Animals • The Sonics • The Yardbirds
The Monkees • Jimi Hendrix • Velvet Underground

Led Zeppelin • The Doors • The Stooges
MC5 • The Band • The Guess Who
David Bowie • T.Rex • Suzie Quatro • ELO
John Lennon • CCR • New York Dolls • ZZ Top
Aerosmith • Paul McCartney • Ramones
The Damned • Sex Pistols • The Runaways
Motorhead • Cheap Trick • Motorhead
Blondie • Patti Smith • Elvis Costello
Radio Birdman • The Police • The Undertones

Devo • Rockpile • Girlschool • Pretenders
Heart • Bruce Springsteen • The BusBoys
Peter Tosh • Hanoi Rocks • Joan Jett
Demented Are Go • Misfits • The Milkshakes

The Gories • Pussy Galore • L7
Latin Playboys • El Vez • The A-Bones
Reverend Horton Heat • The Bobbyteens

The Hives • The White Stripes • The Black Keys
The Kills • Los Lobos • CeeLo Green
Mos Def • Lez Zeppelin • The Go • Girls

King Salami • The Let Go's • Los Mambo Jambo
Gary Clark Jr • The Alabama Shakes • M. Ward
La Femme • Night Beats • Wasurete Motels
and many, many more!

The original power trio:
Ebby Hardy, Chuck Berry, Johnnie Johnson


Chuck Berry is the throughline of Rock'n'Roll.

Boogie was the secret spine of the Twentieth Century. It twined though Ragtime, Swing Jazz, Country Swing, acoustic and electric Blues, Honky Tonk and Hillbilly. It is the thread that sutured them all into Rock'n'Roll. That briskly walking bassline stairsteps through Bob Will's "Ida Red" until the guitar does that crucial lockstep kick that enflamed Chuck's heart. Then, the boogie woogie pound and ripple of his foil Johnny Johnson's piano routed his sound onto the road as they rode shotgun into the future.

Buddy Holly; Dick Dale; The Beatles; Bob Dylan

His '50s Rock> peers were immediately peeling rubber in pursuit. Buddy Holly> is singing Chuck's praise as much as his song, "Brown Eyed Handsome Man". And Carl Perkins, Ernest Tubb, Margaret Lewis, Wanda Jackson, and Los Teen Tops (Mexico) are churning asphalt into ash behind him.

Those are his treads blazing through The Beach Boys' and Dick Dale's early '60s Surf whorls and drag strips. Surf> and Hot Rod artists like The Ventures, The Surfer Girls, The Challengers, and The Rip Chords woodshopped their chops on Berry covers before cascading waves and scorching raceways. At this point the interaction becomes intwined; with "Surfin' U.S.A.", Brian Wilson> brought a harmony dimension to Chuck's riffs that will ripple through the tides to come ("Back In the U.S.S.R.", "Ca Plane Pour Moi")>.

The Beatles and their British Invasion> flank -such as Gerry And The Pacemakers, The Kinks, The Hollies, and The Searchers- existed because of Chuck, and they test-drove dozens of his songs. The royalties and exposure even brought Chuck back into the race again. Chuck's blues-base was the starting gate for purist bluesers like The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Pretty Things, and The Blues Project to expand the tracks. Jeff Beck of The Yardbirds paved his future path with his retread of "Guitar Boogie" as "Jeff's Boogie".

Bob Dylan hotwired the cadence of "Too Much Monkey Business", which Chuck picked up from little girls skipping rope, to getaway from his folk box with the pumping "Subterranean Homesick Blues". This signature beat will ricochet through the future. He was opening up lanes of exploration for other artists from the Folk and Country scenes across the coming years who paid homage to Chuck Berry, like Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell, The Flying Burrito Brothers, John Prine, Paul Simon, Emmylou Harris, Carole King, George Jones + Johnny Paycheck, Johnny Cash, and Neko Case.

The combo of Berry fire, Beatles style, and Dylan snarl led to mid '60s Garage Rock>, whose bands flushed the engines with fuzz. Cutting you off in the lane with a sneer were artists like The Shadows Of Knight, The Keymen, The Deviants, and The Golliwogs (who would travel on to become CCR). Blazing in late, the crazed and underrated Dean Carter kept '50s rock revved through his Garage stylings the entire 60's, such as covering "40 Days".

Chuck Berry had become the songbook for every budding band, the road map by which to escape. Artists from all over the world channeled his paths to find themselves, like Les Chaussettes Noires, Les Blousons Noirs, and Johnny Halliday from France; Willy And His Giants (Netherlands) and The Tages (Sweden); Los Apson (Mexico); Los Sirex, Los Pantalones Azules, Els Xocs, and Los Gatos Negros from Spain; Les Luths (Canada); Conjunto 'Night Stars' (Mozambique); and The Spiders and Takeshi Terauchi And The Bunnys from Japan.

The Rolling Stones; The Yardbirds; Jimi Hendrix; MC5

Late '60s Psychedelia> seemed like a different model, a plastic fantastic funnycar assembled by Coltrane and Kesey, but Chuck still fueled the silver machine. What was Jimi Hendrix> but the cosmic jetcar sparked by Chuck's airmobile? Just buckle tight and soar with the roar of his live staple, "Johnny B. Goode". Jefferson Airplane, Love Sculture, and The Chambers Brothers hyperdrove the torque into new planes.

In the hangover from Psyche, when The MC5 and The Stooges wanted a return to brute essence, it was Chuck who was the vehicle; the former's "Back In the USA" cover rolls like a stroll through better days. This blunt, stripped-down approach -along with tours of the counterculture ballrooms and festivals by 50's Rock mentors like Berry, Diddley, and Thornton- led from nostalgia to a spin-around '50s renaissance>.

T.Rex; Led Zeppelin; New York Dolls; The Runaways

Psychedelia was a hydra, with rough corrosive rock as one head and expansive dynamics as another.

In the early '70s these heads morphed into Glam and Progressive Rock: Prog was all spectacle, sonic wizardry, ambition, a showboat; but Glam was an ironic glitz, tighter, all three-minute pop in a boogie chassy. Both are trails forged in Rock by Chuck.

T-Rex put a Glam kit on his "Little Queenie" and even quote it at the end of their breakthrough "Bang a Gong (Get It On)". Suzi Quatro jacked a rhinestone chevy with "Glycerine Queen", playing chicken with Gary Glitter's "Do You Wanna Touch Me". (The Runaways and Joan Jett are the collision.) The New York Dolls, whose butch tranny take on Chuck had inspired Glam, rip it up in their dragster "Personality Crisis".

Led Zeppelin grounded themselves in the basics with "Communication Breakdown" and "Rock'n'Roll". As Hard Rock came roaring over the mountains like gods agley, every Blues-based band always broke out with Chuck Berry's lighting bolts on the solos. That's his spray of sparks lighting up the amps of Steppenwolf, Mountain, Cactus, Jo Jo Gunne, Foghat, ZZ Top, Rick Derringer, Mott The Hoople, Aerosmith, Steve Miller, The Runaways, Motorhead, Cheap Trick, Ram Jam, and Heart.

As the counterculture crested in the mid-'70s, the impulse to pull over and review the journey took over. Movies like AMERICAN GRAFITTI and THAT'LL BE THE DAY (with Ringo) and THE WANDERERS, top-rated TV shows like 'Happy Days' and 'Laverne and Shirley', Broadway musicals like "Grease", and boogie bands and cover songs stoked the flames fo the '50s Revival. The terse, raw, careening riffs were a revelation and a transport for new youth, speaking to their lives and fantasies in a direct way that didn't "sound just like a symphony" like Prog.

Drop the coin right into the slot!

Mick Jagger; John Lennon; Debbie Harry.

50s Rock had initially been rebel music>, but now recognition of it as a tradition took hold. A generation of the perverse versed on the psalmbook were angels with dirty faces like revivalists Showaddywaddy; high-mercury guitarist Chris Spedding; Rockabillies like Hank C. Burnette, Sleepy LaBeef, and Robert Gordon; and unreconstructed Bluesers like George Thorogood.

Soon a stripped-down mover called Pub Rock hit mid-'70s England, simply '50s Rock and R'n'B on new cylinders. Thumping 4/4 like four to the floor were unapologetic traditionalists like Dr. Feelgood, Ducks Deluxe, The 101ers (with Joe Strummer), and Kilburn And The High Roads (with Ian Drury).

If Eddie And The Hot Rods injected youth frustration into this mix with "Teenage Depression", then Punk flooded it magnificently. In early rehearsals, Johnny plunged the Sex Pistols off a cliff trying to be good, in their wipeout of "Johnny B. Goode". It mutates into songs like "No Future", The Damned's "New Rose", and The Clash's "I'm So Bored With The U.S.A.". Under its ragged veneer, Punk was high-octane Rock'n'Roll grinding the guardrails and shredding the shiny off. Scarring the tarmac were disparate ruffians like Neu!, The Dictators, The Stranglers, Generation X, DMZ, The Boys, Circle Jerks, The Undertones, and The Cramps.

That "Too Much Monkey Business" staccato rattles back in again in Ultravox's "Satday Night In the City", jumps in with Elvis Costello's "Pump It Up", and scats through The Police's "It's Alright For You". Meanwhile, Plastic Betrand (France) covered Elton Motello's "Jet Boy, Jet Girl" in his global hit "Ca Plane Pour Moi" with all of the "Johnny Be Good" intact, adding falsetto highs from The Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA".

Those retro reprobates, Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe, hotwired Chuck's torch; in solo songs like "Crawling From the Wreckage" and "Maureen", and with their band Rockpile's "Oh What a Thrill". Meanwhile, back in the USA, Bruce Springsteen prowled the byroads of the interior with "From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)". Punk was a raspberry to traditional Rock that was still actually rooted in it. Many recognized this blatant contradiction and refused to arbitrarily jettison proven doorways to possibility just to spite it. This led many artist to re-explore timeless '60s styles like Beat Music, Garage Rock, and hits of Psychedelia again, all of it still rooted in Chuck's riffs. Putting some hard jang in their jangle were Flamin' Groovies, The Nerves, Blondie, Modern Lovers, Beat'hoven, Badfinger, Nikki And The Corvettes, and The Beat (with Paul Collins).

By the late '70s, the spectre of Johnny B. Goode flies full-bore past the flagman in Punk, stadium rock, Power Pop, and New Wave; Cheap Trick cruising the night when the "Clock Strikes Ten", Ohio expatriate Chrissie Hynde chauffeuring the coupe to England with The Pretenders' "Watching the Clothes", Nikki and The Corvettes clamping the clutch with the "Criminal Element".

His influence still resonated around the world in tracks by Hungaria (Hungary), Rita Lee (Brazil), Polifemo (Argentina), Los Puntos and Mermelada (Spain), Torfrock (Germany), and Protex (Ireland).

Rhythm'n'Blues and Rock'n'Roll have always been the same music, but given different names specifically to separate people. By 1980, FM radio had programmed this segregation into mass minds simply by formatting: you could be played on Rock stations for sounding like Chuck Berry, but not for looking like him, and R'n'B stations played neither. It takes two dummies to complete a shared delusion. The BusBoys parodied this blinkered idiocy of dividing music and humans by skin and sound barriers with the acerbic "Johnny Soul'd Out".

The Cramps; The BusBoys; The Stray Cats; Gary Clark, Jr.

The essence of "Johnny B. Goode" -furious riff, rapidfire rap, strutting singer, and guitar god- defined essential Rock'n'Roll for the ages. More so than any singer or song ever. Ever.

It's the rev in the '80s Rockabilly> of Shakin' Stevens (Wales), The Polecats (England), Spider Murphy Gang (Germany), The Kingbees, and Stray Cats.

It spurrd the gallop of '80s Roots Rock for troubadours traveling the blue highways off the grid, likeThe Blasters, The Long Ryders, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Mason Ruffner, and Ry Cooder.

It's catalyzes Psychobilly reprobates like Guana Batz, Demented Are Go, Restless, Misfits (with Glenn Danzig), and The Reverand Horton Heat, and the Trashabilly claxons of Bodeco. It's the fuel under the engine roar of Noize of Japanese troublemakers like Teengenerate, Guitar Wolf, Mikabomb, The Jikens, The Let Go's, and Wasurete Motels.

It's the electricity coursing through the Garage Rock and NeoPsyche of The Fleshtones, Barrence Whitfield, The Milkshakes (with Billy Childish), and The A-Bones. And amplifying '90s succesors like The Nomads, The Kaisers, The Bobbyteens, and The Hellacopters. And galvanizing 2000s cousins like The Hives (Sweden), The White Stripes, The Black Keys, The Raveonettes (Netherlands), The Flaming Sideburns (Brazil), The Kills, Wau Y Los Arrrghs!!! (Spain), The Wildebeests, The Hi-Risers, Fabienne DelSol (France), and Gore Gore Girls.

And on Johnny B. Goode careened, in every chunky riff, arrogant swagger, and rushing roar that highways Boogie Rock to Trashabilly to AfroPunk, that throughlines cycles of disciples in cascades from Aerosmith to Guns'n'Roses, from George Jones to Heavy Trash, from The Twangies (IndoRock) to Peter Tosh, from Pussy Galore to The White Stripes, from Joan Jett to The Kills, from Robert Gordon to Guitar Wolf, from Steve Miller to Gary Clark, Jr..

Flipping donuts brings you full circle.

Paul McCartney had convertabled "Back In the U.S.S.R." once, and told John to slow "Come Together" down so it wouldn't sound sooo much like Chuck (dig the "flattop grooving" lines copped from his "You Can't Catch Me"). In recent years he re-swung through the swamplands with the full-on Chuck amok of "Run Devil Run". And Swedish Nic Armstrong And The Thieves brought it all roundtrip with his cover of "I Want To Be Your Driver", a Beatles freak doing Chuck Berry doing The Beatles doing Chuck Berry!

Around and around, forever fast and free...

Johnny B. Goode


© Tym Stevens

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See Also:

• Revolution 1950s: The Big Damn Bang of Rock'n'Roll!

• 1950s PUNK: Sex, Thugs, and Rock'n'Roll!

• BO DIDDLEY: The Rhythm King and His Disciples

• BUDDY HOLLY: Rock's Everyman and His Disciples

• LITTLE RICHARD: The Voice of Rock and His Disciples

• JIMMY REED: The Groover of Rock, From Motown To Sesame Street

_____________________

• Shock Waves: How SURF MUSIC Saved Rock'n'Roll!, with 2 Music Players!

• THE BRITISH INVASION!, with Music Player!

_____________________

• The Real History of Rock and Soul!: A Manifesto, A Handy Checklist

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