Diddley, Bo

Related Category: Music: Popular and Jazz: Biographies

1928–, pioneering African-American rock-and-roll singer, guitarist, and songwriter, b. near McComb, Miss., as Otha Ellas Bates. He and his cousin, Gussie McDaniel, who raised him and whose last name he adopted, moved to Chicago when he was five. He studied violin, received his first guitar in 1940, and acquired the nickname “Bo Diddley” (probably from the single-stringed folk instrument called a diddley bow). Within a decade he was performing in South Side clubs, often playing a unique rectangular electric guitar. Diddley became known for his pounding signature beat (bom ba-bom bom, bom bom; later an essential component of rock music) and for his guitar effects, jive talk, and strutting onstage style. He reached a wider audience with the release (1955) of his first record, containing “Bo Diddley” and “I'm a Man.” He had a number of other hits, but is perhaps most important for his powerful influence on generations of rockers, e.g., Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, and Bruce Springsteen. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

See G. R. White, Bo Diddley: Living Legend (1998).