Another day the music died

I’m driving down I-75 between appointments and my cell phone buzzes. I glance at the screen to see if it’s a call I have to take. It is. I turn down the radio and take the call.

When I’m driving and have to use the phone, I try to go into a zone of focus on the road and keep that a priority. I’d rather miss something in the call than a lane changer in front of me.

It’s a listening call. A lawyer is reading off a skein of proposed changes to a complex contract. Like I need a challenge to my concentration.

Somewhere in the ninth paragraph, I become aware that the fingers of my right hand are twitching. No, it’s more of a rhythm. No, it’s a strumming. Some long dormant program is driving it. I know what it is and it doesn’t feel like a random recollection. Something triggered it and there’s a potent sentiment attached. “I’ll call you back in an hour,” I interject and hang up. The meaning is floating just below my conscious thoughts.

I turn the radio back up. Ellas McDaniel died.

The song was “Who do you love?” It was a number I sang lead on with the band I had in high school. It absolutely killed. You’ve heard it covered by many much more renown than our little alley band. Morrison does one of the best versions in a live recording on a Doors album.

I usually played autoharp when I sang lead. Not exactly. Our technogeek rigged one with a contact mike and reverb unit to provide that heavy bass guitar twang. We were low budget.

Not a lot of chord changes in many McDaniel numbers. He often got it done with one chord and a lot of rhythm. It got the job done. Oh man, did it get it done. Ask The Who, Yardbirds, Beatles, Animals, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Clash, Creedence, Thorogood, Petty, Clapton and myriad of others who covered him.

We used to cut school and hop a train to New York to catch hot acts in Greenwich Village. The Village Gate at Bleecker and Thompson was where you could always pick up some hot licks to play at the dance that weekend. McDaniel had some of the hottest. He set the place on fire and rocked it to the ground. Without the benefit of special effects, I might add.

If you scan down his discography, you’ll recognize a whole lot of his work. One of the truly great. A piece of the music died with Ellas McDaniel today, a very big piece.

You knew him as Bo Diddley.