Listen - Bo Diddley performs Bring It To Jerome."Look it here purty baby, this mess I won't stand. All the other women, say you got another man." Those are the words spoken by the terribly wronged Jerome Green. "Who?" you may ask? Well, how dare you not know. Jerome Green is only the fiercest maraca player since Carmen Miranda shook hers for all the public to see back in the 1940s. Jerome Green was, as you may have guessed by now, the maraca player for rock-n-roll steam engine, Bo Diddley. You can see Jerome in the above picture with a fistful of maracas and a face that shows the requisite 'tude to bring it hard on them chica-chica-boom-boom machines we call maracas.
Today's SOTW, aptly titled, Bring it To Jerome, was written by Jerome and he and Bo serve double duty on the vocals. It was the flip-side of the Bo Diddley penned hit Pretty Thing and was released on Checker Records in 1956. It's a damn perfect song -- as all those early Bo Diddley numbers were.
We'll keep the words short today. Just click the song link, grab a fist full of maraca and bring it on home in front of your mirror in your living room. Don't know how to bring it like Jerome? Then check the video below to get some Jerome Green teaching.
I've always loved this tune. Ssome new observations. Drums consist only of rim playing, a primitive sound. Also the song has four verses with the first two sung differently from second two. In the second two the vocals go down to the 7 and I had always assumed the instrumentation did too, but no, instrumentation keeps on its groove. The call and response changes here too. Harmonica is lush! Is this from record? There is a slight glitch at the end, not?
ReplyDeleteGood catch on that glitch. I had never heard it before. This is taken from a CD but I played the original 45rpm disc and it is there too. It sounds to me like it is in production. As if a lead harmonica clumsily is spliced together with the rhythm harmonica. It appears Billy Boy Arnold is the harp player in question. You may know him as the originator of I Wish You Would, made more famous by The Yardbirds.
ReplyDeletethanks i was wondering who the harp player was! My mom, a vaudeville dancer, had Bo's 45's in 1955 when I was 9 & I always LOVED him. Then later i had his lps. Loved this 1, "nursery rhyme," "say man", "bo diddley," "hey bo diddley," etc. well loved the yardbirds too...met jeff beck once...
ReplyDeletewoo, you found an old post. not even a music file associated with it anymore.
DeleteThe harp player on this particular track is a gentleman from Mississippi named Lester Davenport. Little Walter, Billy Boy Arnold and Little Willie Smith play on other tracks. Jeff Beck, huh? Pretty cool.
I play Bo every day on my way to work to psyche up. Jerome is one of my favorites.
ReplyDeleteI was born in Bronx 74 years ago and my 1000th memory and last moments spent there were on Jerome Avenue in 2015…I did my 1000th singing impression of Bo Diddley, loudly singing BRING IT TO JEROME and my girlfriend nearly threw me out of the car.
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