We start off bouncing to the big beat of Bo Diddley, than take an intergalactic flight with space captain Jhelisa Anderson, and then get down to earth with the acid-jazz UK ensemble of Incognito.
Legends and outright lies swirl around the origin of the Bo Diddley moniker. Once it was hung on Elias, the name and the man became synonymous with a raucous, jive talking, jump blues kind of sound that included heavy syncopation and maracas percussion (aka “shakers”).
This was dance music of the uninhibited sort. If you ever heard of “shake dancers” (this was long before the “pole” was popular), you can imagine the hip swivels and gyrations that might have accompanied this music.
While his contemporaries emphasized the moaning blues side of the equation, Bo was after the beat. Rather than mournful (like Muddy Waters) or menacing (like Howling Wolf), Bo was full of humor—some times droll, some times sarcastic, some times bawdy and generally just shy of buffoonery. But the funny presentations masked a deep seriousness and understanding of the various strands that were synthesized into the popular music we know today as rock and roll.
—Kalamu ya Salaam