20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Bo Diddley (CD - 2000)

Digitally remastered by Erick Labson (MCA Music Media, North Hollywood, California).

Personnel: Bo Diddley (guitar).

Liner Note Author: Joseph F. Laredo.

Recording information: 03/1955-11/1959.

Bo Diddley recorded a lot of great music in the '50s and 60s, but this single-CD collection of his greatest hits is ground zero. Not only is THE MILLENNIUM COLLECTION some of the wildest, funniest, and most self-referential music of its time, but it's also a major template for the British Invasion.

MILLENNIUM classics include the Muddy Waters-derived "I'm a Man," later turbo-charged by the Yardbirds, as well as "Diddley Daddy," "Road Runner," "You Can't Judge a Book By its Cover," "Cracking Up," and "Mona." All of these have been covered by the Rolling Stones-who loved the unforgettable riff of "Diddley Daddy" so much that it opens their "19th Nervous Breakdown." Diddley, of course, remains one of the few musicians to have a beat named after him. The "Bo Diddley beat" doesn't figure in one of the best songs here, "Say Man." In some ways, this comic cutting contest between Diddley and Jerome Green, his longtime maraca man, presages elements of rap music. minimize