We drove from Dallas to Corpus Christi pulling a U-Haul in the pouring rain. When we unloaded and began setting up for sound-check, Wally realized that the Wurlitzer electric piano had been drenched from a leak in the trailer. Water had swollen the felt hammers, and the keys would not move when pressed: no sound. All the music stores were closed on New Year’s Eve, and we didn’t know any local musicians to borrow a keyboard from. We were facing playing all night as a guitar, bass, drums trio, unable to do our usual set and then having to back up Bo with no keys.

    Bo Diddley showed up carrying his red Gretch square body guitar and a rolling duffel bag. We told him about our keyboard dilemma, Wally pressing down the keys showing how they didn’t move. Bo wasted no time pulling a screwdriver out of his bag and unscrewing the top of the Wurli. He then fired up his trusty hair dryer and went after the swollen wet felt hammers. With a back and forth wave, he kept it up until the felts were dry. I thought later that at any time after demonstrating his technique, he could have handed the dryer to one of us to finish the job, but he seemed to enjoy the process.

On the last song of our opening set, the drums stopped abruptly, and I turned around from the mic to see that Bo had taken over the drums and was pounding out a beat with a big smile. We took a short break, and he came out strong and threw down all his hits and, as I remember, we did a fine job backing him. The show was recorded on a sixteen-track Ampex tape machine, and the next afternoon we got to go back to the theater and listen. I remember being really pleased with the recording. It had a lot of that spontaneous energy that you can access as a player when you really don’t know what might happen next…within two bars! Sadly, the sound company who had recorded us had their truck stolen the next day. All was lost, never to be heard again as far as I know. I’m happy to have the moment in time I can recall whenever talk of experiences come up regarding the founding fathers of rock and roll.

   I recall being at The Money Pit, Eddy Bayers and Paul Worley’s studio in Nashville, when Wally and I started riffing on “Hey Bo Diddley” and turned it into “Pay Bo Diddley”: a song bemoaning Bo never getting paid right, a common complaint. It’s a rock and roll chant that begs for call-and-response and became a show closer right off. It remains one still.

    The fabulous Nashville rockin’ blues band The Snakes—begun as Kingsnakes—recorded the first version. They were everybody’s favorite for awhile, grand blues rock entertainment. Mike Henderson and Kenny Greenberg on guitars, Wally Wilson on piano, Glenn Worf on bass, and James Stroud on drums. When they were about to record Pay Bo Diddley, we knew we had to get Bo. He required that we meet him at the old Nashville airport after sending him a round-trip ticket from Florida. We were to have twenty-five hundred dollars in cash, and he would give us a few hours of his time to play and sing on Pay Bo Diddley. What a treasure to have that record, with one of the great originators of rock and roll shouting out his own name with my old pal Wally.