Customer Reviews
In at the birth - By: Richard, 02 Jun 2008 
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 & certainly was at the time of the Stones & 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
Fine compilation - By: Docendo Discimus, 18 Jan 2004 
Spectrum's "The Essential Bo Diddley" is reallly the only single-disc compilation which can compete with MCA/Chess' "His Best".
It includes virtuallly alll of the must-have classics (with the exception of "Crackin' Up", unfortunately), but the Chess disc has better liner notes, & 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.
