Bo Diddley Lived Here
Thanks to a tip from a smart reader, we checked into the Bo Diddley-lived-here thesis. It’s true. Diddley lived at 2614 Rhode Island Avenue NE in the ’60s. [OK--the reader had all the facts completely correct]. He talks about living here in a Washington Post feature published in 2006:
Diddley lived here from 1959 to 1966, building a studio in the basement of his house at 2614 Rhode Island Ave. NE, where he recorded 1960’s classic Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger album.
“I just wanted to be in Washington, D.C., around the Howard Theater,” Diddley explains. “I did everything from D.C. At that time, I was driving all the time — I didn’t start flying until 1968 — and it was close to New York and the South.”
I checked with The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. The address has not been registered as a historic landmark. I will have more in a bit.
Update 10 a.m. June 4: The 2614 Rhode Island Avenue NE property is not listed as a landmark or part of a historic district, according to Kim Williams, the national register coordinator with the D.C. Historic Preservation Office. She goes on to say no application has been filed on behalf of that property in the last seven years. She’s “almost 100 percent sure” there has never been a landmark application submitted.
“If there are preservation organizations or neighborhood groups that are interested in having it designated, we will consider it,” Williams says.
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5:04 pm
Here’s where I’d put in a youtube clip of that badass Diddley performance on Ed Sullivan. One of the best “rock” performances on video. After a very awkward (and nearly racist?)introduction by Sullivan, Bo just goes to it! With Jerome on maracas! Rockin’ the tremolo like no other. This man was so bad!
Bo knows!
7:46 pm
Umm Jason, Bo’s nephew Ricky Jolivet played in DC for 10-15 years and gladly talked not only about the studio, but also all the side players from those years who you’d occasionally meet at 50s and 60s shows. Ricky would regularly show up with his wife at the 9:30 club and travel around DC with cowboy hat on a Harley, back when very few 50-ish African American men did. Ricky died around 2003.
What you sort of have wrong, or at least don’t mention, is that Bo first moved to Mt Pleasant before settling in Northeast.
After touring with the Chesterfield Kings, Bo’s people stayed closer to the 1980s garage scene than you’d expect.
11:23 pm
Booby Parker was in Bo’s band for awhile, as was the late Jesse James, of Jesse James & the Raiders, a local chitlin circuit soul band that played DC and Baltimore on and off even in recent years.
I think Bo also had a role in discovering the DC group that later became known as the Jewels.
I think Eddie Drennon might still live in this area. When I saw him with a Latin band at the Roslyn Spectrum several years ago, Jim Byers introduced him by mentioning that he played with Bo Diddley (around 1967). He is/was a violinist who played lots of NYC studio dates in the 60s for Latin groups and r’n'b groups and did disco recordings in the ’70s.
11:35 pm
Ricky J (aka “Bo Diddley, Jr.”) was kind of wild, but an incredibly nice guy.
Bo took DC musicians with him on the road when he toured during the early 60s, notably Jesse James Johnson (aka Jesse James Brown), a fine guitarist and vocalist and a great showman, who passed away on March 25, 2007. Jesse had played bass for Bo.
1:58 pm
It was Jesse who I was introduced to back at a Safari Club show who looked me up and down, sneered, and went back to his crown royal without speaking.
He, I may add, was wearing a white t-shirt, shorts, black socks and dress shoes.
Gloria was very maternal to me as a teenager, so it was all good. I had no idea how “wild” Ricky got.
2:11 pm
The last time I saw Gloria, she was performing at Smokeless. She put her oxygen mask back on between sets. Very sad. A sweet person and pretty good bass player.