Bo Diddley - Have Guitar Will Travel

Bo Diddley's Have Guitar Will Travel borrows its swagger from a TV Western and backs it up with some of the rawest rhythm guitar ever cut in Chicago, pressed here on 180-gram vinyl.

Issued on Checker in 1960, the album gathers sessions recorded over the second half of the 1950s, with Leonard and Phil Chess producing alongside Bo himself. The title and the calling-card cover nod to Have Gun - Will Travel, the hit Western series of the day, and that playful, gunslinging attitude runs right through the grooves.

The band is stacked: Jerome Green on maracas and backing vocals, Peggy Jones adding guitar, Willie Dixon on bass and Lafayette Leake on piano. "Say Man, Back Again" revives the rapid-fire insult routine between Bo and Jerome that had already given them a hit, "Cops and Robbers" spins a street-corner story over that unmistakable shuffle, and "Mumblin' Guitar" lets the tremolo do the talking. "I Need You Baby" proves he could sell a love song with every bit as much drive as a stomper.

The Rolling Stones later recorded both "Cops and Robbers" and "I Need You Baby", which tells you plenty about where the British beat boom found its ammunition. This is rock and roll at its most primal, and it still makes most modern records sound timid.