Bo Diddley’s New Mexico roots

In January 2004, Bo Diddley celebrated having just turned 75 with a concert at Albuquerque’s El Rey Theater, and though he performed fairly frequently at the venue, it felt like this particular concert might be a historic show — perhaps one of his last in his former stomping grounds.

That night, on the bill with New Mexico’s Alex Maryol and Cadillac Bob, Diddley was in celebratory form, although he’d slowed down a bit and sat throughout the performance. The former New Mexico resident — he was a deputy sheriff in Valencia County in the ’70s – acknowledged health problems, but didn’t follow up with retirement. The following year found him celebrating his 50 years as a recording artist by touring Europe, Australia and the United States. A year later, he was headlining a benefit for residents of Ocean Springs, Miss., who’d lost everything in Hurricane Katrina.

No doubt individuals and communities all over the world are reflecting today on their connections to Bo Diddley, who died in Archer, Fla., this morning at 79. Born in Mississippi and raised in Chicago — where he came up with his signature Bo Diddley "beat" later played uniquely on his box-shaped guitar — Diddley also called New Mexico home for more than a dozen years. "I love it there," he told this writer in a telephone interview from Archer in 1989. "I miss it; I really miss it. The people were super nice to me."

"Sometimes I think that I might pack up, and you might look down the highway and see me coming. That’s no lie."

He did come back to the state in the early ’90s and built a recording studio in a horse barn in Albuquerque’s South Valley before moving back to Florida. Another legacy from his days in New Mexico: It was a treat to catch his son playing the Ice Lounge every once in a while at Albuquerque’s Downtown Doubletree Hotel. 

Diddley said he first came to New Mexico on the advice of his friends The Everly Brothers, who had moved to Taos. Diddley marveled at learning the state had snow.

He bought a ranch in Los Lunas in the 1970s and worked more than two years as a deputy sheriff in Valencia County. The New Mexico Music Commission‘s Web site says he bought and donated three highway patrol cars to the group during that time. In the 1989 interview, he talked about finding his niche as a deputy:

"I felt there was a need for me to be involved. There were other guys who were watching my family while I was sleeping, and I felt I should go on duty sometime and help out. And I had little knowledge of firearms. …

 

"And I was accepted. I didn’t get a commission for it, but I was very active around there, and it was a very good experience."

He said he would have stayed longer but got into some financial trouble at about the time the oil crisis hit.

"I left there not by choice, but money got funny and I had to sell my ranch."  

 

His obituary in today’s British Guardian speculates that his decision to live in New Mexico as a sheriff "perhaps indicates his disillusionment with the music industry."

Touring was slow when Diddley, born Otha Ellas Bates, later Ellas Bates McDaniel, moved to Los Lunas in the ’70s. But the Guardian wasn’t far off in its assessment. In the ’89 interview, just four months after turning 60, Diddley said he was ready to go after those he felt owed him and hang on "like ants on meat skin."

He said he’d had trouble collecting royalties on his Chess Records classics like "Who Do You Love" and "Diddley Wah Diddley", and even though he was happier with MCA Records, the money was "still not up to par."  

"I’m talking about my livelihood.

 

"Individuals like myself, I guess they think, well, it’s just another hungry musician. Well, [entertainers] are the ones that kind of halfway keep people’s minds together. They come out to see us to forget some of their problems."

The day of the interview, Diddley said he had discovered a "collections" type album featuring a Bo Diddley tune, and he and MCA Records hadn’t been consulted.

"You know, if I went out and started making Cadillacs without the Cadillac company’s OK, I’d be in jail before the sun came up." Diddley said the lack of decent royalties kept his children from going to college.

But several of those children followed in his footsteps as musicians and the music took Diddley all over the world and to some unlikely venues. One of the more unusual inclusions in his press packet from 1987 is a copy of the letter Diddley received from former Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater, thanking the rocker for performing and allowing Atwater to join him at the Celebration for Young Americans event during George H.W. Bush’s inauguration. "You proved that you are the originator!" Atwater gushed in a handwritten note below his signature.

"That was beautiful. America is a beautiful country," Diddley said of the event.

And then he transitioned into talking about his other passion — keeping young people off drugs.

"There’s one thing we’ve got to do to keep [America] beautiful — get on the ball and try to get everyone involved and get rid of drugs in the United States of America.

 

"It’s an attack on young people and everybody. And the police can’t do it by themselves. They’re going to need some help, vigilante or whatever.

 

"If my kids are doing drugs, stop them. And if your kids are doing drugs, stop them. In other words, get out and get back, Jack, with your crack."

In an interview with The Albuquerque Voice a couple of years later, the former law enforcement officer said he wasn’t talking about pot. "Marijuana don’t worry me none. I don’t do it, but I know it don’t hook you like cigarettes. I never seen nobody desperate for a joint."

It was nearly 60 years ago, in the ’40s, when Diddley developed the chug-a-chug-chug-chug rhythm style that is thoroughly ingrained in rock today — from the beat of Buddy Holly’s "Not Fade Away" to virtually everything by George Thorogood.

"That’s my thing. Everybody went to the bank but me," he said of his original style in 1987. But despite his frustration at being unable to copyright that style, he laughed while talking about the hints of himself he was hearing all over the place and added, "They ain’t got me yet!"