It is now more than 60 years since Ellas McDaniel wrote and then released ‘Who Do You Love?’ under the name of Bo Diddley, one of the great pioneers of rock & roll music. Since that time there have been countless cover versions of the song from the 60’s American psychedelic rock band Quicksilver Messenger Service who devoted an entire side of their second album Happy Trails to it, right through to East Kilbride’s finest The Jesus and Mary Chain for whom Bo Diddley was undoubtedly a personification of Christ himself.
The latest person to take a tilt at the Bo Diddley classic is Elise LeGrow and the 30-year-old Canadian recording artist and songwriter makes a pretty damn good fist of it. ‘Who Do You Love?’ is the second single to be taken from her debut album Playing Chess which sees LeGrow re-evaluate eleven songs taken from the deep vaults of the legendary Chicago blues label Chess Records.
Elise LeGrow’s interpretation of ‘Who Do You Love?’ has her diluting much of the original’s menace and malevolence and replacing its inherent danger with a delightfully shuffling sultry sophistication from which the song just oozes a barely suppressed sensuality.
If ‘Who Do You Love?’ is to be our yardstick then Playing Chess – produced by soul and R&B legend Betty Wright, head of the S-Curve Records label Steve Greenberg, and studio maestro Michael Mangini, the self-same team that was behind Joss Stone’s multi-platinum Soul Sessions – could well be the record that finally puts the name of Elise LeGrow onto a much wider musical map.
