The Black Gladiator
| Bo Diddley
The Black Gladiator
The album is, by and large, a radical departure for one of the preeminent bluesmen of the classic '50s Chicago scene. But that's not to say that Bo has given up some of his trademarks. Check out the opening track, "Elephant Man", which is surely one of his finest songs ever, in which he explains in detail how he made the titular animal. Yes, you read that right. Bo Diddley is such a bad motherlover that he invented the elephant. The music meanwhile, is a pounding conjunction of hyper-organ riffing and a swinging rhythm section that is somehow extremely tight yet extremely loose, held together largely by Bo's powerhouse, longtime drummer Clifton James. The verses are punctuated by Bo's wailing (both vocally, and with his guitar, as he lets loose some fierce solos).- Pop Matters
Critic Reviews
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Pop Matters
This is not the typical album of twelve-bar blues after twelve-bar blues, this will be a highly rewarding experience. Just make it funky now, and get lost in the grooves.
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Aquarium Drunkard
March 2012 "Who’s the funkiest man in town? You are Bo Diddley.”
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All Music
he finally fails to find a groove that works. Despite some good guitar here and there, this record falls into the same category as Muddy's Electric Mud and After the Rain albums, and Howlin' Wolf's New Album, all of which attempted to transform each into a psychedelic rocker.
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Light in the Attic
Still, its tough grooves and bold, black, and beautiful sleeve design has been a soulful secret in many a record collection. Replete with extensive liner notes by Scott Schinder and re-mastering from the original tapes by engineer Dave Cooley (Elysian Masters), the re-release makes The Black Gladiator finally ready for battle again.
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Record Collector
You might think Bo’s selling out, but he’s utterly convincing, even when he’s rocking out the I’m A Man riff of Power House and Shut Up, Woman.
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Blurt Online
Bo Diddley, meanwhile, seemed to have welcomed this youth grab with open arms upon the release of 1970’s The Black Gladiator. Rather than looking to appeal to the very rock ‘n’ roll sound he helped invent in the 1950s, Bo – who had been working at a slower pace than he did in previous years – opted to go in the heavy funk direction.
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Slacker
The result was The Black Gladiator, an attempt to reshape Bo into a funk artist, in the manner of Sly and the Family Stone.
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Ugly Things
The album never quite scales the elephantine heights of its monster opening number, but there’s still much to enjoy.
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Egroj World
Nearly flawless album that was and has been unfairly disparaged simply because it so far removed from everything else that the artist had done previously and would go on to do.
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Soul Sides
What makes the song (and the release work) is one reason and one reason only, Bo Diddley. Bo already of course knows that. And even in mad scientist mode, he never overreaches.
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Vinyl.com
BUT TO BO'S FANS, IT WAS WELL WORTH THE WAIT. FOR HEREIN ARE TEN TUNES WHICH COULD STAND ALONE AS SMASH HITS, BUT WHEN TOGETHER PAINT A PICTURE OF ONE OF THE MOST PHENOMENAL TALENTS IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY.
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101 Blues LLegar II
It was quite an event with its homonymous theme, and it was a habit to see him wiggle to the rhythm of his lewd vocabulary on the Ed Sullivan Show. With all that, he could not fit into the blues environment, the most traditional and fundamentalist
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Shopify
Mar. 2012 Across ten wild child tracks, the future rock and roll hall of fame inductee hits hard on every note. There are raw gospel shouts, ripping guitar, fatback drums, gritty Hammond organ, and even a round of the dozens with Cookie Vee.
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Light in the Attic
The album would modernize his blues-rock sound with a rugged funk edge, while retaining the spirit and humor of his finest work, and feature an album cover of the man donning a bodacious leather belt/pseudo S&M get up that would put Isaac Hayes’ chain link vestments to shame.
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