{"id":1137004,"date":"2026-08-08T02:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T02:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1137004\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T02:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T02:30:18","slug":"the-1961-elvis-presley-hit-that-owed-itself-to-bo-diddley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1137004\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1961 Elvis Presley hit that owed itself to Bo Diddley"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bo<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ masao nakagami \/ Alamy<\/p>\n

Sat 8 August 2026 0:00, UK <\/p>\n

Elvis Presley<\/a> is, it hardly needs to be said, an utterly unavoidable figure in the history and birth of rock and roll rebellion. <\/p>\n

For many, he was the first de facto rock star to grace the airwaves, and his sheer volume of hits largely speaks for itself. If Elvis truly was \u2018The King\u2019 of rock, though, then why was one of his biggest hits indebted to Bo Diddley?\u00a0<\/p>\n

At this point in time, it isn\u2019t much of a revelation that most white rock and roll stars were borrowing heavily from their underappreciated black counterparts during the early days of rock and roll \u2013 Presley, for instance, lifted \u2018Hound Dog\u2019 from Big Mama Thornton \u2013 but Bo Diddley seemed to appear in more recordings than most<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The pioneering guitarist, with his homemade instruments and trailblazing approach, had a colossal impact on the scene, even if it wasn\u2019t always quite as commercially successful as those whom he inspired. <\/p>\n

Such was the extent of his influence, in fact, that the \u2018Bo Diddley beat\u2019 became a recognisable pattern employed in dozens of legendary songs. A syncopated rhythm itself owing to a lot of Afro-Cuban and Latin music, the beat got its title after being used to great effect in Bo Diddley\u2019s self-titled 1955 masterpiece song, but it found a natural home within the realm of rock and pop, and Elvis Presley benefited from it more than most. <\/p>\n

Perhaps Presley\u2019s most famous use of the Bo Diddley rhythm arrived in 1961, in the form of the legendary hit \u2018(Marie\u2019s the Name) His Latest Flame\u2019<\/a>. Written by regular Elvis collaborators Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, but first recorded by Del Shannon, \u2018His Latest Flame\u2019 was a major success story for Presley, spending four weeks at the top of the UK singles chart and peaking at number four in his native USA. <\/p>\n

More importantly, in fact, the song helped to extend Presley\u2019s legendary run of commercial smashes, which began to tail off shortly thereafter, in 1962. You could even argue that it was songs like \u2018His Latest Flame\u2019 which proved, once and for all, that Presley wasn\u2019t a mere flash-in-the-pan success during the early days of rock and roll; he was a true cultural icon whose influence over the airwaves was second to none. <\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n

Diddley was always a major influence on Presley, going right back to the pre-rock days of the greasy-haired performer, and with that 1961 single, he laid his appreciation for the guitarist bare, earning himself a triumphant hit in the process. <\/p>\n

It might not have been Presley\u2019s biggest hit or his most iconic track, but \u2018(Marie\u2019s the Name) His Latest Flame\u2019 is among the most important songs of the rockstar\u2019s career, both for its chart triumph and as a result of its Bo Diddley beat. <\/p>\n

Elvis Presley might go down in history as \u2018The King\u2019, but \u2018His Latest Flame\u2019 can certainly be added to the mountain of evidence that his title was perhaps misplaced. While nobody could doubt the impact of the performer, it is worth noting that, without the likes of Bo Diddley, Presley wouldn\u2019t have existed in the first place, and he certainly wouldn\u2019t have carved out tracks like \u2018His Latest Flame\u2019. If not \u2018The King\u2019, Bo Diddley was certainly the progenitor of rock and roll. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ masao nakagami \/ Alamy Sat 8 August 2026 0:00, UK Elvis Presley is, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1137005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3936],"tags":[40416,286466,309152,34221,77,269,123796,16,15],"class_list":["post-1137004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1960s","tag-286466","tag-bo-diddley","tag-elvis-presley","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rock-and-roll","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117057541142414156","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1137004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1137005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1137004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1137004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1137004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}