"Say Man" is a song by American musician
Bo Diddley. Written under his real name of Ellas McDaniel, it was recorded by Bo Diddley in 1958 and released as a single in 1959 on
Checker 931.
The recording became his biggest US pop hit, reaching number 20 on the
Hot 100
The ''Billboard'' Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online streaming ...
, and number three on the
R&B chart.
It arose from a
jam session
A jam session is a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp over tunes, drones, songs, and chord progressions. To "jam" is to improvise music without exte ...
between Diddley and his
maracas player
Jerome Green, and featured Diddley and Green trading insults in the style of the word game known as
The Dozens.
Bo Diddley said of the song: "A lot of the things I did in the Chess studios, we were just goofin' around... They played it back, and it shocked all of us! Of course, they cut out all the dirty parts." Music critic
Maury Dean
Maury Dean is an American musician, author and professor at Suffolk County Community College, whose book "The Rock Revolution" is in the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame and the Smithsonian.
Music
Dean taught a "History of Rock N' Roll" course as well ...
, while rejecting the idea that the track is "the first
rap song", says that it is "the first major soul tune to feature a total spoken patter of pal put-downs to a rockin' beat.... Bo's lightning right hand chops chords like sugar cane. The incessant beat throbs into the hot American evening nocturne of streetwise savvy. Rap - with a side of ghetto-blast humor."
Maury Dean, ''Rock and Roll: Gold Rush'', Algora Publishing, 2003, p.59
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The recording also appeared on the album '' Go Bo Diddley''.
References
1959 singles
Bo Diddley songs
1958 songs
Songs written by Bo Diddley
{{Bo Diddley