Sometimes lost in the carefully tailored “greatest hits” collections that eventually sum up many music legend’s careers is just how crazy and messy their music actually was. Bo Diddley is best known for a handful of hits and key tracks (“I’m a Man,” “Bo Diddley,” “Who Do You Love,” “Say Man,” “Before You Accuse Me”) and his “shave and a haircut / two bits” rhythm attack, but the man was a recording artist who enjoyed experimenting with sound and persona and built his own recording studio in Washington, D.C., long before many of his contemporaries ever considered the idea. This collection from 1960-61 captures Bo’s wild and varied side: instrumental pieces, doo-wop ballads, off-hand improvisations, folk tunes, blues standards — anything the man could pull together. It’s a rough, pure look at one of early rock ‘n’ roll’s most formidable influences. Seventeen tracks are previously unreleased with many others also being obscurities known only to Diddley’s hardcore loyalists. But it doesn’t take a hardcore fan to enjoy the soulful pathos of “Love Me” or the silly bounce of “Funny Talk” or the kooky menace of “Bring Them Back Alive (Funny Talk).” Just open ears.