So I just read the news that the legendary Bo Diddley has passed away at 79. My thoughts and prayers to his family in their time of loss. I feel safe in saying that I would not be a musician if it were not for Bo Diddley. All musicians owe him a debt of gratitide for his groundbreaking songwriting and guitar work. Hell, name another guitarist with a drum beat named after him? And what a mighty beat it was. Turn on 'Who Do You Love' tonight and you can hear the sound of teenage girls all over America losing their virginity in the backseat of a borrowed Cadillac. It IS rock and roll.

My debt to the gentleman is a bit more personal. My father took me to see Bo Diddley when I was a kid. My uncle got him tickets. They were supposed to take their wives and have a double date. Maybe it was too late or too smokey or too loud, but for whatever reason the ladies backed out. Short of buying me a guitar, that may be the biggest musical gift my mama ever gave me. Not showing up. Thanks ma. So my pops decides that its a good father/son moment to share a little rock and roll. He'd introduced me to the Beatles, the Stones, Dylan, James Brown, Jackie Wilson, etc via his record collection. It was probably 1987. Bo Diddley was an afterthought. I knew him as the guy in the Bo Jackson commercials. "Bo, you don't know Diddley" he'd quip as Bo Jackson held his screeching guitar. I'd probably heard a song, maybe two, but I was just a baby. Learning to fall in love with rock and roll and all that is good and holy about it. A babe trying to be led out of the dark and evil forrest of hair metal and into something, ANYTHING more.

My father called ahead to make sure me and my other underage cousin good get in. The club acquiesced to the old man's request. This wasn't a club, this was a bar. A roadhouse type atmosphere. Especially for those still shy of puberty. That night would change my life forever. I can still remember the smoke and the smell of the smoke from all the years before. Like my Grandma and 100 of her best friends had been chain smoking and playing kanasta in a small dingy basement for years. I remember the smell of alcohol. Lots and lots of. The dark kind. Not that clear stuff people lightly sip at the holidays. I remember the incredibly bad service. I remember its the only meal in my life my father refused to pay for. I remember the opening band the Kingsnakes. But all this together pales when I think of what came next. The show starts with this beat. This primal, tribal, groove that I instantly start to FEEL. Not hear but FEEL. I know this instinctually. Then the announcer starts his pitch, "ladies and gentlemen, from McComb Mississippi. His songs have bee recorded by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones(cue my further interest)One of the founding fathers of rock and roll, Mr Bo Diddley.". This was followed by some applause but then nothing, still that beat. Where is this guy. I want to see him!! Then in the front row this little aging black man finishes his last bite of dinner. Pushes back from the table, licks his figers, steps onstage, grabs a guitar and changes my life! I can't tell you now what songs he played. I do know on the ride home my father and uncle spoke of being disappointed in the performance. Hell, maybe to more mature listening ears it was sub par. But for me it was like seeing the future, present and past all at once. In a lot of ways I realize now that I was reborn as a musician that very night. It would be years later that I'd get a guitar. Years after that before I'd start my own band, but it all goes back to that night. Playing music for the sake of the music. Always. Through the success, through the failures. From the basement, to the club, to the theater, to the arena and all the way back again. Play it because you can. Play it because you should. Play it becuase you have to. Play it because IT MATTERS! This rock and roll music maters.

I think of that night often. I've smelled those familiar smells thousands of times over my last 10 years on the road. I've seen that same opening band with a thousand different names a thousand different times. I've been that opening band. I'll be a part of each and every one of those things again at some point in my musical career. But tonight on this long lonely train ride from Rimini, Italy to Madrid, Spain, in the middle of a four week tour, alone, in eight countries I've never been to, to play my own brand of rock and roll for people, I'd like to say thank you Bo Diddley for getting me here.