Bo’s Diddley Beat Made Lots of Beautiful Babies

An important event on this date kicked off what would become an indispensable element of rock-n-roll music for time immemorial. On March 2, 1955, legendary R&B master Bo Diddley entered a Universal recording studio in Chicago and burned onto vinyl his song "Bo Diddley." With it's distinctive five-accent rhythm beat, it launched a thousand rock songs. The sound sprang from traditional African clave rhythms and gave way to a style known as "hambone" - a technique of making music by slapping one's arms, legs, cheeks and chest while singing simple rhyming songs. Say the phrase, "shave and a HAIR CUT…TWO BITS" and you get a simple idea of the rhythm. Lots of Diddley-based tunes are obvious, like "Willy and the Hand Jive" and Bo's own "Who Do You Love?" But you may not realize just how many songs have been fueled by that distinctive beat. No rocker can resist it! Here's a collection of my favorite Bo Babies. Turn your speakers up loud and go crazy, man, crazy!

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Jimmy Page: Pre-Zepped

"I want to do biological research [to find a cure for] cancer, if it isn't discovered by then." So said future Led Zeppelin guitar great Jimmy Page to a TV program host who asked him his future plans, following the lad's performance on a BBC talent show in 1957. So, should we be disappointed that the 13-year-old didn't follow through with that lofty goal? Uh, no. Page is considered one of the world's greatest musicians, primarily known for his 12 years with the hard-rocking, eardrum-shattering Zeppelin. But long before joining up with Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham in 1968, he was considered a hot commodity -- not only as a key member of seminal electric blues band The Yardbirds, but also as a highly sought-after session guitarist. His work can be heard on recordings by some of the most popular artists of the 1960s. Here's a look at some of them.

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Happy Birthday, Scotty Moore: Rock’s First Lead Guitarist

"Everyone else wanted to be Elvis; I wanted to be Scotty," Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards once told music writer James L. Dickerson. He's referring, of course, to Scotty Moore, the finger-picking phenomenon who has long been considered rock's first lead guitarist. Mr. Moore, who turns 83 today, was Elvis Presley's sizzling sideman from 1954 through the mid-'60s. He combined elements of country, western, blues and R&B to create the signature sounds you've heard on countless classic recordings: "Hound Dog," "Jailhouse Rock," "That's All Right," "Good Rockin' Tonight," and "Mystery Train," to name a few.

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Keith, You Still Got the Silver

Today I extend a lusty black-and-blue birthday greeting - and a bouquet of the finest dead flowers - to Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, the man who, for the past 50 years, has embodied the true spirit of rock-n-roll rebellion like no other artist. I love lots of rockers for lots of reasons, but Keith will always be my bad-boy fantasy object. "Oh, that old junkie!" you say? "How can you idolize a heroin-loving, speedball shooting hedonist who's snorted everything from the finest cocaine to his dead dad's ashes?" Well, if that's all you know about the man we fans call Keef, then you don't know diddly about the guy who can out-diddle Bo and just about everyone else when it comes to jamming out distinctive guitar licks. Here's my tribute to the seemingly indestructible Mr. Richards.

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Hey, Jimi: Where Ya Going with that Guitar in Your Hand?

Cutting your teeth...honing your skills...paying your dues...(and, my favorite)...making your bones.Whatever you want to call it, Jimi Hendrix did it all in the days prior to achieving eternal super stardom as the greatest rock guitarist of all time. He played for years in backup bands for such American artists as Little Richard, Sam Cooke, the Isley Brothers and Joey Dee and the Starlighters. He also spent an evening playing backup for English crooner Engelbert Humperdinck and once toured with The Monkees as an opening act. Perhaps more than any other musician in rock history, Jimi Hendrix loved to play. It didn't matter what, where, when, or with whom.

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