On this 30th day of December in 1928 electric Chicago Blues and early Rock n Roll pioneer Bo Diddley was born Elias McDaniel in McComb, MS. Bo Diddley is a true legend. Although he may not have had the number of charted hits that his Chess labelmate Chuck Berry rang up, his influence was as far-reaching.His trademark hypnotic beat, influenced by early John Lee Hooker records, influenced many early Rock n Rollers in the 50s, especially Buddy Holly, and the British bands of the 60s, such as the Yardbirds, The Animals and The Rolling Stones, and was the bedrock for early Reggae. Ellas Otha Bates (December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008), known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American R&B vocalist, guitarist and songwriter (usually as Ellas McDaniel). He was also known as The Originator because of his key role in the transition from the blues to rock and roll, and rock, influencing a host of acts, including The Animals, Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Parliament Funkadelic, The Velvet Underground, The Who, The Yardbirds, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Eric Clapton,[1] Elvis Presley,[2] and The Beatles,[3] among others.[4] He introduced more insistent, driving rhythms and a hard-edged electric guitar sound on a wide-ranging catalog of songs, along with African rhythms and a signature beat (a simple five-accent clave rhythm) that remains a cornerstone of hip hop, rock and pop.[3][4][5] Accordingly, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation[4][6] and a Grammy Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He was known in particular for his technical innovations, including his trademark rectangular guitar. Early life and career Born in McComb, Mississippi, as Elias Otha Bates,[7] he was adopted and raised by his mothers cousin, Gussie McDaniel, whose surname he assumed, becoming Elias McDaniel. In 1934, the McDaniel family moved to the largely black South Side area of Chicago, where the young man dropped the name Otha and became known as Elias McDaniel, until his musical ambitions demanded that he take on a more catchy identity. In Chicago, he was an active member of his local Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he studied the trombone and the violin, becoming proficient enough on the latter for the musical director to invite him to join the orchestra, with which he performed until the age of 18. He was more impressed, however, by the pulsating, rhythmic music he heard at a local Pentecostal Church, and he also became interested in the guitar.[8][9] External video Oral History, Bo Diddley shares early moments of his life story. interview date June 23, 2005, NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) Oral History Library Inspired by a concert where he saw John Lee Hooker perform,[4] he supplemented his work as a carpenter and mechanic with a developing career playing on street corners with friends, including Jerome Green (c. 1934–1973),[10] in a band called The Hipsters (later The Langley Avenue Jive Cats). Greene would become a near constant member of McDaniels backing band, and the two would often trade joking insults with each other during live shows.[11][unreliable source?]During the summer of 1943–44, he played for people at the Maxwell Street market in a band with Earl Hooker.[12] By 1951 he was playing on the street with backing from Roosevelt Jackson (on washtub bass) and Jody Williams (whom he had taught to play the guitar).[13][14] Williams later played lead guitar on Who Do You Love? (1956).[13] In 1951 he landed a regular spot at the 708 Club on Chicagos South Side,[11] with a repertoire influenced by Louis Jordan, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters. In late 1954, he teamed up with harmonica player Billy Boy Arnold, drummer Clifton James, and bass player Roosevelt Jackson, and recorded demos of Im A Man and Bo Diddley. They re-recorded the songs at Chess Studios with a backing ensemble comprising Otis Spann (piano), Lester Davenport (harmonica), Frank Kirkland (drums), and Jerome Green (maracas). The record was released in March 1955, and the A-side, Bo Diddley, became a number one R&B hit.[citation needed] Stage name McDaniel adopted the stage name Bo Diddley. The origin of the name is somewhat unclear, as several differing stories and claims exist. Diddley claims that his peers gave him the nickname, which he first suspected to be an insult.[15] Bo Diddley himself said that the name first belonged to a singer his adoptive mother was familiar with, while harmonicist Billy Boy Arnold once said in an interview that it was originally the name of a local comedian that Leonard Chess borrowed for the song title and artist name for Bo Diddleys first single, and guitar craftsman Ed Roman reported that another (unspecified) source says it was his nickname as a Golden Gloves boxer.[16] A diddley bow is a typically homemade American string instrument of African origin, probably influenced by instruments found on the coast of west Africa.[17] The American slang phrase bo diddly meaning absolutely nothing goes back possibly to the early 20th century or earlier. Diddly is a truncation of diddly-squat, retaining the same meaning[18] of nothing[19] and bo is an intensifier.[20] Success in the 1950s and 1960s On November 20, 1955, he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, a popular television variety show, where he infuriated the host. I did two songs and he got mad, Bo Diddley later recalled. Ed Sullivan said that I was one of the first colored boys to ever double-cross him. Said that I wouldnt last six months. The show had requested that he sing the Merle Travis-penned Tennessee Ernie Ford hit Sixteen Tons, but when he appeared on stage, he sang Bo Diddley instead. This substitution resulted in his being banned from further appearances. The request came about because Sullivans people heard Diddley casually singing Sixteen Tons in the dressing room. Diddleys accounts of the event were inconsistent.[21] Diddley was an excellent story teller whose stories varied from time to time, however, Diddley contended to friends and family that he was not trying to double-cross Sullivan and attributed the misunderstanding to the fact that when he saw Bo Diddley on a cue card, he was under the impression he was to perform two songs, Bo Diddley and Sixteen Tons. Chess included Diddleys recording of Sixteen Tons on the album Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger,[22] which was originally released in 1960.[23] He continued to have hits through the rest of the 1950s and even the 1960s, including Pretty Thing (1956), Say Man (1959), and You Cant Judge a Book by the Cover (1962). He released a string of albums whose titles, including Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger and Have Guitar, Will Travel, bolstered his self-invented legend.[11] Between 1958 and 1963, Checker Records released 11 full-length albums by Bo Diddley. Although he broke through as a crossover artist with white audiences (appearing at the Alan Freed concerts, for example) during the early 1960s,[11] he rarely tailored his compositions to teenage concerns. The album title Surfing with Bo Diddley was a boast about his influence on surf guitarists. In 1963, he starred in a UK concert tour with the Everly Brothers and Little Richard. The Rolling Stones, still barely known outside London at that time, appeared as a supporting act on the same bill. In addition to the many songs Diddley recorded, in 1956 he and guitarist Jody Williams co-wrote the pioneering pop song Love Is Strange, a hit for Mickey & Sylvia in 1957.[24] Bo Diddley long included women in his band: The Duchess Norma-Jean Wofford, Gloria Jolivet, Peggy Jones (aka Lady Bo, a rare, for the time, female lead guitarist), Cornelia Redmond (aka Cookie), and Debby Hastings, who led his band for the final 25 years of his performing career. After moving from his home in Chicago to Washington, D.C., he set up one of the first home recording studios where he not only recorded the album Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger but he recorded his valet, Marvin Gaye. The Diddley-penned, Wyatt Earp was a single released on Okeh Records, since the Chess brothers did not want to release the record. Also during this time, Moonglows founder Harvey Fuqua who sang background on many of Diddleys home studio recordings was introduced to Gaye, and asked him to join the Moonglows. When Fuqua went to Motown, Gaye followed.[4] Later years Bo Diddley touring Japan with Japanese band Bo Gumbos Over the decades, Bo Diddleys venues ranged from intimate clubs to stadiums. On March 25, 1972, he played with The Grateful Dead at the Academy of Music in New York City. The Grateful Dead released part of this concert as Volume 30 of the bands Dicks Picks concert album series. Also in the early 1970s, the soundtrack for the ground-breaking animated film Fritz The Cat contained his song Bo Diddley, in which a crow idly finger-pops along to the track. Bo Diddley spent many years in New Mexico, living in Los Lunas, New Mexico from 1971 to 1978 while continuing his musical career. He served for two and a half years as Deputy Sheriff in the Valencia County Citizens Patrol; during that time he purchased and donated three highway patrol pursuit cars.[25] In the late 1970s, Diddley left Los Lunas and moved to Hawthorne, Florida where he lived on a large estate in a custom made log-cabin home, which he helped to build. For the remainder of his life he spent time between Albuquerque, New Mexico and Florida, living the last 13 years of his life in Archer, Florida, a small farming town near Gainesville. He appeared as an opening act for The Clash in their 1979 US tour; in Legends of Guitar (filmed live in Spain, 1991) with B.B. King, Les Paul, Albert Collins, George Benson, among others, and joined The Rolling Stones as a guest on their 1994 concert broadcast of Voodoo Lounge, performing Who Do You Love? with the band. Sheryl Crow and Robert Cray also appeared on the pay-per-view special. Diddleys final vocal performance on a studio album, was with the band Munkeez Strikin Matchiz on their 2005 album - BananAtomic Mass. He cowrote the song Wreck it and was joined by Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell and rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy. His final guitar performance on a studio album was with the New York Dolls on their 2006 album - One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This. Bo supplied guitar work to the song Seventeen which was included as a Bonus Track on the limited edition copies of the disc. Illness On May 13, 2007, Bo Diddley was admitted to intensive care in Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, following a stroke after a concert in Council Bluffs, Iowa on May 12.[26] Starting the show, he had complained that he did not feel well. He referred to smoke from the wildfires that were ravaging South Georgia and blowing south to the area near his home in Archer, Florida. Nonetheless, he delivered an energetic performance to an enthusiastic crowd. The next day, as Diddley was heading back home, he seemed dazed and confused at the airport. His manager, Margo Lewis, called 911 and airport security and Diddley was immediately taken by ambulance to Creighton University Medical Center and admitted to the Intensive-care unit, where he stayed for several days. After numerous tests, it was confirmed that he had suffered a stroke.[27] Diddley had a history of hypertension and diabetes, and the stroke affected the left side of his brain, causing receptive and expressive aphasia (speech impairment).[28] The stroke was followed by a heart attack, suffered in Gainesville, Florida, on August 28, 2007.[29] While recovering from the stroke and heart attack, Diddley came back to his home town of McComb, Mississippi, in early November 2007 for the unveiling of a plaque devoted to him on the National Blues Trail stating that he was acclaimed as a founder of rock and roll. He was not supposed to perform, but as he listened to the music of local musician Jesse Robinson who sang a song written for this occasion, Robinson sensed that he wanted to perform and handed him a microphone. That was the first and last time that Bo Diddley performed publicly after suffering a stroke.[30] Death Bo Diddley died on June 2, 2008 of heart failure at his home in Archer, Florida.[31][32] Garry Mitchell, a grandson of Diddley and one of more than 35 family members at the musicians home when he died at 1:45 am EDT (05:45 GMT), said his death was not unexpected. There was a gospel song that was sung (at his bedside) and (when it was done) he said wow with a thumbs up, Mitchell told Reuters, when asked to describe the scene at Diddleys deathbed. The song was Walk Around Heaven and in his last words he said Im going to heaven.[33] His funeral, a four-hour homegoing service, took place on June 7, 2008, at Showers of Blessings Church in Gainesville, Florida and kept in tune with the vibrant spirit of Bo Diddleys life and career. The many in attendance chanted Hey Bo Diddley as a gospel band played the legends music. A number of notable musicians sent flowers, including: George Thorogood, Tom Petty, and Jerry Lee Lewis.[34][35] Little Richard, who had been asking his audiences to pray for Bo Diddley throughout his illness, had to fulfill concert commitments in Westbury and New York City the weekend of the funeral. He took time at both concerts to remember his friend of a half-century, performing Bo Diddleys namesake tune in his honor.[36] After the funeral service, a tribute concert was held at the Martin Luther King Center, also in Gainesville, and featured performances by his son and daughter, Anthony McDaniel and Evelyn Kelly, long-time background vocalist Gloria Jolivet, co-producer Scott Skyntyte Free, Diddleys touring band, The Debby Hastings Band, and guest artist Eric Burdon. In the days following his death, tributes were paid to him by then-President George W. Bush, the United States House of Representatives, and an uncounted number of musicians and performers, including Eric Burdon, Elvis Costello, Ronnie Hawkins, Mick Jagger, B. B. King, Tom Petty, Robert Plant, Bonnie Raitt, George Thorogood, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Eric Clapton and Ronnie Wood. He was posthumously awarded a Doctor of Fine Arts degree by the University of Florida for his influence on American popular music and in its People in America radio series about influential people in American history, the Voice of America radio service paid tribute to him, describing how his influence was so widespread that it is hard to imagine what rock and roll would have sounded like without him. Mick Jagger stated that he was a wonderful, original musician who was an enormous force in music and was a big influence on The Rolling Stones. He was very generous to us in our early years and we learned a lot from him. Jagger also praised the late star as a one of a kind musician, adding, We will never see his like again.[1] The documentary film Cheat You Fair: The Story of Maxwell Street by director Phil Ranstrom features Bo Diddleys last on-camera interview.[37] In November 2009, the guitar used by Diddley in his final stage performance sold for $60,000 at auction.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 18:12:24 +0000
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