After
Howlin' Wolf made the Billboard album charts in 1970 with his London Howlin' Wolf Sessions release, Chess duly began preparing similarly titled albums by its remaining roster of stars --
Muddy Waters and
Chuck Berry followed the
Wolf -- and in 1973 this
Bo Diddley release came along. Actually, a lot of it was done in Chicago, with the London portion of the sessions added, seemingly to justify the title. And it did sell better than
Bo's other original albums of this era. It remains in print on compact disc, one of a only handful of his albums so released. As with
Muddy Waters' London Muddy Waters Sessions album,
Bo's presence was somewhat overwhelmed by the massive number of session musicians involved (well-meaning though they may have been) and more so, because
Bo was still looking for a new sound, whereas
Muddy knew what he was about. The songs are pretty fair -- a mix of soul and funk -- with elements of his old sound, and this is probably the best compromise he achieved during this phase of his career, between the old and the new. ~ Bruce Eder