Track Listing

1. Bo Diddley
2. I'm A Man
3. You Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover
4. The Story Of Bo Diddley
5. Who Do You Love
6. Mona
7. I Can Tell
8. Road Runner
9. Pretty Thing
10. Say Man
11. Hey! Bo Diddley
12. Cops And Robbers
13. Before You Accuse Me
14. Cadillac
15. Diddley Daddy
16. You Don't Love Me
17. Bring It To Jerome
18. Pills
19. Dearest Darling
20. I'm Looking For A Woman

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4933 in Music
• Released on: 2000-09-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds
• Running time: 57 minutes

Customer Reviews

Fine compilation
Spectrum's "The Essential Bo Diddley" is really the only single-disc compilation which can compete with MCA/Chess' "His Best".
It includes virtually all of Diddley's must-have songs (with the exception of "Crackin' Up", unfortunately), but the Chess disc has better liner notes, and some of the new Chess masters have a few extra seconds (or more) appended to the fades, which gives it a slight edge over this otherwise excellent collection. But then, the Chess disc also costs a few pounds more, which these slight differences may not be able to justify.
4 1/2 stars.

A cheap introduction to Bo Diddley
This simply presented, budget-priced `Best Of' includes some of the most familiar tracks of rhythm and blues from the late Bo Diddley's back catalogue such as the infectious radio-friendly 45 `Bo Diddley', his exuberant`Mona (I Need You Baby)' and the inspired cover of Willie Dixon's `You Can't Judge A Book By the Cover'. It shows that he had a good ear for a killer guitar riff (`I'm A Man', 'Road Runner'); a keen sense of humour (`Say Man', `Pills') and had an aptitude for lyric writing - like that other pioneer of rock Chuck Berry he wrote most of his own material. Having listened repeatedly to this enjoyable collection - which is emboldened by the exhilarating `dum diddley um dum... dum dum' sound which pounds through the majority of its tracks - I could well understand why such highly-esteemed artists as Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones acknowledged Bo Diddley's influence upon their music.

In at the birth
As I write this review I read an email which said Bo Diddley had passed away after a long illness.
With only 2 Top 40 entries in the U K Diddley sold less than Chuck Berry but was just as influential.
He's probably a household name by now and certainly was at the time of the Stones and Yardbirds.And not forgetting the Pretty Things whose name came from a Bo song.
Essential though to Bo Diddley achieving any sort of fame were whites-that is even before the Stones there was Buddy Holly.
His music remained in the same turf-there was no attempts to launch himself as a soul singer.
The music's always going to be there