Go, Bo Diddley

YES! Bring it to Jerome! Before You Accuse Me! Hush Your Mouth! Diddley Daddy, I’m a Man, Who Do You Love, and Dearest Darlin’. But the greatest of these was Bring it to Jerome. And Hush your Mouth. No…(the debate rages in my mind even now).

When I was in graduate skyewl at UAB (aka Insignificant U.) and living in my lowly efficiency nestled deep in the bowels of Southside, I spent much time at Charlemagne records at Five Points South. It was there I purchased a cassette of early Bo Diddley. Oh mama.

How many nights did I drive from Joe to the gas station bar smelling that old Birmingham smell of honeysuckle and smokestacks and singing Bring it to Jerome instead of grading crappy freshman papers or responding to Wollstonecraft’s “Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman.”

If Wollstonecraft could have only heard Bo Diddley, she’d have Hushed her Mouth, Brought It to Jerome, and maybe brought me a beer and a sandwich during Monday Night Football.