Bo Diddley "The Mighty ... Ain't It Good To Be Free" 1984

At this point, Diddley began displaying a social conscience in his lyrics, and these efforts, while well-meaning, are uniformly embarrassing. "Ain't It Good to Be Free" would like to have been Diddley's take on Merle Haggard's "Fightin' Side of Me," but it has nothing of the latter's wit or sense of purpose; "Gotta Be a Change" and "I Don't Want Your Welfare" ("If you wanna give me something/Give me a job," Diddley declares in the chorus) might have been compelling in third-person anecdotal form rather than first-person invective...
...Diddley was never a top seller on the order of his Chess rival Chuck Berry, but over the next half-dozen or so years, he'd produce a catalog of classics that rival Berry's in quality. "You Don't Love Me," "Diddley Daddy," "Pretty Thing," "Diddy Wah Diddy," "Who Do You Love?," "Mona," "Road Runner," "You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover" -- all are stone-cold standards of early, riff-driven rock roll at its funkiest. Oddly enough, his only Top 20 pop hit was an atypical, absurd back-and-forth rap between him and Jerome Green, "Say Man," that came about almost by accident as the pair were fooling around in the studio.
As a live performer, Diddley was galvanizing, using his trademark square guitars and distorted amplification to produce new sounds that anticipated the innovations of '60s guitarists like Jimi Hendrix. In Great Britain, he was revered as a giant on the order of Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters. the Rolling Stones in particular borrowed a lot from Bo's rhythms and attitude in their early days, although they only officially covered a couple of his tunes, "Mona" and "I'm Alright." Other British RB groups like the Yardbirds, Animals, and Pretty Things also covered Diddley standards in their early days. Buddy Holly covered "Bo Diddley" and used a modified Bo Diddley beat on "Not Fade Away"; when the Stones gave the song the full-on Bo treatment (complete with shaking maracas), the result was their first big British hit. - Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
Bo Diddley: guitar, vox, moog / Tammi Deanne McDaniel: vox, drums / Scitt Deverin Smith: vox, guitar / Ronnie Mack Haughbrook: bass, vox / Terri Lynne McDaniel-Bridge: organ, moog, vox

traxfromwax:
1. Ain't It Good To Be Free 2. Bo Diddley Put The Rock In Rock'N'Roll 3. Gotta Be Change 4. I Don't Want Your Welfare 5. Mona, Where's Your Sister 6. Stabilize Yourself 7. I Don't Know Where I've Been 8. I Ain't Gonna Force It On You 9. Evil Woman 10. Let The Fox Talk