The London Bo Diddley Sessions

After Howlin' Wolf made the Billboard album charts in 1970 with his London Howlin' Wolf Sessions release, Chess duly began preparing similarly titled albums by its remaining roster of stars — Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry followed the Wolf — and in 1973 this Bo Diddley release came along. Actually, a lot of it was done in Chicago, with the London portion of the sessions added, seemingly to justify the title. And it did sell better than Bo's other original albums of this era. It remains in print on compact disc, one of a only handful of his albums so released. As with Muddy Waters' London Muddy Waters Sessions album, Bo's presence was somewhat overwhelmed by the massive number of session musicians involved (well-meaning though they may have been) and more so, because Bo was still looking for a new sound, whereas Muddy knew what he was about. The songs are pretty fair — a mix of soul and funk — with elements of his old sound, and this is probably the best compromise he achieved during this phase of his career, between the old and the new.