Bo Diddley (and his great Bo Diddley beat)

The other day Jane and I were driving near Shady Grove Lane in Westtown, PA and I decided to play her the recording of Shady Grove by Quicksilver Messenger Service, which I knew she had never heard, but I had been thinking about. 

Upon hearing Quicksilver's unusual, but highly exciting, version of this old folk song, I asked Jane what, if anything, came to her mind. 

She quickly said, "it's got the Bo Diddley beat".

I was extremely pleased and proud of her, almost as much as I was when I checked out her iTunes listing of her favorite songs and found it heavily weighted with Carl Perkins, Howlin' Wolf and Louvin Brothers numbers.  (I mean, she's only 13; the songs on the list were all her choices.)

I think only four "modern" rock bands have ever been able successfully to play the music of the great Bo Diddley:  The Pretty Things, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Dr. Feelgood and the New York Dolls.

They're all favorites of mine. Some marvelous performances by each group are included below:

The Pretty Things

Quicksilver Messenger Service

Dr. Feelgood

New York Dolls

Shady Grove -- Jean Ritchie and Quicksilver Messenger Service

  

Shady Grove, my little love

Shady Grove, I say

Shady Grove, my little love

I'm bound to go away

Cheeks as red as a blooming rose

And eyes are the prettiest brown

She's the darling of my heart

Sweetest girl in town

"Shady Grove is an 18th century folk song popular in the United States.  It is a standard in the repetoire of folk, Celtic and bluegrass musicans.  In most traditional versions, the melody is in a minor key.  However, Bill Monroe's and some subsequent bluegrass versions use a major-key variation.

Many verses exist, most of them describing the speaker's love for a woman called Shady Grove.  There are also various choruses, which refer to the speaker traveling somewhere (to Harlan, to a place called Shady Grove or simply 'away'.  Some have said that there have been over 300 stanzas written and added as variations."

I love this version by the great Kentucky artist (singer and dulcimer player) Jean Ritchie and also this intense rendition by Quicksilver Messenger Service, which the San Francisco band (John Cippolina, Greg Elmore and David Freiberg) recorded after Nicky Hopkins, the legendary English pianist and "session man"  joined the group in 1969. Quicksilver updated the lyrics as follows:

I used to walk on the city streets

Now I wander far and wide

And I never found my happiness 

Until I moved to the countryside

Now follow me for a quiet day

Out riding on the trails

Away from smog and traffic fog

Where all the pigs have tails