chapter6.md

"She didn't like the fact that he was becoming Bo Diddley," explains Tanya, of the deteriorating relationship between her father and mother. "She knew him as Ellas--that's who she'd married and she didn't want to know this other person, this Bo Didd-ley from the show biz scene! But, it was rock and roll that fed us!" she says flatly, the "us" being a reference to herself and her younger brother, Anthony.

"Tootsie wasn't a bad woman," says Bo, "she was a good woman. She made some mistakes. I think basically her friends was the cause of her and I really disappearin'. They used to tell her stuff like, ëYeah, do you think he's out there and he ain't got some women? Think about it: he's Bo Diddley and you can bet he's got women all over.' So all of a sudden she decided she was gonnna go out and start playin' around herself. But I still didn't come down on her for incidents of that sort. ëCos see, she was tired of a married life where she's at home and I'm gone. But my attitude was, ëIf you cain't deal with me doing all of this for you and me, then don't hold your hand out for what I come home with.' Y'understand me? This was something I couldn't separate."

"Finally I had enough of all this shit. Woman got crazy one day and tore up all my contracts and stuff with Chess Records, just to be nasty! So I moved out and went down to live in Washington, D.C. that was our jumping off point for going on the road. But she followed me to D.C., and broke into my safe and stole all of my receipts that showed I had been sendin' her money. And then she went back to Chicago and sued me for non-support! I had a hard time with that woman. It was about five years of fussin' and fightin' before she finally turned me loose."

The real reason Tootsie was so mad, however, may well have been what Bo jokingly calls "the fraternity suit." On March 13, 1958, a Support Order was issued in the Nassau (New York) County Court finding Bo "chargeable for the support of one child, born January 15, 1957," and directing him to pay the puny sum of $20.00 per week "for support of said child" and a hospital bill, "due Meadowbrook Hospital," of $75.00. Bo was cited as Respondent under a common misspelling of his name, Ellis McDaniels (not so bad as a recent scholarly study of the Beatles that attributed one of his songs to Gene MacDaniels). The Petitioner was a young woman whose first name was Lilibeth. She had come to Bo's dressing room at a performance in New York and, according to Bo, spent perhaps no more that fifteen minutes in his company. Though judicially determined to be the father of Lilibeth's child, Bo had never admitted paternity (although he has in one other case) and objects to the fact that a man was entirely unable to prove his innocence under the rules of evidence and the testing procedures available at the time.

"I done a few devilish things--mischievous bullshit I call it--but I've been accused of a lot of things I've never done. I was a victim of being in the wrong place at the right time, two times."

"One time in New York I met this big, healthy girl and I was supposed to have had a son by her, name of Danny. The first thing ever I knew about it was when about twelve months later the Sheriff came looking for me with a Warrant! ëWhat you want me for?' I said, ëI ain't done nothing to nobody." He says, ëFraternity suit.' I said, ëWhat?' I never even knew what the damn word meant! I thought it had something to do with school, or college, y'understand! Then someone explained that the word was ëpaternity'! And Jerome started kiddin' me, ëYeah, seems like you got a baby around here somewhere.' I said ëMan, I ain't got no kids!' ëYeah? Well that man seem to think so.' And when I told my manager, Phil Lamware, he started laughing too."

"So off I go. They locked my tail up over there, and it cost me $1,500 to get out. They wanted cash money because they knew I travelled all the time."

"Get to court, and the judge started running off questioning me; then asking her questions and stuff. ëHow old are you, miss?' And she said, ëFifteen.' And I like to went through the damn floor! This . . . big . . . chick . . . is . . . 15 years old? And the judge said to me, "Were you ever alone with her?' And I said, ëSure,' and that's the thing that hung me! The judge said, ëThe blood test doesn't prove that you're the father, but we don't take care of other people's children in this county.' I said, ëUuuh!' and so I ended up taking care of him for eighteen years."

By all accounts, Lilibeth appears to have been a highly determined woman. Over the years she obtained numerous substantial increases in the support order. Once she signed her name (whether deliberately or unwittingly is unknown) to a court document that misrepresented to her advantage the child's date of birth by one year. In referring to Bo's attempt to correct this error, she wrote the Family Court officer that she did "not plan to tolerate untrue statements from [McDaniel's manager] or his attorney. . . nor their unfair tactics." Owing to the sale of Shaw Artists, his booking agency, and the eventual sale of the Chess Record company, there was a spell when Bo's automatic deductions from salary for payment of the support order were overlooked. But Lilibeth pursued them diligently. She was successful in bringing about contempt proceedings and in securing a warrant for Bo's arrest, though both were quashed when the oversight was recognized and arrears paid in full. In 1976, after many legal maneuvers (during one of which her marginally-literate lawyer wished "bo Didley [sic] good luck on his come back'), she eventually received a considerable award for the total "arrearage."

Though Bo's legal obligations in this respect were completed, he still has strong feelings about the episode. "I did not, and still to this day say it, I did not have an intimate relationship with that young lady, y'understand. I went through this whole scene because I was married and scared to death what it might do to my marriage and my career."

"But you see, everything's stacked against the man. She says, ëHe did.' I says, ëI didn't.' But that don't mean shit to the State. Then what in the hell was she doing hangin' around my room at age 14 when she was supposed to have gotten pregnant, hangin' around a dude my age? And her parents didn't seem to be disturbed at all that their kid was all the way over in New York City at night hangin' around a downtown theatre when she lived 27 miles away in Manhasset. And I said to myself, ëWhat's going on here?' All they gotta do is watch the trade papers, see whose riding up the ladder and making some money. I truly believe if it hadn't been me, it would have been somebody else."

If the case of Lilibeth versus McDaniel was a "put-up" case as Bo calls it, that of Manuel versus McDaniel was more straightforward, though not without occasional snafus. Joan Manuel was the mother of a child whose paternity Bo did not contest, and who had won an order against him for child support from the Family Court of the City of New York. For the same reasons as in the Lilibeth case, Bo fell considerably behind in his support payments, only this time the Petitioner was less forgiving and the arrest warrant was for real. Letters to Bo's manager from Ms. Manuel's New York lawyer, Richard W. O'Brien, displayed an enterprising edge. In one he wrote to Bo's manager, "It appears that Bo Diddley is taking different jobs in Canada, but please do not be misled into believing that he cannot be taken before the law in that country," adding "it would certainly be better for his career to make some kind of arrangement before spending his money." Softening his tone, O'Brien concluded with nice insight, "I am sure in his own good conscience he will play much better, not knowing the law may come into his place of employment to arrest him."

When Bo eventually "tidied up" these problems, the arrest warrants were vacated, and he was able to carry in his wallet a statement to that effect from the Courts. It began with the unlikely yet comforting words, "TO ANY POLICE OFFICER: DO NOT ARREST BO DIDDLEY," and was signed simply, John Shine, Warrant Officer.

Bo's home life with Tootsie was becoming a constant clash of wills, and any semblance of a wholesome relationship was fast disappearing by the time he reached his fifth year as a rock and roll star. One concerned observer of Toot's and Bo's relationship was their son, Anthony, Tanya's brother. A lean, soft-spoken man in his early forties, Anthony McDaniel is today a supplier in the landscape business. His recollections of his parents' marriage are interspersed with his more vivid memories of his own relationship with his father, a father who was inevitably absent much of the time.

"It wasn't a normal relationship between us," says Anthony. "He was the man who came to the house with a station wagon full of food. That's my initial recollection of him. Rock ën' roll wasn't a part-time thing with him, it was his life. When I got into the stages of wanting to play baseball and football, he couldn't be there. Or other times, I couldn't just look up and say, ëHey Dad, I've got a problem with this here,' because he was off in Canada, or off somewhere else. At certain times he should have been with me. Now I'm 40 years old I can sit down and understand it, but as a kid coming up I couldn't understand that sort of thing."

"So everything I learned about how to survive came from me, myself. I hit the streets at sixteen. What I was exposed to at an early life--money, prestige, doors opened to me that would not be opened to other sixteen-year-old kids--they came from being Bo Diddley's son. So I grew up fast and I ended up leavin' him and goin' back to my Mom, and then slowly breakin' away from her."

"But I'm closer to him now; I understand things now. So I enjoy him when I see him, and get the best of whatever we can have at that time. When he goes away I hug him, and say, ëI'll see you later,' because we don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. He'll be gone for a month, and that might be the last time I'll see my Dad, you know. That's the only argument I have with the business, and basically that's why me and my sister aren't professional singers ourselves, and we can sing---you should catch us in church sometimes!"

"I sincerely believe that my father was destined to play rock and roll, despite my mother's opposition. I've watched him write three or four songs in a night. Right now he's got four potential hit songs he's just sitting on. He could go into the mega-millions if he wanted to. He wrote a song about Saddam Hussein; it's so great it would set the Persian Gulf on fire. He saw Hussein on TV up to his tricks, and just sat down at that mahogany table and wrote a song about it. But if he had a giant hit, he wouldn't have to travel any more--that's what he's afraid of."

"Everyone's got nicknames for him, and I call him the Pied Piper. He's an original Pied Piper out of the story book who played his pipe and the rodents came out of the city, and freed it for the children. I was maybe six years old when I first went to a concert with him. There was thousands of people--screamin' for our Dad? It didn't seem possible. When I see him crank up on stage, I see people flock to something that truly baffles me. It's just a feeling that comes when I hear that music and that guitar cranks up. He's classed as being a guitarist who hits more notes on his guitar than any other man in the world. He can make some notes come out of that 5 speed guitar, and those musical vibrations tend to make the inner man do strange things. There's a life in it. He's holding on to the life of it, all those mystical notes. It's like an advanced music. But he's also got that old-time, joyous, showmanship music, something you could honestly go out and enjoy and marvel at and say, ëMy goodness,' ëcos it's a real show."

The move to Washington in 1959 to escape his travails with Toots meant a fresh start for Bo, though he did not detach himself from Chicago entirely. In fact, he maintained two households at that time: one, a house at 2600 Rhode Island Avenue in D.C. where he set up a private recording studio, one of the few in the city; the other, an impressive 15-room townhouse at 7637 Champlain Avenue in Chicago.

In D.C. Bo pursued life with his customary energy. Recording work was a primary focus, especially the promotion of local, younger talent, something that had always been a strong interest for him. He saw encouragement of the younger musicians as a natural adjunct of the work of the artist, and when he finally completed work on the basement studio at his house in D.C., that desire was to be given tangible outlet.

Among the first of his protegÈs was a Washington native by the name of Billy Stewart, an up-and-coming singer and pianist. Bo and Billy had met well before they started work in D.C., however. When Stewart, who was ten years' Bo's junior, was auditioning for Chess in 1956, Len Chess had persuaded Bo and his band to do the backup. Bo, Jody, and Jerome accompanied Stewart and bassist Willie Dixon on a two-sided instrumental disc called "Billy's Blues." Although that particular number by Billy Stewart failed to go anywhere on the charts, under Bo's direction Billy did go on to record many well-loved numbers--minor hits you might call them--and as a solo artist he eventually developed a large following in the U.S. and Britain.

Though Billy Stewart had trained as a pianist, it was his vocal talents that would bear the greatest fruit, particularly his ballads such as "Billy's Heartache," "Reap What You Sow" (both on the Okeh label), and "Sitting in the Park," the number that essentially made his name and that he had recorded in Bo's D.C. studio before forwarding the tape to Chess for later release. Billy's special skill was a gimmick called "word doubling" that endowed his delivery with a stuttering, breathless quality. He reached his zenith in 1966 with a unique treatment of the classic "Summertime"; the vocal gimmickry was still in evidence, this time set against masterly sax soloing. In January 1970, however, Billy Stewart's promising career ended tragically when he and three members of his band died in North Carolina after their car plunged from a bridge into the darkened waters of the Neuse River. Chess Records subsequently published three posthumous collections of Stewart songs, many of them resulting directly from his artistic collaboration with Bo Diddley.

Oddly enough, the song that began their association, "Billy's Blues," led both Bo and Billy to the courtroom. The number was essentially a jam session, a preliminary tryout for Billy and not yet a fully realized composition. It was not untypical of the Chess brothers, in fact, to set up such sessions and then to release them later as finished products without informing the artists involved.

As it happened, Bo was planning to work part of the guitar lead he had played that day into another number then simmering in his mind, a ballad to be called "Love Is Strange." Before recording a particular tune, however, Bo would occasionally include it in his stage act in order to test audience reaction. This was the proven method by which he had developed all of his early favorites, and "Love Is Strange"--a slow, ironic "talker" of escalating intensity--was no exception. When Bo tried it out, audiences liked what they heard. And so too did Mickey and Sylvia.

Mickey and Sylvia were an attractive and talented R & B duo; Mickey Baker was an outstanding guitarist and Sylvia Vanderpool, a fine vocalist in the groove style. For a while they were in considerable demand and often appeared on the same bill as Bo. With their fine musical sense, it was no problem for them to memorize the song and take it to their record company, RCA, who proceeded to tape, market, and parley it into a smash hit.

"Funny about that song," says Bo. "ëCos it's turning out to be the biggest number I ever wrote--it was a hit for Mickey and Sylvia, and then Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton took it to Number One on the country charts a few years back--but would you believe it, Chess didn't want me to record it!"

"I told you about Jody Williams, how we were youngsters in Chicago, how our styles developed together, and how in a sense I taught him to play like me. Well, one day I came up with this thing, ëLove Is Strange.' We were in Baltimore in the hotel room. I'm singing the song, the line that goes, ëLots of people take it for a game,' and Jody comes up with a little break after that. I said, ëHey, that'll fit the song! Do that again; we'll do that on stage.' So we're in the dressing room at the Royal Theatre in Baltimore gettin' ready to go on, and Sylvia walked past as I was singing it through, putting the finishing touches on it. And Sylvia says, ëI like that!' And I said, ëYou do?' She says, ëYeah, whose song is that?' I said, ëMine.' She said, ëYou gonna do that number? Let me have it if you don't.'"

"So I went back to Chess Records, started singing the song, and we're just about ready to record, and Phil Chess says, ëWho do you think you are, Perry Como? That ain't your style, forget about it!'"

"Now that really hurt my feelings. So I jumped up and called Sylvia and said, ëYou said you wanted to do that song?' And she said, ëYeah.' I let her and Mickey hear it and they put it in their act. But Len and them got pissed off because after I wrote the song I registered it in Tootsie's maiden name, Ethel Smith. And they got as mad as a son of a gun ëcos that meant they didn't get a share! They liked to get things all for themselves. But I put it in her name because I didn't know what the heck I'd signed with Chess back in ë55, whether I was allowed to write songs in my name or whatever else.'"

"So that was the name I used at BMI, Ethel Smith. But then a few years later when I got into a hard spot, I sold Mickey and Sylvia a share in ëLove Is Strange" for two thousand dollars, and that's how come nowadays you see the song attributed to Vanderpool/McDaniel/Baker!"

However, the strange story of "Love Is Strange" didn't end there. It's noteworthy that Mickey and Sylvia would also go on to record another of Bo's songs entitled "Dearest" and that both it and "Love Is Strange" would appear among the posthumous works of Buddy Holly. Whether Holly knew these numbers to be Diddley compositions or thought them to be the brainchild of Mickey and Sylvia is unclear, but it's obvious that Buddy Holly was one artist who responded passionately to both sides of Bo's talent, the infectious power of his heavy rockers and the subtle, black beauty of his ballads.

After a while, "Love Is Strange" went the way of all vinyl, into temporary obscurity, but its day was in fact not wholly done, for in 1989 it reappeared in a rendition by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, whose subtle on-mike chemistry was a perfect match for the song's coyly sexual question-and-response, so much so that both the single and the album of the same name went to the top of the country charts.

For Kenny Rogers, however, this was not the first involvement with Bo Diddley material. As he explained to an audience at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta in 1988, he was only twelve years old when he first heard the wild strains of "Bo Diddley." That night, he said, he dreamed that one day he would be wearing a purple smoking jacket and standing in that very theatre singing Bo's signature tune to a rapturous audience. Viewers of Kenny Rogers' "Special for Public Television" know that Kenny's dream came true on the evening of December 18, 1988, though, in truth, it has to be said that the audience, likely there for Country matters alone and not for R & B, were not as enthusiastic as they might have been about Rogers' megatonic melding of Diddley hits.

So Billy Stewart, Jody Williams, Mickey Baker, Sylvia Vanderpool, Ethel Smith, Kenny Rogers, and Dolly Parton, together of course with Bo himself, were all in some way touched by the strange and extraordinary song of his called "Love Is Strange."

Needless to say, back in the late fifties, Billy Stewart's Diddley-directed success did not go unnoticed by other musicians in the District. Among them was a youthful singing foursome called the Marquees, whose line-up consisted of three recent high school graduates--Reese Palmer, Chester Simmons, and then lead singer James Nolan--and one slightly more life-worn member who had recently survived a stressful spell in the U.S. Air Force and who was endowed with an exquisite baritone voice. This fourth singer's name was Marvin Gaye, future soul superstar and idolized performer of such glorious numbers as "Ain't That Peculiar," "Heard It Through the Grapevine," and of course, "Sexual Healing," his artistic nadir.

According to David Ritz, Marvin Gaye's friend, biographer, and, incidentally, the co-author of "Sexual Healing," the relationship Marvin formed with Bo Diddley would "critically alter" Marvin's musical being. "Diddley was one of the great root sources of American music," writes Ritz in Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye. "His brilliant rock and roll primitivism--the sensual shout, the blistering beat--strengthened Marvin's ties to the country church and blues tradition."

As for the Marquees, the group of which Marvin Gaye was a member, Reese Palmer told Ritz, "Nothing really happened until we met Bo Diddley. . . . Bo was just the man we needed." Or almost. Already becoming wary of Chess business practices, Bo took Reese, Marvin Gaye, and the rest of the group to New York City and the studios of Okeh Records where he provided the services of his band, with Billy Stewart on piano, in a production of the group's first numbers, "Wyatt Earp" and "Hey, Little School Girl." Curiously, the people at Okeh weren't all that impressed by this illustrious line-up and eventually chose to record the Marquees with different session players. The single that resulted from this ill-judged decision was a dismal failure, and the group returned to Washington disheartened and ready to break up. Nevertheless, the original experience of working with Bo Diddley had already left an indelible impression on future superstar, Marvin Gaye. He told David Ritz, "I loved Bo. Meeting him was a very important moment in my life. Bo was a rhythmic genius. Like James Brown, he was a certified witch doctor. He was also able to write out of his own experiences. His songs said exactly what he was thinking. I admired that, and I admired his manliness. Bo had a kind of swampfire fever. He was a tower, and we were grateful to God that he decided to live in the District for a hot minute."

As David Ritz seems to suggest, although Marvin's musical psyche identified strongly with the Diddley style, Bo was perhaps too idiosyncratic a figure, too potently masculine, to be able to tap the multiple layers of sexual and sensual expressiveness in Marvin Gaye's evolving talent. But Bo was able to connect him with one who could expose these gifts, namely Harvey Fuqua, the founder of the Moonglows, Chess's most successful singing group (who also sang background on many Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry hits from 1956 to 1960), and the originator of the vocal technique known as "blow harmony." With Fuqua's aid and encouragement, it was not long before Marvin Gaye was to break out from the group scene altogether to engage the attention of Detroit's Berry Gordy and to emerge as one of the most successful of all of Gordy's many Motown sensations of the sixties and seventies.

Yet another "discovery" evolved from Bo's Washington studio. His fourth album, In the Spotlight, was primarily recorded there and was released in the early summer of 1960. Collectors and Diddley devotees will gladly tell you that this album introduced the rock and roll world to two of Bo's greatest compositions: "Roadrunner," with its trademark zoom-guitar, and a droll, acoustically rendered number called "My Story," also known as "The Story of Bo Diddley."

But great as these numbers were, it was what--or rather who--the album failed to introduce that was almost equally remarkable. Though no mention has ever been made of the fact either then or since, Bo was accompanied on well over half of the numbers on Spotlight by a young guitarist named Peggy Jones. Today her name is Peggy Malone (she is married to tri-athlete and rock bassist, Wally Malone), though she is certainly more familiar to many under her professional name of Lady Bo. It is particularly strange that Lady Bo's name and talents were never identified or promoted by Chess executives when they had the opportunity to do so, for Lady Bo has the most serious claim of anyone to be known by the title of the world's first female rock guitarist.

Bo and Peggy met in 1958 in New York, Peggy's birthplace. Bo was back at the Apollo by popular demand. With his new red-hot zoot suit and matching rectangle guitar (see photo section), his flashy theatrics were again knocking ëem dead. Though he knew it was him the audience had particularly come to see, Bo recognized that he was part of a group effort, the focal figure for an entire band. For some while he had been nursing the idea of expanding the group's appeal by bringing in a female musician, adding "a little flower to the stage," as he puts it. "It was nothing but ëgang' groups, as we called ëem in those days, or all-girl groups, or occasionally you might see a mixed duo like Mickey and Sylvia, but I always felt somethin' was missing in my group by our not having a girl." But how to find someone who could make a genuine contribution to a high energy act like his, and not just strum along in the fashion to which women guitarists of the day were invariably consigned?

It was a tough proposition, and that's why Bo really took notice that day he stepped out of Apollo Alley between shows and saw a svelte young woman of about 16 crossing the road and carrying a guitar case in her hand. She certainly looked a promising candidate, but he could hardly know the whole truth of it, that Peggy Jones, the young lady who had so caught his attention, had been born with the heart of a true thespian; that she had entered the entertainment arena as a six-year-old dancer on the Spotlight on Harlem TV show; that she had had operatic training; that she wrote her own songs and accompanied herself on the ukulele; that she had gone to the same junior high as Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers and had auditioned as Frankie's replacement when that gentle kid got into trouble; that she had won a scholarship to the High School of the Performing Arts which Carol King and Al Pacino were attending; that she had already recorded with the Bopchords, a vocal group, on the Holiday label; and that for two years she had provided vocal instruction to her classmate La La Brooks who was later to sing the lead on the Crystals' classic "Da Doo Ron Ron."

As she explained in a conversation with the late Lori Twersky, the feminist rock historian and publisher of Bitch magazine, Peggy had only recently begun to play the guitar when she met Bo, but she had definite ideas about what she wanted to achieve with it. "I felt really silly using a ukulele to demo tunes," she said. "Let me get something that looks right. . . . I feel guitar will be the right thing. . . ëI had been listening to a lot of guitar players, and I was aware of Wes Montgomery, Django Reinhart, even other instruments playing lead things--horn lines. . . ëLike nowadays you might hear Charlie Parker out of me, and sometimes you might hear Charlie Bird out of me. . . . Or maybe I use it as percussion."

"But then I became aware of this chord-thing that Bo Diddley was doing, that was so different from the Rock ën' Roll thing that Chuck Berry was doing. Wow! And lyrically, to me, the two geniuses are Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry. As far as lyrics. They can probably get up in the morning and write ten tunes in a day. Lyrically, they just flow. I became aware of Bo's style. That's probably what attracted me to go and hear him in the first place."

The "interview" procedure that day was quite simple and to the point. As Peggy explained: "I was going down 125th Street when Bo Diddley was playing at the Apollo Theatre. I was on my way to a session, carrying my guitar, but I had a couple of hours to kill, so I said, ëLet me go in and see the show, and check this guy out.' But I ran into him outside the theatre. It was really funny. He had a head-rag on, sunglasses, and he had his abruptness. ëHey! Do you play that?' I didn't know who he was! He's standing on the corner; I thought he was just some jive cat checking out the action."

"So we struck up a light conversation. He says, ëWell, I'm Bo Diddley.' I say, ëYeah, so are a lot of other people who say they're Bo Diddley.' So I went in and caught the show. Then I was convinced, after seeing the show, that wow, this guy was on the level! . . . So I went backstage. He'd left my name at the door. He's up in the dressing room. Brought my guitar. Start twiddling around with it, you know. So that was the start of the friendship."

Friendship is the operative word here, for despite her name of Lady Bo, the spontaneous gift of fans at a glorious re-union concert with Bo at the Fillmore West in 1972, Peggy has never been married to Bo as some believe, nor so much as been his girlfriend. "We're just business, just good friends" she has said. "If anything, I was more like a daughter to him."

"Peggy's the only one who knows the original ways," says Bo proudly. "See, I taught my musicians, what I wanted done on the stage, and then I'd say, ëOkay, now you know what the concept is, let's do it. Always come back to the melodic line. You can do a whole load of things, but stay in the meter!' I learnt that from Professor Frederick. So whenever I was in New York I used to give Peggy a call. See how she was doin' with the guitar playing. And she was a fast learner, man, with her background and all. And if she could make it to the gig, then I'd call her in to jam."

Soon Peggy was working with Bo on a fairly regular basis whenever his schedule brought him to the Northeast. "The jamming with him, the playing, really rubbed off," she says. "He would play a chord, or play a rhythm, and then he'd look at me and say, ëCan you do that?' And I would do what I thought he did, and the sound was pretty much identical. I played standard guitar when I met Bo, and the thing that he really opened my ears to was open tuning. . . . What I did was take the two styles, the two different types of tuning and see how far I could go. You can duplicate everything in standard tuning on open tuning, but the voicing of the notes gives it a fuller, fatter sound."

Though Peggy was serious about her intention to excel with the guitar, she has admitted that she ran into quite a lot of opposition. "There were very, very few [female] players [of guitar] in those days. I just wanted to do something: make a whole new ballgame with it. Because in the 50s, like today, they also tended to stereotype you to do a certain thing. Number one, a girl player was not heard of. I heard a lot of criticisms that it was a ëmale instrument.' I went through changes of ëYou should be home washing dishes, instead of playing a guitar,' and ëIt doesn't look right on you.' But I just wanted to conquer all those obstacles, and I said to myself, ëYou can do this, and one day it will be accepted.'"

There was no opposition from Bo, of course, who did everything he could to encourage her. "He showed me every little trick he ever learned," declared Peggy. "He gave me exercises to strengthen my hands, he checked my callouses, he'd give me little quizzes!" Late in 1959 when he was again in New York, Bo urged Peggy to join him and the band in a recording session at the Okeh studios. Peggy played second lead on all of the four numbers recorded in that session. These were by no means her first recordings, but they did signal the beginning of her considerable contribution to the Bo Diddley discography, a contribution that would extend over ten of his albums in all and cover no less that thirty years. (Those familiar with Lady Bo's style will also detect her presence on at least three tracks on MCA's 1991 album of previously unreleased early Diddley material entitled Rare and Well Done).

Of the numbers recorded at the 1959 New York session, probably the most interesting was the delightful "Cadillac," which would not appear until the release of the Gunslinger album the following year. "Cadillac" is a stirring, satirical rocker (stirring enough to have prompted the Kinks to record their own breezy but paler version in 1964). Peggy's tight, well-schooled picking and youthful voice appear almost delicate when heard in contrast to Bo's churning street-rhythm and booming vocals, though ultimately both she and Bo are almost swept away by the inspired, scorching tenor sax of Gene Barge. On the purely instrumental "Diddling" it's almost the same story, with Peggy's chirpy, assertive groove leading the way, then blending into the tune's overall texture as Bo takes over. But this time Bo is out to show the upstart saxophonist Gene Barge a thing or two, as in the number's second half he proceeds to shoulder him off the vinyl with a lightning-storm of neck-to-bridge pyrotechnics. The end result is that "Diddling" is one of Bo's masterpieces, a fleeting two minutes and ten seconds of sonic theatre, in a class totally by itself.

Bo was so impressed with Peggy's performance on these New York tracks that he insisted she join him in Washington to help him complete In the Spotlight, his album then in preparation. "I used to commute from New York to Washington for sessions," said Peggy. "But before we got involved with that album, Bo took me to the Gretsch Company in New York, and had me trade in my little Supro for a Gretsch Corvette. It was a lot better than my Supro, I will admit! And it gave me pretty much the same sound as he had. That was the purpose."

This simple step, the merging of guitar sounds to achieve maximum consonance, was a highly effective recording strategy, but for Peggy it led to unforeseen problems and may well have been the reason why her work was not initially recognized by Len and Phil Chess. "If anybody has tried to sound like Bo Diddley it's me, and I have been the one who most sounded like him, ëcause I even fooled the company! . . . I have been his understudy, I know every move he makes musically; we meshed as one instrument. I am an extension, in a sense, of Bo's music, and of his talent."

Consequently, for the unpracticed ear it's sometimes difficult, if not impossible, to separate Bo's licks from Peggy's and vice-versa, and given the many tracks that she cut with Bo over the four-year period 1959-62, there were bound to be mistakes in attribution. Add to this the general failure in the industry at that time to recognize that the names of session musicians were of importance, and you have the potential for confusion. For example, the number entitled "Aztec," which appears on the Bo Diddley is a Lover album, is attributed to Bo but was in fact entirely Peggy-written and Peggy-performed. "Bo gave me a two-necked Danro Electric that he said was too big for him! And he's a heavy dude! I'm going, ëWhat do you want me to do with this?' And he says, ëPlay it! Play it!' So I did a double track with that guitar: I laid down a rhythm part, and I laid down a lead. I called the song ëAztec' and it was released as one of his, but it's not." If anything, this funky, Western-tinged instrumental (Peggy has said it was an "answer" to Bo's two instrumentals, "Spanish Guitar" and "Mumblin' Guitar") proves just how brilliantly and exactly she could mimic Bo's playing, right the way down to his gutteral chord swipes and playful, "talking" guitar.

As it happens, Chess record-keeping in these matters was certainly better than the industry average, especially since they were working at a distance, with Bo recording his songs at home in Washington and then sending them up to Chicago for final disposition. Nevertheless, the name of Peggy Jones does not seem to have caught the attention of either Len or Phil Chess. This represents a special loss to any adequate assessment of the development of rock and roll music, and also to the story of the Chess Record Company. Given Peggy's considerable achievements, future rock historians will need to adopt a revisionary view. Surely an additional entry is required in the Almighty Reference Book of Rock, to wit: "PEGGY JONES MALONE, a.k.a. LADY BO, first lady guitar player of consequence in rock ën' roll."

Though Peggy has promised to write her autobiography one day, until that time arrives her putative biographical sketch might contain these further facts-on-file: "Prominent in early Sixties New York scene. As driving force behind The Jewels recorded with MGM. In 1961, ëI'm Forever Blowing Bubbles'/ëWe've Got Togetherness' started ëmaking some noise.' In 1962 forced to disengage temporarily from Bo Diddley combo to attend to own career, and to protect herself from reign of terror instituted by abusive first husband, envious second guitarist in The Jewels (ëI was hunted down like an animal on the streets of New York'). Assumed care of her younger sisters, and one of the ex-husband's abandoned offspring; was attacked by his three (pregnant) girlfriends; obtained ëpermit to carry,' gutsy move that stopped ëthe idiot' dead in his tracks. Frequently filled in for Jimi Hendrix in Curtis Knight band. ëAlmost' became a member of Vanilla Fudge. Has sometimes been erroneously billed as Bo Diddley's ëold lady' or, once, as his sexy ëaccomplice.' In 1967 met and married Wally Malone, with whom she now forms two-thirds of the trio, Lady Bo and the Family Jewel. Toured extensively with American Soul Train. Played on the Animals' Warm San Francisco Nights album. Most recently seen on A & E's Diamond Showcase with Bo Diddley and husband Wally. Highly dedicated, widely experienced musicians' musician, resident in San Jose, California. Quote: ëThe only thing I haven't done, is like, symphony.'"

By the time Peggy Jones joined Bo Diddley's original group in Washington D.C. to work on In the Spotlight (Checker 2976; reissued by MCA, 1987, as Chess 9264) Bo had already committed to vinyl the two extraordinary songs that open the album: "Roadrunner" and "My Story." These were first released as a single, Checker 942, in September 1959 and in terms of artistic quality represented the best two-sided effort Bo had offered since his "Bo Diddley"/"I'm a Man" combination of some four and one-half years earlier.

If he had written no other songs whatsoever, "Roadrunner" alone would be sufficient for Bo Diddley to have left a permanent stamp on rock and roll. The tune's distinctive "zoom" effect, which is achieved by a rapid transfer of the sliding finger from string to string at the point of harmonic intersection, forms a central part of Bo's legacy to the genre. Indeed, many modern guitarists find it almost impossible to proceed more than a bar or so without inserting a Bo Diddley zoom in their product somewhere. Also testifying to the song's influence is the fact that countless earlier rockers, including Johnny Winter, Brownsville Station, and the Who, have recorded cover versions (and where other than to the influence of Bo's "Roadrunner" can we credit the magnificent, Cro-Magnon ecstasy of Pete Townshend's solo in "Shaking All Over"?) "Roadrunner" even appeared throughout 1962 on the playlist of the Beatles, staunch admirers of Bo, but certainly of all the top English groups the least influenced by him.

"I'll tell you how that started," says Bo, referring to the power-zoom. "At school I used to sit up and make sounds like a car speeding off, or two cars racing one another, say. I used to sit up in the classroom doing this, and it was a long time before the teacher caught me. I'd sit way in the back of the room, and she'd raise up a little bit when she heard this weird noise! I liked to do it, ëcos see, the classroom was like an echo chamber, hee! So I took that to the guitar, then wrote a song around it."

As any birdwatcher from the Southwest will tell you, the roadrunner--"superbird of the chapparal," as George O. Miller aptly calls him--would rather run than fly. With its characteristic profile of head set low and tail paralleling the ground, the roadrunner races through the brush with intense bursts of speed. Whether he drew his inspiration from the real thing or from the cartoon rendition where the shrewd bird invariably outwits the inept Wily E. Coyote Bo cannot recall, but in any event his musical depiction is brilliantly comical and evocative. From the slightly growling, drawn-out call of the intro, he maintains a tongue-in-cheek tone throughout, interspersing his narrative with a frequent "Beep, beep," the roadrunner's call-sign. His "honey" thinks she's fast, but he challenges her to a race, takes an early lead, and in true roadrunnin' fashion puts "some dirt in [her] eye." Finally, having totally outpaced the girl, he sets her loose, and bids a succinct goodbye: "I'll see you some-day,/ Baby, some-where hangin' around."

That the song is focused more on the sound effects than on the boy-defeats-girl story is evident from the version recorded live at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in 1963. At this phenomenal show, Bo, always the superhuman guitar cruncher, demonstrates for the audience how to catch a live roadrunner. Though this is virtually an impossible task, he does at least manage to get "one of his tail feathers." To hear this performance is to realize that "Roadrunner" is the product of an immense and comic imagination, a Hollywood cartoon rendered in rock and roll music and dazzling dance. More than any other of his songs, "Roadrunner" is proof that Bo Diddley is a great regenerative artist who, without artifice or pretense, renews our contact with the joyful, comedic aspects of life.

"My Story," by contrast, is the Diddley equivalent of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode": an extremely jovial, highly apocryphal, account of Bo's birth ("I come into this world playin' a gold guitar"), his discovery "early in the middle of the night" (a time only Bo would know precisely) by a Cadillac-driving, cigar-chomping talent scout, and his eventual elevation to star status in the big city where he plays his first gig--correction, "engagement"-- before some people "[he] ain't never seen before." The punchy, country-acoustic guitar (unusual for Bo), the singer's carefully cadenced laughter, and his bubbling self-congratulation help make this another Diddley classic. An uncannily similar song called "The All-American Boy" came out not long after Bo's "My Story." It received extensive air play on white music stations, and became a solid hit. Bo was by now accustomed to these kinds of outrages, though he never for a minute accepted them. When a few years later the Animals did a cover of the song with their own fictional inserts, even such a fine, well-meant testimonial to Bo's life and character proved exasperating to him. "That's nothing but bullshit," he responded.

Though "Roadrunner" and "My Story" stand apart, the Spotlight album is noteworthy throughout: "Signifying Blues" has Bo and Jerome doing the Dozens again (says Bo to Jerome, "Looks like your process took a recess!"). "Travelin' West" features enlarged vibrato figures and the superb piano skills of Lafeyette Leake. "Walkin' and Talkin'," a spoof of TV's portrayal of the West, won a nomination for the Best Rhythm and Blues Performance for 1960 from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the forerunner of today's Grammies. "Limber," a rock calypso, almost certainly features Marvin Gaye (catch the final notes of the fade out). "Let Me In" is, presumably, another Bo-Toots duel, this time complicated by the presence of Bo's friends and the suggested presence of Toot's boyfriend. "Deed I Do," a real kicker, presents fine vocalising by Peggy Jones as she soars above her male counterparts. The lively "Craw-Dad" gave its name to a rock magazine and innumerable restaurants. Finally, there is that oddest of mix-ups, "Scuttle Bug" and "Live My Life," the same tune issued twice on the same record, though on opposite sides with different tracking. "Scuttle Bug" is good (it substitutes piano for vocals and thus permits Peggy Jones's downright dirty guitar solo to shine through), but "Live My Life" is, quite simply, great.

Bo evidently had high hopes for chart success with "Live My Life" and gave it the full production, calling in the Moonglows (whom Harvey Fuqua had only months before reformatted around Marvin Gaye) for their superb background harmonizing and gunning his own guitar into high gear beneath his powerfully intoned lead-vocals. But for some unknown reason the Chesses declined to issue it as a single and even relegated the number to the very last spot on the album. Because of that, "Live My Life" had remained one of the great undiscovered, un-covered Diddley songs.

The song itself embraces the "if I could live my life all over again" type of proposition, coupling it with its corollary, "If I knew then what I know now" (which in one sequence Bo neatly reverses to the sagacious "If I know then what I knew now"). At Bo's stage of life, this was a question worth pondering, and in his song he provided a prophetic response. Not only does he declare that he would buy him "a Sputnik, and ride all over the world," but he would also find him "a sweet little girl."

And Bo was, in fact, just about to do that, to meet a girl who, if not little (she was about five foot eight in stockinged feet), was without doubt sweet, most certainly to him. In another of the song's lines Bo declared that given the chance to relive his life he wouldn't just be a man; this time he'd be "a man amongst men." Was this a prophetic recognition that he was entering a new phase? With the woman who was his new love he would be following a new way of life, would be doing so for the next twenty-five years, and, she being white and he black, they would need all the courage they could muster to out-persevere age-old social barriers.

Who was this woman who had given him such fervent inspiration? Her name was Kay. And Kay was no less than a direct descendent of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy.