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> Login to your account > RegisterChuck Berry & Bo Diddley
From page 88 of Classic Rock Magazine April 2009
Cover of April 2009 issue.
Chuck & Bo's All-Star Jam Ax Electric blues history blowout. It's common for stars of yore to be reappraised soon after their death and belatedly heralded as geniuses. But Diddley was always worshipped by rock's subsequent generations, long before his passing last year. This show from Los Angeles in 1985 finds him sharing a stage with Carl Wilson, Ron Wood, Mitch Mitchell, Mick Fleetwood and John Mayall, although why Berry, who saunters onto the stage for just two numbers, gets top billing is rather puzzling.
In all honesty, they're not the most magnificent performances you'll ever see or hear; fairly workmanlike trudges through Diddley's biggest and not wildly differing hits but the
child-like wonder of some of rock's top names riffing it up with a hero is often charming, as is the footage of soundchecks at which all take their cues from a ghetto blaster pounding out Bo's scratchy originals.
•••••• Terry Steunton
