Selling an Old Name to a New Demographic

Cadillac’s “Break Through” Campaign and the GM Malady

William Sundwick

Picture, if you can, the typical Cadillac of the 1990s. It was probably a De Ville or Fleetwood Brougham. Big, posh, a veritable land yacht. There was the elegant little Allante sports car and, by 1999, the Escalade truck, but nobody at Cadillac had discovered how to market these aberrations to the Florida retirement community consumer, the demographic best understood at the time.

Cadillac needed to discover younger buyers – boomers in their fifties, not the retirees of the “greatest generation” purchasing what might be their last car. The target customers were buying BMWs, Volvos, Mercedes, then Audis. Why? There were many reasons, but marketing was a big one.

General Motors was, indeed, beset by some deep structural problems in the nineties. Fixed costs (both labor and capital equipment) were eating into profits. And, a series of strategic decisions beginning in the sixties had the effect of hollowing out the engineering pool needed for product innovation. Reorganizations, especially the BOC-CPC structure of 1984 (Buick-Olds-Cadillac/Chevrolet-Pontiac-Canada), exacerbated the decline of both quality and engineering creativity.

But, it was the gradual disappearance of its traditional customer base that was the Cadillac brand’s specific problem – it was an actuarial issue. Cadillac buyers may have been drawn to the brand going far back into their collective memories. But, frankly, they were dying off. The affluent younger greneration in their fifties and early sixties, whom Cadillac needed, was underwhelmed by Cadillac’s “standard of the world” slogan, dating from the 1910s. The Cadillacs they saw now belonged to their parents’ cohort.

Boomers were getting press in the nineties and aughts because they seemed to have a very different ethos than the generation before them. They were cast as a “Peter Pan Generation” –  refusing to grow old even in middle age. They were attracted to the edgy, the independent, the counter-cultural. Their classic rock music had stuck, their fitness fetishes caused gyms to sprout on every corner, and women were now as likely as men to be in the appropriate economic strata. These led to clear preferences for smaller, more agile, cars. Many boomers were now reaching the level of personal financial resources that Cadillac marketing was pursuing.

Enter the “Break Through” campaign – its first TV spot was at the 2002 Super Bowl. Rumors had been circulating in the advertising world of an undisclosed princely sum that Cadillac had paid for the rights to a 31-year-old Led Zeppelin song, “Rock and Roll.” It became the centerpiece for an advertising campaign that would last five years before it was finally pulled. There were several TV commercials featuring the song, which became indelibly associated with Cadillac, even among those aficionados who knew the song previously.

The new, naughtier, image that Cadillac was trying to create was not all smoke and mirrors. GM revamped the product line in serious ways – with the small CTS sedan, an entirely new platform for the larger STS, and in 2003, a Cadillac “Corvette,” the XLR.

Both Robert Plant and Jimmy Page thought the licensing terms fair. It was the first song they had ever licensed for a TV commercial. It may have been the first time ANY song from the “classic rock” period was licensed for a TV commercial.

There were other fronts in the campaign besides the music and TV commercials. The automotive press was regaled with track competition for Cadillac models (last seen when Cadillacs competed at Le Mans in the early fifties). The CTS-V, with its supercharged Corvette V8, was dubbed “world’s fastest production sedan” after besting all competitors around the Nurburgring Grand Prix circuit. Indeed, it set a record for lap time at that German course in 2008.

More of the edginess theme could be found in the well-publicized preference among professional athletes for a Cadillac truck – the Escalade. Escalades became synonymous with African-American “bling.” All these things -- the music, the racing, the urban flash – helped boost Cadillac 2003 sales figures by 16 percent.

Cadillac was beginning to reacquire some of the panache those of us old enough to remember the fifties had formerly associated with the make. Too bad for GM that the rest of their lineup didn’t receive equally successful marketing campaigns. Oldsmobile, for instance, died with a whimper at about the same time – its “not your father’s Oldsmobile” campaign had fizzled a few years earlier.

Was it the cars, or was it just that music, that brought Cadillac success? Let’s look at the cars. Compared to Cadillac’s competitors at the time, BMW clearly had the greatest following, and prestige.  Lexus was a little stodgy, Audi was yet to hit its stride, and Mercedes was sharing BMW’s strength with a slightly older demographic. Lincoln was already a non-entity as a competitor. The BMW customer was the “Break Through” campaign’s target. Cadillac’s CTS sedan was intended as a 3-series killer, the STS was squarely aimed at the 5-series, and the DTS would continue to aim at the geriatric crowd (and some Mercedes models). Escalades were aimed at an American high-end urban demographic, not averse to trucks – a market never penetrated by the Germans or Swedes. Volvo still made most of its sales in its lower end models (more Buick than Cadillac?). Lexus saw itself straddling that demographic, too. For the first time in recent memory, Cadillac’s lineup seemed competitive.

Teutonic engineering and style was what Cadillac tried to copy. The precision, the authority, the innovation, styling that was solid, yet sleek, and a sterling reputation for quality. These were BMW’s claims to leadership in the luxury segment. Unfortunately, the paucity of engineering talent at GM forced Cadillac to settle for marketing an image of engineering innovation, and revamped styling,. The reality was still lacking – speed, as in the staged Nurburgring event, would have to substitute for solid engineering.

 The initial boost from the campaign began to wane after the first year. There was a second Super Bowl commercial in 2003. The scene was a New York subway train with advertising posters for Cadillacs from the fifties as the train moved through time to today, and through the windows we could see the current Cadillac line. It may have been too urban-oriented for the Zeppelin sound track. Nevertheless, Cadillac stuck with the campaign, and the music, until 2006. It was succeeded by the “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit” campaign, with more of a country flair. But, that campaign was less successful, perhaps due to a lack of affluent buyers in the target demographic.

The urban orientation seen in the 2003 spot was a signal that future Cadillac marketing would become much more focused on the upper-middle-class professionals who live in large metro areas. It was probably inspired by the continued success of the Escalade and the growing concentration of wealth in cities.

So far, however, this new focus has not paid off. Cadillac sales are again in the doldrums. Perhaps moving Cadillac brand HQs to New York’s soho neighborhood will inspire new strategic thinking. Except that nobody in New York buys cars!

Is the corporation the problem? Could it be that General Motors just can’t decide where Cadillac belongs? GM market share has been increasing over the last couple years, but no thanks to Cadillac – it’s seems mainly driven by Chevrolet now, and newer crossovers from GMC and Buick.

GM’s 2009 bankruptcy forced another realignment. The “new GM” would be much leaner, freed from onerous UAW contracts, and could raise up some bright young engineering talent within its ranks. The new focus would be on technology – both manufacturing and car design. It’s noteworthy that plug-in hybrids and all-electrics are now being developed by GM faster than anybody else in the U.S. market except Tesla. Cadillac, for its part, is seeking to unveil a more extensive semi-autonomous driving package than any other domestic make. Coming soon.

The new marketing target for Cadillac is Generation-X. They are as different from their boomer parents as the boomers were from their parents. Gen-Xers still value independence and edginess, but are less concerned with social status than their elders, more pragmatic. They are less easily intimidated by group pressure. And, they are financially less secure than their elders – worrying about how to pay for their kids’ college!

All this may lead them to make more conservative choices in cars. A new marketing campaign for GM’s luxury brand could be a serious challenge for that old Cadillac crest. We’ll see if the current urban focus is the correct one.

 What We Drove, and Why

One Family’s Car Culture, GM Style – 1950-1970

(Sundwick Automotive Photo Library, Part IV)

William Sundwick

We were not a typical family, even for Dearborn or Flint. Dad was a committed General Motors “lifer” – a salaried engineer, destined by the end of his career to be at the top rungs of “plant-level” management. We were required to own GM products; it was a moral responsibility.

And, we had to change them frequently – advertising, of sorts. The family corporate discount on new cars probably didn’t exceed 20%. So, my dad took a bath when he traded every year. Surely, his salary wouldn’t compensate for that. He felt he had the civic obligation to visibly promote the General’s products.

My earliest car memory dates from the summer I turned three. I have a distinct image imprinted in

my deepest consciousness, unsupported by a family photograph, but reinforced by my father when I described the scene as an adult. It’s an image of a sunny day, me walking out the kitchen door to see a new shiny green 1950 Chevrolet in the driveway. I remember the detail of the chrome grille and bumpers, I remember that it was a trunk-back “Styleline” two-door sedan (as opposed to the “Fleetline” fastback body style). Yes!” exclaimed my dad, “that was our ’50 Chevy!” Why do I remember it? Mysteries of early cognitive development, I guess.

Perhaps the reason it was not recorded in the family photo album is because it was not a particularly remarkable event. It was just another new car – even then, when Dad was a relatively junior engineer at the Detroit Ternstedt plant (GM’s “hardware” division), he traded cars every year. Each was indelibly recorded in my mind’s eye, even as they were just routine for my parents.

I remember our upgrade from Chevrolet to Oldsmobile in 1952. The rationale was that we were planning an ambitious road trip to the Rocky Mountains that summer. Dad felt he needed V8 power to climb the mountains in Wyoming, where we had plans to stay at a “dude ranch” there (a popular tourist destination in those days). That ’52 Olds 88 was the least expensive V8 in the GM line, a two-door sedan like the previous Chevys (no sporty “hardtops,” or even white sidewalls, for my father’s spartan taste).

Moving from Dearborn to Flint in the Summer of 1953, shortly after the F5 Beecher tornado laid waste to a big swath of the latter, I found myself in alien territory. It felt like the “frontier.” Our new construction house was in a development on the edge of town, lacking sidewalks or even paved streets at first. We packed our belongings into another spartan two-door, a 1953 Chevy “210” series. It was two-tone brown, and would be my mother’s car for an unprecedented seven years. In Flint, we needed two cars for the first time. My mom needed to get out into our new community. We had relatives there – but, Mom had bigger plans. She was going to college! The local junior college (now called Mott College) expanded to become the Flint branch of the University of Michigan.  She would be in its first graduating class, 1960. As a part-time student she needed a car. That ’53 Chevy was it for the duration, nearly six years.

Dad meanwhile was assuming increased responsibility at the new Ternstedt plant on Coldwater Road. It would join many other GM manufacturing centers around the city. There were Buick “city” on the North side, and old “Chevrolet No. 1” on Chevrolet Avenue (dating back to the very first Chevys, in the teens). Fisher Body No. 1, almost as old, and scene of the famous 1936-37 sit-down strikes which gave birth to the UAW, and the halcyon days of the American labor movement. There was AC Spark Plug on the eastern edge of town, where my uncle worked in sales (also the workplace of Flintoid Michael Moore’s father).

 But, GM was engaged in massive expansion in fifties Flint – in addition to Ternstedt, there was the Van Slyke Chevrolet complex, which doubled or tripled Chevrolet capacity over old No. 1. It included the legendary “V8 engine plant” – hallowed ground for American car buffs.

Flint was rapidly becoming a “real city” – at first, the explosive population growth seemed to have no limits, but eventually dark clouds began to gather. By high school my entire cohort vowed never to return to Flint after college. We thought it a city without a soul.

Climbing the GM corporate ladder – even at the plant level – required symbols of authority, so my

father bought a succession of five Cadillacs in the mid-fifties. Their main purpose was to park in his reserved space in the plant’s lot – “Mr. Sundwick, Process Engng.”  But, they were also comfortable fun for our annual summer road trips. We traveled to Wisconsin (Mom’s family), New England, the Upper Peninsula (more Sundwick relatives); and ultimately, California in 1958, the last Cadillac.

To emphasize the utilitarian nature of these otherwise ostentatious rides, Dad selected entry level “62 Coupes” – they had whitewall tires by this time, but little else. There were roll-up windows, no A/C, no automatic headlight dimmers on the dash. The one exception was a 1956 Sedan de Ville, a four-door “hardtop” with power windows and power seat. Still no air (it was Michigan, after all).

At age 49, Dad suffered a serious heart attack, in the fall of 1956. His career path was truncated, since he was now a health risk for the corporation. He accepted the lowered aspirations by figuratively raising his middle finger – no more Cadillacs after 1958 (though he claimed reliability problems with that ’58 disenchanted him). Indeed, we sold that last Caddy, and replaced it before the end of the model year with the very lowest priced, “stripped down” Chevy one could buy – a back-to-basics 1958 Delray two-door. He drove it to work and parked in that same reserved space. What did people think? My mother registered embarrassment at neighbors’ inquiries. I was mortified, too. In 6^th grade, however, few classmates knew much of our family.

When we visited Washington, D.C. for our next summer road trip, we had already upgraded to a new ’59 Impala 4-door hardtop (called a “Sport Sedan”). And, it did have whitewalls! 

Frugality was becoming a theme in our family. College savings may have begun to weigh on my parents, despite Mom’s new job as a high school English teacher in Flint’s “suburbs.” We kept the ’59 Impala for another year, and a trip to New York. Finally, now that my mom was supplementing our income, we replaced her old ’53 Chevy -- with a funky little black Corvair sedan. This was a truly curious car. 1960 was the first year for Corvair, it had an air-cooled “pancake” rear engine like a VW! It did have white sidewalls. That low bar seems to have finally been crossed.

As I approached driver’s license age, both Mom and I wanted to recover some neighborhood social status. The result: my dad reluctantly agreed that our next car would be an Impala convertible – our only convertible ever! With my learner’s permit in the glovebox, it bothered me only slightly that it was my mom in the passenger seat when I tooled around the neighborhood with top down. The bright yellow ’61 had a white top, camel interior, and

not only whitewalls, but full wheel covers, rear antenna, and bumper guards! Yes, my dad was weakening. I even convinced him that power windows were a practical necessity with convertibles.

My dad drove the Corvair to work.

As the sixties progressed, we gradually moved up the GM product line again, but no more Cadillacs until my parents retired and moved to Florida following Dad’s second coronary. In 1962, it was another Olds, ten years after the previous example, then a Buick LeSabre, and a 1964 Pontiac Star Chief (our first car with air conditioning, despite summer road trip that year planned for Toronto and the New York World’s Fair). 

In 1965, we bought a truly sporty bright red Corvair Monza coupe with white vinyl interior (we were a two Corvair family for one year – Mom’s 1963 beige Monza was my high school choice for dates).

By the time I graduated from Flint Central High School in 1965, I had acquired a used 1956 Pontiac Chieftan 4-door hardtop, justified by my job as managing editor of “The Arrowhead,” the high school newspaper. I needed to zip around town during the day collecting advertising copy from local businesses. Mom needed her car for school in the “burbs.”

It was off to college in Kalamazoo the following fall. No car (not allowed for freshmen). My parents bought a pair of 1966 Buicks to celebrate my leaving. One for my dad (a stately Electra 225 sedan) and one for my mom (a midsize Skylark coupe). I enjoyed the Skylark when home on break – its

diminutive 300 cu. In. 2-bbl. V8 seemed surprisingly peppy (worth one speeding ticket).

That would be my final Flint fling, except I came back to visit Flint once as a college senior, with my girlfriend, in the graduation present from my parents -- a ’69 Opel Rallye Kadett (yellow with black bumblebee stripes and interior, flat black hood panels, husky 4-speed manual transmission, tachometer, and fairly potent 1.9- liter overhead cam four).

During their Florida retirement, the parents had drifted back to Cadillac. Coming full circle with a gold 1968 Coupe de Ville. It was huge. I drove it once or twice on errands. Giant 472 cu. In. V8, but I could hardly see the end of the hood in front of me when driving. I wondered if you could land aircraft on its deck!

For me, my parents’ life in Florida was increasingly remote. I moved to the Washington area in 1971 for grad school at College Park. I stayed here; they stayed there. Until I brought my mom up here, to a nursing home, when she was in the terminal stages of Parkinsons. She died here in 2007.

I have no recollection of driving any of their succession of Cadillacs and Buicks (there were several) after 1970. And, my choices in transportation were governed more by practicality than advertising or social status.

Psychologists protesting "Goldwater Rule" -- they say they can diagnose NPD perfectly well remotely, and Trump suffers from it!

Glimpsing the Terrible Twos

Sole Custody of a 22-month-Old for a Weekend

William Sundwick

Friday

Friday was dedicated to preparation for an awesome responsibility. We paternal grandparents were about to move into our Son and Daughter-in-law’s house for an entire weekend. Sure, we could make excursions to our house (only 15 minutes away) on both Saturday and Sunday, but we felt, and were advised by the parents of our only grandchild, that it would probably be best if he slept in his own room, and we were nearby. This is not the first time that 22-month-old Owen has been left for multiple days in the care of grandparents – but the first time it was the OTHER set of grandparents, and he was much younger.

He is now approaching “the terrible twos.” He has cognitive skills which translate into manipulative behavior. He has language (sort of). He doesn’t like being crossed.

Pickup from day care Friday went smoothly – a familiar routine for grandpa. But, this time would be different, and we did not know how much he understood about where “Mama” and “Dada” were for the weekend, or when they would return. Owen greeted his “Poppa” enthusiastically, as usual, introduced me to his “teachers” and his friend “Fisher” (yes, they have names!) -- but, I noticed something different. Instead of sauntering down the path to the gate, and confidently walking to the street, and home, with only a hand from Poppa to keep him close to the curb (no sidewalks in the neighborhood), he wanted to be carried all the way home -- 4 doors down. “Up,” he said soon as we reached the gate. I suggested he walk, let him down, but his outstretched arms signified his preference was otherwise.

Excitement again overcame anxiety when grandma “GiGi” arrived at Owen’s house (Grandma Gail -- she invented the name to distinguish herself from Grandma Cathy, who later chose the appellation “Lolly” for reasons unknown to us). He immediately sensed it was time to party. From experience, he knows that he’s allowed to shriek wildly when GiGi and Poppa are on watch –  an outdoor voice used indoors -- verboten by his parents, we think.

Dad had meticulously prepped us with alarms on our phones, both set for 6:45 P.M., with the authorized “twinkle” ring tone. This, in their Skinnerian world, was supposed to signal wind-down time – presumably post-dinner, pre-bath. The alarms went off, the pleasant ring tone sounding very baby-like. Owen was still relaxing over his Tortellini dinner (not scarfing it down, but not rejecting it either). All three of us sensed that bedtime was going to be later than the mutually agreed 7:15. He still needed a bath. But, this is OUR watch – so much to share, so many books and toys. So much to talk about. Owen now must name everything around him. Names for everything – it’s his enforcement of world order. It’s been months in the making. All those times he asked me, “Dat?” have now been assigned names. I’m sure most come from his parents – so, now he must share, with Poppa and GiGi, everything he knows.

And, the books. “Two stories, then to bed” his dad had said – hah! Owen has a well-stocked library in his room, and another in the living room. So many books. The Library of Congress would be envious. (Is it genetic? Both GiGi and Poppa have been lifers at LoC, and his mom is a childhood development specialist, Assistant Principal at a Pre-K through K charter school in DC. His dad has staked out a career in the mainstream media.)

We knew we would be honest about Owen’s real bedtime, but it certainly wasn’t going to fall inside the parameters of his parents’ decree.

And, it didn’t – about 8:15. But, he did sleep through the night. Friday.

Saturday

Saturday started out well – if early for Poppa and GiGi, around 6:30.  O. was in great spirits, though. He invaded the supposedly forbidden office, where we were sleeping on a double futon – and proceeded to take notice of his dad’s prodigious collection of Lego models (don’t touch!). We could tell he’d done this before, despite claims to the contrary from his father. He had names for all the exotic spacecraft (“airpanes”) and even the Main Street commercial diorama (“house”). When he grabbed the double-decker London bus from the desk, we knew he wouldn’t destroy it. He loves his father’s Legos. He carried it around with him most of the morning. He treated it with much more respect than the stuffed Elmo doll he found at our house on Sunday.  More on that later.

The main problem with Saturday was we just couldn’t squeeze in the physical activity prescribed for him (a playground?) – what with meals, transportation back to our house (a requirement for us), and need to schedule naptime. All we managed was a walk around our neighborhood with the stroller – some exercise for Poppa and GiGi, but none for Owen. Frankly, the sand covering the toddler portion of our neighborhood playground was a disincentive as well. We couldn’t help but think of bath time.

Result: no nap. It wasn’t for want of trying. In fact, we spent two hours reading, coaxing, cajoling – all to no avail. Just too much stuff to talk about, too much to share. At this point, we took notice that he wasn’t blue about missing his parents. Indeed, he explained to us that his parents had gone away, to see “Amy work” (his mom’s colleague from work whose wedding in Maine was the event that took them away for the weekend). We were impressed by his understanding – he may not be able to plan days ahead, but still seems to be aware of diurnal routines, and might even be able to count three nights without parents. I have evidence of him at least parroting the number “thee,” if not counting to three.

While reasonably adventurous about eating, being the offspring of two millennial foodie parents, he did show reluctance to try some of the food we had brought – notably cantaloupe and nectarines. But, we managed to hit a sweet spot with small pieces of grilled lemon-rosemary chicken breast (frozen from a previous Poppa/GiGi meal – excellent marinade and grilling technique, if I do say so myself!).

Sunday

This set of grandparents, at least, are not foodies. Sunday brunch at the local IHOP was the big event planned for the last day. But, first we had to deal with fitful wakefulness and coughing Saturday night, and a much too early arousal Sunday morning (before 6:00). The IHOP adventure was surprisingly successful – Owen enthusiastically downed most of an adult portion of French toast and fried egg.  Two pots of coffee were entirely consumed by Poppa and GiGi.

Back to our house again, both indoor and backyard play – somewhat more active than the previous day for O. Even indoors, he can run around our first-floor circuit – all open since we built on eight years ago, and greater circumference than the comparable circuit at his house.

Among his discoveries at our house Sunday was an old stuffed Elmo doll, left over from his Uncle Colin, 28 years ago. At first, Elmo seemed to fill its intended role as “lovie” – but, then Owen took to acting out a little drama with the doll. He would pick Elmo up, throw him onto the floor, and say “Oh No! [Elmo] Fall!”, then pick him up to comfort him – he did this repeatedly. Interesting exercise in culpability, if nothing else.

Elmo lives in a large plastic dump truck we keep for Owen in a closet.  After returning to his house for a nap, O observed and compared Elmo’s dump truck with his own similar Tonka model (an outdoor toy at his house, often filled with “dirt”), asking “where Elmo?”, and started to cry! As if that brief Kabuki performance at our house may have created an attachment of sorts.

Owen’s growing assertiveness, and familiarity with us, turned into open defiance by bedtime Sunday. Did he know this was his last chance to dominate, before Mama and Dada returned? As we were getting more confident about the rules we should enforce, it came time for going upstairs – bath, stories in his room, tuck him in. We knew the routine, and fully expected some resistance. What we saw Sunday night kicked it up a notch, though.

Owen completely understood what time it was (dinner done, those “twinkle” alarms clearly audible on both our phones). When Poppa stated firmly, “time to go upstairs, bath and stories, Owen!”, his response was equally firm. He climbed onto the living room sofa, grabbed a book from his living room library, and commanded, “Poppa read!”, as he opened the large picture book on his lap.  This was obvious contravention of Poppa’s dictate. He was not proceeding upstairs, or into Poppa’s arms. He was standing his ground.

The solution, we discovered, was to wait him out – don’t beg, don’t give in. Just ignore him for a few minutes. Go upstairs, yourself, prepare his bath, get his room ready for the usual post-bath routine. Don’t say anything to him. It worked after about five minutes (after all, if nobody came to read to him on the sofa, there was no fun!). As simple as this tactic seems, it was an important confidence-building exercise for Poppa. The young can teach the old.

Yes, bedtime was still an hour late, but if grandparents aren’t good for partying, what are they good for? When his parents returned home about 10:30, we breathed a sigh of relief. And, we confessed everything (much had already been revealed via texting over the weekend). Dad’s response was: “next time we do this at YOUR house!” It made sense – libertine grandparents like us should at least be restricted to their own home, not diluting parental authority in Owen’s home.

His mom chuckled – she knew that O would recover much faster than Poppa and GiGi! Poppa was home by 11:00, and rewarded himself with a strong Jim Beam nightcap – we were free.

The next day, GiGi received a text from her son: “Owen really missed you guys this morning!” – both of us could now imagine our grandson waking up crying, “Poppa, GiGi, where Poppa GiGi?” It would place us on a par with Elmo! Sweet revenge.

Who Do You Love? Bo Diddley’s Masterpiece

William Sundwick

On Chicago’s South Side, in the 1940s, a rich culture of recently arrived African-Americans from the rural South made for an enduring musical legacy. While not the sole birthplace of what we came to know as “Rock-and-Roll,” the neighborhood contributed a disproportionately large share of the artists who would ultimately spawn that new musical form. One of them was Ellas McDaniel. He was only six years old when his family moved from Mississippi to the South Side, and his early musical talent was fostered by playing in his school orchestra (violin and trombone). 

Sometime in his teens, he heard a performance by great bluesman John Lee Hooker. He was impressed and inspired. So, he formed a band of his own with school friends. After playing on street corners, they soon found gigs in neighborhood venues, before Ellas was even out of high school. He had taught himself guitar, and was heavily influenced by the rhythmic cadence of music heard in his Pentecostal church. 

His band kept playing. By 1955, at age 26, Chess Records finally discovered him. In one account, Leonard Chess decided that, since McDaniel’s first recording for them was a song entitled “Bo Diddley,” he would give the unknown artist the same name. Other accounts of the origins of the stage name credit it to McDaniel, his fellow band members, or unknown origin, but referencing the crude handmade single-string instrument from Mississippi called the “Diddly Bow.”

Chess was taking a risk releasing recordings from such non-entities, but some of them achieved great success. Bo Diddley would, too, but it was slow coming, by record industry standards. In 1956, when he first recorded “Who Do You Love?”, Chess was already skeptical. This may have partly been because McDaniel was banned from the Ed Sullivan show the previous year, after misunderstanding his cue card, reading “Bo Diddley,” to mean he should play his song by that name – rather than “Sixteen Tons,” as the script had directed! 

In the late fifties, McDaniel (by then well known in Rhythm and Blues circles as Bo Diddley), moved to Washington, D.C. He was prosperous enough to have his own basement recording studio on Rhode Island Avenue, N.E. Here he recorded his album “Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger” and discovered some local artists -- including Marvin Gaye, his valet, who sang in a Doo Wop group called The Marquees.

Part of the early Chess Records promotional campaign for McDaniel was to christen his unique syncopated R & B style the “Bo Diddley Beat.” This can be loosely described as a certain five accent clave. That first single, “Bo Diddley,” is a good example. But, in fact, McDaniel did not invent it – it was a previously recorded Afro-Cuban rhythm heard, among other places, in the Andrews Sisters’ “Rum and Coca Cola” (1944). Leonard Chess did encourage McDaniel to claim credit, however, as part of the general promotion of his name. 

Since the original version of “Who Do You Love” did not even feature that “Bo Diddley Beat” (it was closer in style to Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline”), there must be something else about the song that caused it to become the best-known of all Bo Diddley works –  based on the number of covers it’s received by different musicians.

Could it be the bizarre lyrics that make it such a masterpiece?  They were, according to the songwriter himself, based on children’s schoolyard bragging in Kansas City, animated by a rhythmic body language. We don’t know why McDaniel had been in K.C., or that schoolyard! But, the lyrics clearly have some strong Voodoo overtones (or, “hoodoo,” the Mississippi/Louisiana variant) – rather dark and threatening, describing a harrowing journey through barbed wire, wearing a cobra snake for a necktie, living in a house made of rattlesnake hide with a chimney “made out of a human skull.” Fearless, he is “just 22 and I don’t mind dying” – harsh to his girlfriend, Arlene, “don’t give me no lip”” – and the scene filled with cognitive dissonance: “the night was dark, but the sky was blue” and “you should have heard just what I seen.”

The original song also is easily adaptable, not only to the classic “Bo Diddley Beat,” but also to many different styles of rock music that developed through the sixties and seventies. It was a particularly popular cover for some of the California “psychedelic” bands. Perhaps this is attributable to the vaguely Southwestern imagery of rattlesnakes and barbed wire in the lyrics.

 The California connection for Who Do You Love was contemporaneous with another by a New England coffee house folk singer, Tom Rush. Rush recorded an early cover in 1966. His Who Do You Love had some of his smoother folk attributes. But, when recorded by Elektra Records, Rush’s version was transformed into a Rock-and-Roll staple, with that “Bo Diddley Beat.” This was the first version of the song I ever heard, played on WHFS-FM radio. Rush adopted a low-pitched growl for his vocal rendition, which captured both the blues culture and the dark Voodoo lyrics perfectly. It ultimately led to my wanting to learn more about the song, and about Bo Diddley.

At about the same time, Bo Diddley was becoming a cult on the Left Coast. One of the prime examples of the San Francisco psychedelic scene in the sixties was Quicksilver Messenger Service. Their second album, “Happy Trails,” features the entire first side dedicated to an extended jam on Who Do You Love, in six parts. Most of it is inspired more by Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead than by Bo Diddley, but if you listen carefully, through the haze, you can just barely make out the Bo Diddley Beat in parts, and the lyrics are faithfully reproduced – in between the extended guitar riffs. The great flexibility of the song to differing interpretations is on display in Quicksilver’s performance at Fillmore East in 1968.

My two favorite Who Do You Love covers are both by iconic figures from California. The Doors picked it up for a series of live performances in 1970. By this time in their career, Jim Morrison was drunk at many concerts, and the backup band – especially John Densmore (drums) and Robby Krieger (lead guitar) – often had to rescue him. Who Do You Love made that role easy. Morrison’s slurred speech fit the surreal lyrics well, with Densmore and Krieger were masterful in multiple recordings of the band doing the song on tour. The Bo Diddley Beat is unmistakable. As is the inherent raw power of the song.

By the late seventies, the blues revival was nearing its end – Led Zeppelin was on the verge of breaking up – but one California artist was having some success keeping it going. That was George Thorogood, with his band, The Destroyers. His second album, “Move It On Over,” contained many great blues numbers, often mashups of different Chicago blues classics, with altered lyrics, and transition chords created by Thorogood. “Who Do You Love,” one of his most enduring numbers was also here – Thorogood’s version adds a line to the lyrics: “good time music with a Bo Diddley Beat,” and a couple other minor changes – they fit perfectly, and the beat itself is adapted seamlessly. Thorogood’s “Who Do You Love” is a masterpiece all by itself. He may have been the best of the California R & B revival artists – maybe the last authentic “Who Do You Love” cover?

So, where are they today? Yes, we’ve seen blues guitarists more recently – notably Jack White – but, I’m not aware of any recent R & B or rock covers of Bo Diddley. The Proto-Punk, Punk, and Metal trends in rock seem to have passed him by. Who Do You Love would be eminently adaptable to any of these later styles, I could have seen Motorhead doing a cover of it, for example. 

But, alas, though such attempts may have been made, they were never released. Is it time for another revival? Surely, George Thorogood can’t be the last in a line … maybe another musical style would work better? How about jettisoning the “Bo Diddley Beat” altogether, like Elise LeGrow is doing? Not rock-and-roll, but …