From: "curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com" <curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com>
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, April 28, 2014 8:19 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Now Playing Thanks for the Bo Diddley post Barry. He would have been a man to see live that is for sure. Sorry I missed him. He drips improvisation. That really was it, Curtis. He was as "in the moment" as any great performer I've ever seen. I have heard tales that he was not always as gracious and as cool onstage as he was when I saw him (he had a rep for spitting on white folks in the first few rows during his angry young days), but he certainly was when I saw him. And the man was FUNNY! He'd ad-lib, and then he'd do hilarious stuff like taking one of his own classic songs -- which are, after all, the Vedas of rock 'n roll -- and then do a version of them as would be performed by a Las Vegas lounge singer. I was literally on the floor laughing. What is so cool about him for me is how he was using international rhythms in his music and expanding early rock's influences. He made me rethink how much liberty I can take with combining rhythms in my own work. It is all connected to the New Orleans gumbo of influences I am studying in Professor Longhair's piano style. Great clip too!
