Sadly, one of rock’n'roll’s founding fathers, Bo Diddey, died of heart failure in his Florida home yesterday, age 79.
Born as Ellas Bates on Dec. 30, 1928, in McComb, Mississippi, Diddley was later adopted by his mother’s cousin and took on the name Ellis McDaniel, which his wife always called him.
When he was 5, his family moved to Chicago, where he learned the violin at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. He learned guitar at 10 and entertained passers-by on street corners.
By his early teens, Diddley was playing Chicago’s Maxwell Street. “I came out of school and made something out of myself. I am known all over the globe, all over the world. There are guys who have done a lot of things that don’t have the same impact that I had,” he said.
The name Bo Diddley came from other youngsters when he was growing up in Chicago, he said in a 1999 interview. “I don’t know where the kids got it, but the kids in grammar school gave me that name,” he said, adding that he liked it so it became his stage name. Other times, he gave somewhat differing stories on where he got the name. Some experts believe a possible source for the name is a one-string instrument used in traditional blues music called a diddley bow.
His first single, “Bo Diddley,” introduced record buyers in 1955 to his signature rhythm: bomp ba-bomp bomp, bomp bomp, often summarized as “shave and a haircut, two bits” or as the “Bo Diddley beat.” This distinctive rhythm pattern was picked up from Diddley by other artists and has been a distinctive and recurring element in rock’n'roll through the decades. It can be heard on Buddy Holly’s Not Fade Away (later covered by the Rolling Stones, giving them their first US chart single in 1964), Johnny Otis’s Willie and the Hand Jive the Strangeloves’ I Want Candy, the Who’s Magic Bus and Bruce Springsteen’s She’s the One – to name just a few. British band, the Yardbirds, had a Top 20 hit in the U.S. with their version of Diddley’s I’m a Man in 1965.
The legendary singer and performer, perhaps best known for his homemade square guitar, dark-framed glasses and black hat, was an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, had a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, and received a lifetime achievement award in 1999 at the Grammy Awards. Bo Diddley may be gone, but his music and far-reaching influence lives on.
This week’s slab of old gold is, naturally, a Bo Diddley record. My personal favourite Bo Diddley record, in fact, from 1966. And I’m gonna let the music do all the talking:
Bo Diddley – We’re Gonna Get Married
and the flip-side ain’t half bad neither…
Bo Diddley – Do The Frog
Rest in peace Bo.
