135-640: Ellas Otha Bates (December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008), known professionally as Bo Diddley , was an American guitarist and singer who played a key role in the transition from the blues to rock and roll . He influenced many artists, including Buddy Holly , Elvis Presley , the Beatles , the Rolling Stones , the Animals , George Thorogood , Syd Barrett , and the Clash . His use of African rhythms and
270-685: A signature beat , a simple five- accent hambone rhythm , is a cornerstone of hip hop , rock , and pop music . In recognition of his achievements, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2003, and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2017. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award . Diddley
405-579: A "driving African rhythm and ham-bone beat". Beginning that same year, Diddley collaborated with various doo-wop vocal groups, using the Moonglows as a backing group on his first album, Bo Diddley , released in 1958. In one of the most well-known of his 1958 doo-wop sessions, Diddley added harmonies by the Carnations recording as the Teardrops, who sang smooth, polished doo-wop in the backgrounds on
540-502: A British usage of the 1600s referring to the "intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal". As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils and came to mean a state of agitation or depression. By the 1800s in the United States, the term "blues" was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase ' blue law ', which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. In 1827, it
675-496: A Grammy Award nomination in 1997 for the Best Contemporary Blues Album category. Diddley performed a number of shows around the country in 2005 and 2006, with fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Johnnie Johnson and his band, consisting of Johnson on keyboards, Richard Hunt on drums and Gus Thornton on bass. In 2006, he participated as the headliner of a grassroots -organized fundraiser concert to benefit
810-466: A Gunslinger and Have Guitar, Will Travel . These bolstered his self-invented legend. Between 1958 and 1963, Checker Records released eleven full-length Bo Diddley albums. In the 1960s, he broke through as a crossover artist with white audiences (appearing at the Alan Freed concerts, for example), but he rarely aimed his compositions at teenagers. Diddley was among those musicians who capitalized on
945-484: A banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar. The little-recorded Robert Johnson combined elements of urban and rural blues. In addition to Robert Johnson, influential performers of this style included his predecessors Charley Patton and Son House . Singers such as Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller performed in
1080-534: A big wave. In 1963, Diddley starred in a UK concert tour with the Everly Brothers and Little Richard along with the Rolling Stones (a little-known band at that time). Diddley wrote many songs for himself and also for others. In 1956, he and guitarist Jody Williams co-wrote the pop song " Love Is Strange ", a hit for Mickey & Sylvia in 1957, reaching number 11 on the chart. Mickey Baker claimed that he (Baker) and Bo Diddley's wife, Ethel Smith, wrote
1215-746: A blues and rock musician named Axman in the 1990 comedy film Rockula , directed by Luca Bercovici and starring Dean Cameron . In Legends of Guitar (filmed live in Spain in 1991), Diddley performed with Steve Cropper, B.B. King , Les Paul , Albert Collins , and George Benson , among others. He joined the Rolling Stones on their 1994 concert broadcast of Voodoo Lounge , performing " Who Do You Love? " at Joe Robbie Stadium, in Miami. In 1996, he released A Man Amongst Men , his first major-label album (and his final studio album) with guest artists like Keith Richards, Ron Wood and The Shirelles . The album earned
1350-415: A break; the harmony of this two-bar break, the turnaround, can be extremely complex, sometimes consisting of single notes that defy analysis in terms of chords. Much of the time, some or all of these chords are played in the harmonic seventh (7th) form. The use of the harmonic seventh interval is characteristic of blues and is popularly called the "blues seven". Blues seven chords add to the harmonic chord
1485-608: A carpenter and mechanic by playing on street corners with friends, including Jerome Green , in the Hipsters band, later renamed the Langley Avenue Jive Cats. Green became a near-constant member of McDaniel's backing band, the two often trading joking insults with each other during live shows. In the summers of 1943 and 1944, he played at the Maxwell Street market in a band with Earl Hooker . By 1951 he
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#17327803786541620-586: A center for electric blues from 1948 on, when Muddy Waters recorded his first success, "I Can't Be Satisfied". Chicago blues is influenced to a large extent by Delta blues , because many performers had migrated from the Mississippi region. Howlin' Wolf , Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. Their style
1755-399: A component of R&B. After World War II, new styles of electric blues became popular in cities such as Chicago , Memphis , Detroit and St. Louis . Electric blues used electric guitars , double bass (gradually replaced by bass guitar ), drums , and harmonica (or "blues harp") played through a microphone and a PA system or an overdriven guitar amplifier . Chicago became
1890-629: A four-hour "homegoing" service, took place on June 7, 2008, at Showers of Blessings Church in Gainesville, Florida. Many in attendance chanted "Hey Bo Diddley" as members of his band played a subdued version of the song. A number of notable musicians sent flowers, including Little Richard, George Thorogood , Tom Petty and Jerry Lee Lewis . 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,
2025-481: A half years as a deputy sheriff in the Valencia County Citizens' Patrol; during that time he purchased and donated three highway-patrol pursuit cars. In the late 1970s, he left Los Lunas and moved to Hawthorne , Florida , where he lived on a large estate in a custom-made log cabin, which he helped to build. For the remainder of his life he divided his time between Albuquerque and Florida, living
2160-542: A lengthy, rambling interview of Diddley, at his then home in the San Fernando Valley, California. Lydon described him as a "protean genius" whose songs were "hymns to himself", and led the published piece with a Diddley quote: "Everything I know I taught myself." Over the decades, Diddley's performing venues ranged from intimate clubs to stadiums. On March 25, 1972, he played with the Grateful Dead at
2295-635: A movement known as the Great Migration . The long boom following World War II induced another massive migration of the African-American population, the Second Great Migration , which was accompanied by a significant increase of the real income of the urban blacks. The new migrants constituted a new market for the music industry. The term race record , initially used by the music industry for African-American music,
2430-456: A note with a frequency in a 7:4 ratio to the fundamental note. At a 7:4 ratio, it is not close to any interval on the conventional Western diatonic scale . For convenience or by necessity it is often approximated by a minor seventh interval or a dominant seventh chord . In melody , blues is distinguished by the use of the flattened third , fifth and seventh of the associated major scale . Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce
2565-574: A novelty song written by Reese Palmer, lead singer of the Marquees. Diddley produced the session, with the group backed by his own band. They cut their first record, a single with "Wyatt Earp" on the A-side and "Hey Little School Girl" on the B-side, but it failed to become a hit. Diddley persuaded Moonglows founder and backing vocalist Harvey Fuqua to hire Gaye. Gaye joined the Moonglows as first tenor;
2700-599: A part in early blues, citing Robert Johnson 's " Cross Road Blues " as a "thinly veiled reference to Eleggua , the orisha in charge of the crossroads". However, the Christian influence was far more obvious. The repertoires of many seminal blues artists, such as Charley Patton and Skip James , included religious songs or spirituals. Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are examples of artists often categorized as blues musicians for their music, although their lyrics clearly belong to spirituals. The blues form
2835-569: A part of ragtime; Handy's signature work was the " Saint Louis Blues ". In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African American and American popular music, also reaching white audiences via Handy's arrangements and the classic female blues performers. These female performers became perhaps the first African American "superstars", and their recording sales demonstrated "a huge appetite for records made by and for black people." The blues evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theaters. Blues performances were organized by
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#17327803786542970-419: A recording career that began in 1926 and spanned forty years. These recordings were typically labeled " race records " to distinguish them from records sold to white audiences. Nonetheless, the recordings of some of the classic female blues singers were purchased by white buyers as well. These blueswomen's contributions to the genre included "increased improvisation on melodic lines, unusual phrasing which altered
3105-406: A separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. Blues became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of Afro-American community, the spirituals . The origins of spirituals go back much further than
3240-783: A session for BBC Radio 1 disc jockey John Peel on October 5, 1977. He also recorded in 1979 the tracks that later became the Catfish album of 1999, in London with Tony McPhee and the Groundhogs . In 1993, he released the album Back Where I Belong on Alligator Records , followed by Eldorado Cadillac (1995) and on Stony Plain Records with the Duke Robillard Band Boogie ’n’ Shuffle (2001). In 2012, Arnold released Blue and Lonesome featuring Tony McPhee and
3375-494: A single line repeated four times. However, the most common structure of blues lyrics today was established in the first few decades of the 20th century, known as the "AAB" pattern. This structure consists of a line sung over the first four bars, its repetition over the next four, and a longer concluding line over the last bars. This pattern can be heard in some of the first published blues songs, such as " Dallas Blues " (1912) and " Saint Louis Blues " (1914). According to W.C. Handy ,
3510-668: A song with similar syncopation "Hambone", was cut by the Red Saunders Orchestra with the Hambone Kids. In 1944, " Rum and Coca Cola ", containing the Bo Diddley beat, was recorded by the Andrews Sisters . Buddy Holly 's " Not Fade Away " (1957) and Them's " Mystic Eyes " (1965) used the beat. In its simplest form, the Bo Diddley beat can be counted out as either a one-bar or a two-bar phrase. Here
3645-463: A thumbs up, and said, 'Wow! I'm goin' to Heaven!' The song was 'Walk Around Heaven', and those were his last words." He was survived by his children, Evelyn Kelly, Ellas A. McDaniel, Pamela Jacobs, Steven Jones, Terri Lynn McDaniel-Hines, and Tammi D. McDaniel; a brother, the Rev. Kenneth Haynes; and eighteen grandchildren, fifteen great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. Diddley's funeral,
3780-470: A wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock developed, which blended blues styles with rock music . The term 'Blues' may have originated from "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness. An early use of the term in this sense is in George Colman 's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798). The phrase 'blue devils' may also have been derived from
3915-498: A young woman, disavows responsibility, and meets his undoing by the powers of the local hoodoo man. Hurston submitted it in a contest run by the academic journal Opportunity in 1925, where it won an honorable mention, but it was never published during her lifetime. A diddley bow is a homemade single-string instrument that survived in the American Deep South , especially in Mississippi. Played mainly by children,
4050-454: Is a cyclic musical form in which a repeating progression of chords mirrors the call and response scheme commonly found in African and African-American music. During the first decades of the 20th century blues music was not clearly defined in terms of a particular chord progression. With the popularity of early performers, such as Bessie Smith , use of the twelve-bar blues spread across
4185-461: Is also recognized for his technical innovations, including his use of tremolo and reverb effects to enhance the sound of his distinctive rectangular-shaped guitars. Bo Diddley was born in McComb, Mississippi , as Ellas Otha Bates (also stated as Otha Ellas Bates or Elias Otha Bates). He was the only child of Ethel Wilson, a sharecropper's teenaged daughter, and Eugene Bates, whom he never knew. Wilson
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4320-511: Is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. Arnold is a self-taught harmonica player and has worked with blues legends such as Bo Diddley , Johnny Shines , Otis Rush , Earl Hooker , Howlin' Wolf , Muddy Waters and others. Born in Chicago , Illinois , as one of 16 children, he began playing harmonica as a child, and in 1948 received informal lessons from his near neighbour John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson , shortly before
4455-403: Is characterized by the use of electric guitar, sometimes slide guitar, harmonica, and a rhythm section of bass and drums. The saxophonist J. T. Brown played in bands led by Elmore James and by J. B. Lenoir , but the saxophone was used as a backing instrument for rhythmic support more than as a lead instrument. Billy Boy Arnold William "Billy Boy" Arnold (born September 16, 1935)
4590-417: Is essentially the clave rhythm , one of the most common bell patterns found in sub-Saharan African music traditions . One scholar found this rhythm in 13 rhythm and blues recordings made in the years 1944–55, including two by Johnny Otis from 1948. Bo Diddley gave different accounts of how he began to use this rhythm. Ned Sublette says, "In the context of the time, and especially those maracas [heard on
4725-728: Is often associated with solo piano, boogie-woogie was also used to accompany singers and, as a solo part, in bands and small combos. Boogie-woogie style was characterized by a regular bass figure, an ostinato or riff and shifts of level in the left hand, elaborating each chord and trills and decorations in the right hand. Boogie-woogie was pioneered by the Chicago-based Jimmy Yancey and the Boogie-Woogie Trio ( Albert Ammons , Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis ). Chicago boogie-woogie performers included Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Earl Hines , who "linked
4860-497: Is often associated with the California blues style, performed a successful transition from the early urban blues à la Lonnie Johnson and Leroy Carr to the jump blues style and dominated the blues-jazz scene at Los Angeles during the 1940s. The transition from country blues to urban blues that began in the 1920s was driven by the successive waves of economic crisis and booms that led many rural blacks to move to urban areas, in
4995-649: Is the count as a one-bar phrase: One e and ah , two e and ah, three e and ah, four e and ah (the boldface counts are the clave rhythm). Many songs (for example, " Hey Bo Diddley " and " Who Do You Love? ") often have no chord changes; that is, the musicians play the same chord throughout the piece, so that the rhythms create the excitement, rather than having the excitement generated by harmonic tension and release . In his other recordings, Bo Diddley used various rhythms, from straight back beat to pop ballad style to doo-wop , frequently with maracas by Jerome Green. His 1955 rhythm and blues hit, "Bo Diddley", had
5130-406: Is ubiquitous in jazz , rhythm and blues , and rock and roll , and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale , and specific chord progressions , of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch , are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce
5265-764: The Academy of Music in New York City. The Grateful Dead released part of this concert as Volume 30 of the band's concert album series, Dick's Picks . Also in the early 1970s, the soundtrack of the ground-breaking animated film Fritz the Cat contained his song "Bo Diddley", in which a crow dances and finger-pops to the track. Diddley spent some years in New Mexico , living in Los Lunas from 1971 to 1978, while continuing his musical career. He served for two and
5400-482: The American South sometimes referred to as a jitterbug or a one-string in the early twentieth century) and the banjo are African-derived instruments that may have helped in the transfer of African performance techniques into the early blues instrumental vocabulary. The banjo seems to be directly imported from West African music. It is similar to the musical instrument that griots and other Africans such as
5535-608: The Count Basie Orchestra were also concentrating on the blues, with 12-bar blues instrumentals such as Basie's " One O'Clock Jump " and " Jumpin' at the Woodside " and boisterous " blues shouting " by Jimmy Rushing on songs such as "Going to Chicago" and " Sent for You Yesterday ". A well-known big band blues tune is Glenn Miller 's " In the Mood ". In the 1940s, the jump blues style developed. Jump blues grew up from
Bo Diddley - Misplaced Pages Continue
5670-558: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 : Backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time I said, backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time And I can't get no hearing from that Memphis girl of mine Although the blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be humorous and raunchy: Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, It may be sending you baby, but it's worrying
5805-587: The Igbo played (called halam or akonting by African peoples such as the Wolof , Fula and Mandinka ). However, in the 1920s, when country blues began to be recorded, the use of the banjo in blues music was quite marginal and limited to individuals such as Papa Charlie Jackson and later Gus Cannon . Blues music also adopted elements from the "Ethiopian airs", minstrel shows and Negro spirituals , including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment. The style also
5940-493: The Lincoln Theatre , and Diddley, impressed by their smooth vocal delivery, let them rehearse in his studio. Diddley got the Marquees signed to Columbia subsidiary label OKeh Records after unsuccessfully attempting to get them a contract with his own label, Chess . The OKeh label rivaled Chess in the promotion of rhythm and blues. On September 25, 1957, Diddley drove the group to New York City to record "Wyatt Earp",
6075-517: The Live Aid American stage to perform Thorogood's popular cover of Diddley's song Who Do You Love? ". In 1989, Diddley and his management company, Talent Source, entered into a licensing with the sportswear brand. The Wieden & Kennedy-produced commercial in the " Bo Knows " campaign teamed Diddley with dual sportsman Bo Jackson . The agreement ended in 1991, but in 1999, a T-shirt of Diddley's image and "You don't know diddley" slogan
6210-604: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 's 20th annual induction ceremony. In the UK, Uncut magazine included his 1957 debut album, Bo Diddley , in its listing of the '100 Music, Movie & TV Moments That Have Changed the World'. Bo Diddley was honored by the Mississippi Blues Commission with a Mississippi Blues Trail historic marker placed in McComb , his birthplace, in recognition of his enormous contribution to
6345-777: The Theater Owners Booking Association in nightclubs such as the Cotton Club and juke joints such as the bars along Beale Street in Memphis. Several record companies, such as the American Record Corporation , Okeh Records , and Paramount Records , began to record African-American music. As the recording industry grew, country blues performers like Bo Carter , Jimmie Rodgers , Blind Lemon Jefferson , Lonnie Johnson , Tampa Red and Blind Blake became more popular in
6480-554: The United States House of Representatives , describing him as "one of the true pioneers of rock and roll, who has influenced generations". In 2004, Mickey and Sylvia's 1956 recording of " Love Is Strange " (a song first recorded by Bo Diddley but not released until a year before his death) was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame as a recording of qualitative or historical significance. Also in 2004, Bo Diddley
6615-485: 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
6750-409: The degrees of the progression. For instance, for a blues in the key of C, C is the tonic chord (I) and F is the subdominant (IV). The last chord is the dominant (V) turnaround , marking the transition to the beginning of the next progression. The lyrics generally end on the last beat of the tenth bar or the first beat of the 11th bar, and the final two bars are given to the instrumentalist as
6885-468: The "AAB" pattern was adopted to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times. The lyrics are often sung in a rhythmic talk style rather than a melody, resembling a form of talking blues . Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative. African-American singers voiced their "personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, [and] hard times". This melancholy has led to
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#17327803786547020-438: The 1920s, among them "the big three"— Gertrude "Ma" Rainey , Bessie Smith , and Lucille Bogan . Mamie Smith , more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African American to record a blues song, in 1920; her second record, "Crazy Blues", sold 75,000 copies in its first month. Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", and Bessie Smith each "[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to
7155-428: The 1920s, when the record industry created the marketing categories " race music " and " hillbilly music " to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country", except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies. Though musicologists can now attempt to define
7290-541: The 708 Club, on Chicago's South Side, 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 " I'm a Man " and " Bo Diddley ". They re-recorded the songs at Universal Recording Corp. for Chess Records , with a backing ensemble comprising Otis Spann (piano), Lester Davenport (harmonica), Frank Kirkland (drums), and Jerome Green (maracas). The record
7425-403: The 9-bar progression in " Sitting on Top of the World ", by Walter Vinson . The basic 12-bar lyric framework of many blues compositions is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of 12 bars in a 4/4 time signature . The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a 12-bar scheme. They are labeled by Roman numbers referring to
7560-613: The African American community. Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle. The slide guitar became an important part of the Delta blues . The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished city or urban blues. Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only
7695-533: The African call-and-response tradition that transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar, the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African griots . Additionally, there are theories that the four-beats-per-measure structure of the blues might have its origins in the Native American tradition of pow wow drumming. Some scholars identify strong influences on
7830-561: The Groundhogs. Another tribute to Sonny Boy was the album The Blues Soul of Billy Boy Arnold (Stony Plain - SPCD 1378, 2014). In 2014, he was nominated for a Blues Music Award in the "Traditional Blues Male Artist of the Year" category. In November 2021, the University of Chicago Press published Billy Boy Arnold's first-person memoir, "The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold," written in collaboration with Kim Field. His younger brother
7965-502: The McDaniel family, and friends in mourning, for a video promoting his ABKCO Records release "Bo Diddley Special". Hastings is quoted as having said, "He was the rock that the roll was built on." In November 2009, the guitar used by Bo Diddley in his final stage performance sold for $ 60,000 at auction. In 2019, members of Bo Diddley's family sued to regain control of the music catalog held in trust by attorney Charles Littell. The family
8100-420: The back of a room". Smith would "sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed". In 1920, the vaudeville singer Lucille Hegamin became the second black woman to record blues when she recorded "The Jazz Me Blues", and Victoria Spivey , sometimes called Queen Victoria or Za Zu Girl, had
8235-554: The beginning of the 20th century. They are now lost. Other recordings that are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert . Later, several recordings were made by Robert W. Gordon , who became head of the Archive of American Folk Songs of the Library of Congress . Gordon's successor at the library was John Lomax . In the 1930s, Lomax and his son Alan made a large number of non-commercial blues recordings that testify to
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#17327803786548370-441: The blues are also closely related to the religious music of the African-American community, the spirituals . The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery , with the development of juke joints occurring later. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. The first publication of blues sheet music
8505-662: The blues from the melodic structures of certain West African musical styles of the savanna and sahel. Lucy Durran finds similarities with the melodies of the Bambara people , and to a lesser degree, the Soninke people and Wolof people , but not as much of the Mandinka people . Gerard Kubik finds similarities to the melodic styles of both the west African savanna and central Africa, both of which were sources of enslaved people. No specific African musical form can be identified as
8640-578: The blues in the same year in Missouri ; and W.C. Handy , who first heard the blues in Tutwiler, Mississippi , in 1903. The first extensive research in the field was performed by Howard W. Odum , who published an anthology of folk songs from Lafayette County, Mississippi , and Newton County, Georgia , between 1905 and 1908. The first non-commercial recordings of blues music, termed proto-blues by Paul Oliver , were made by Odum for research purposes at
8775-468: The blues is usually dated after the Emancipation Act of 1863 , between 1860s and 1890s, a period that coincides with post- emancipation and later, the establishment of juke joints as places where African-Americans went to listen to music, dance, or gamble after a hard day's work. This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production, and
8910-530: The blues narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric forms thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural south, notably the Mississippi Delta . Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as " songsters " rather than blues musicians. The notion of blues as
9045-411: The blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns , in particular those of Isaac Watts , which were very popular. Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of spirituals. It was the low-down music played by rural blacks. Depending on
9180-485: The boogie-woogie wave and was strongly influenced by big band music. It uses saxophone or other brass instruments and the guitar in the rhythm section to create a jazzy, up-tempo sound with declamatory vocals. Jump blues tunes by Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner , based in Kansas City, Missouri , influenced the development of later styles such as rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Dallas-born T-Bone Walker , who
9315-476: The days following his death, tributes were paid by then-President George W. Bush , the United States House of Representatives , and musicians and performers including B. B. King , Ronnie Hawkins , Mick Jagger , Ronnie Wood , George Thorogood , Eric Clapton , Tom Petty , Robert Plant , Elvis Costello , Bonnie Raitt , Robert Randolph and the Family Band and Eric Burdon . Burdon used video footage of
9450-615: The development of the blues in Mississippi. On June 5, 2009, the city of Gainesville, Florida, officially renamed and dedicated its downtown plaza the Bo Diddley Community Plaza. The plaza was the site of a benefit concert at which Bo Diddley performed to raise awareness about the plight of the homeless in Alachua County and to raise money for local charities, including the Red Cross . The "Bo Diddley beat"
9585-411: The diddley bow in its simplest form was made by nailing a length of broom wire to the side of a house, using a rock placed under the string as a movable bridge, and played in the style of a bottleneck guitar, with various objects used as a slider. The apparent consensus among scholars is that the diddley bow is derived from the monochord zithers of central Africa. On November 20, 1955, Diddley appeared on
9720-479: The emphasis and impact of the lyrics, and vocal dramatics using shouts, groans, moans, and wails. The blues women thus effected changes in other types of popular singing that had spin-offs in jazz, Broadway musicals , torch songs of the 1930s and 1940s, gospel , rhythm and blues , and eventually rock and roll ." Urban male performers included popular black musicians of the era, such as Tampa Red , Big Bill Broonzy and Leroy Carr . An important label of this era
9855-429: The expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the development of blues music in the early 1900s as a move from group performance to individualized performance. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people. According to Lawrence Levine, "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon
9990-480: The fall of 2006, he commented on racism in the music industry establishment during his early career. Diddley sold the rights to his songs early on, and until 1989 he received no royalties from the most successful part of his career. 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 . He contributed guitar work to
10125-410: The four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African-Americans. Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa . The origins of
10260-492: The fundraiser, Diddley stated, "This is the United States of America. We believe in helping one another". The all-star band included members of the Soul Providers, and famed artists Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band, Joey Covington of Jefferson Airplane, Alfonso Carey of The Village People, and Carl Spagnuolo of Jay & The Techniques. In an interview with Holger Petersen, on Saturday Night Blues on CBC Radio in
10395-417: The genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performers. However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. Call-and-response shouts were an early form of blues-like music; they were a "functional expression ... style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure". A form of this pre-blues
10530-439: The group then moved to Detroit with the hope of signing with Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr. Diddley included women in his band: Norma-Jean Wofford , also known as The Duchess; Gloria Jolivet; Peggy Jones , also known as Lady Bo, a lead guitarist (rare for a woman at that time); and Cornelia Redmond, also known as Cookie V. In early 1971, writer-musician Michael Lydon, a founding editor of Rolling Stone , conducted
10665-751: The hell out of me. Hokum blues celebrated both comedic lyrical content and a boisterous, farcical performance style. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom 's " It's Tight Like That " (1928) is a sly wordplay with the double meaning of being " tight " with someone, coupled with a more salacious physical familiarity. Blues songs with sexually explicit lyrics were known as dirty blues . The lyrical content became slightly simpler in postwar blues, which tended to focus on relationship woes or sexual worries. Lyrical themes that frequently appeared in prewar blues, such as economic depression, farming, devils, gambling, magic, floods and drought, were less common in postwar blues. The writer Ed Morales claimed that Yoruba mythology played
10800-454: The huge variety of proto-blues styles, such as field hollers and ring shouts . A record of blues music as it existed before 1920 can also be found in the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly and Henry Thomas . All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct from twelve- , eight- , or sixteen-bar . The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known. The first appearance of
10935-434: The individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." Levine stated that "psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did." There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because
11070-676: The last 13 years of his life in Archer, Florida , a small farming town near Gainesville . In 1979, he appeared as an opening act for the Clash on their US tour. In 1983, he made a cameo appearance as a Philadelphia pawn shop owner in the comedy film Trading Places . He also appeared in George Thorogood's music video for the song "Bad to the Bone," portraying a guitar-slinging pool shark. In 1985, he appeared on George Thorogood's set, alongside fellow blues legend Albert Collins , on
11205-635: The late 1950s Arnold continued to play in Chicago clubs and in 1963 he recorded an LP, More Blues From The South Side , for the Prestige label, but as playing opportunities dried up he pursued a parallel career as a bus driver and, later parole officer. By the 1970s, Arnold had begun playing festivals, touring Europe and recording again, including as part of the American Blues Legends '75 package organised by Big Bear Music . He recorded
11340-428: The late star as a one-of-a-kind musician, adding, "We will never see his like again". The documentary film Cheat You Fair: The Story of Maxwell Street by director Phil Ranstrom features Bo Diddley's last on-camera interview. He achieved numerous accolades in recognition of his significant role as one of the founding fathers of rock and roll. In 2003, U.S. Representative John Conyers paid tribute to Bo Diddley in
11475-470: The latter's death. Arnold made his recording debut in 1952 with "Hello Stranger" on the small Cool label, the record company giving him the nickname "Billy Boy". In the early 1950s, he joined forces with street musician Bo Diddley and played harmonica on the March 2, 1955 recording of the Bo Diddley song " I'm a Man " released by Checker Records . The same day as the Bo Diddley sessions, Billy Boy recorded
11610-650: The low rate of literacy among rural African Americans at the time. Reports of blues music in southern Texas and the Deep South were written at the dawn of the 20th century. Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippi , and Gate Thomas reported similar songs in southern Texas around 1901–1902. These observations coincide more or less with the recollections of Jelly Roll Morton , who said he first heard blues music in New Orleans in 1902; Ma Rainey , who remembered first hearing
11745-543: The mid-1960s surfing and beach party craze in the United States, and released the albums Surfin' with Bo Diddley and Bo Diddley's Beach Party . These featured heavy, distorted blues, played on his Gretsch guitar with bended notes and minor key riffs, unlike the clean, undistorted sounds of the Fender guitars used by the California surf bands. The cover of Surfin' with Bo Diddley had a photograph of two surfers riding
11880-525: The music industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Other chord progressions, such as 8-bar forms, are still considered blues; examples include " How Long Blues ", " Trouble in Mind ", and Big Bill Broonzy 's " Key to the Highway ". There are also 16-bar blues , such as Ray Charles 's instrumental "Sweet 16 Bars" and Herbie Hancock 's " Watermelon Man ". Idiosyncratic numbers of bars are occasionally used, such as
12015-414: The popular television program The Ed Sullivan Show . According to legend, when someone on the show's staff overheard him casually singing " Sixteen Tons " in the dressing room, he was asked to perform the song on the show. One of Diddley's later versions of the story was that upon seeing "Bo Diddley" on the cue card, he thought he was to perform both his self-titled hit single and "Sixteen Tons". Sullivan
12150-495: The propulsive left-hand rhythms of the ragtime pianists with melodic figures similar to those of Armstrong's trumpet in the right hand". The smooth Louisiana style of Professor Longhair and, more recently, Dr. John blends classic rhythm and blues with blues styles. Another development in this period was big band blues. The " territory bands " operating out of Kansas City , the Bennie Moten orchestra, Jay McShann , and
12285-561: The record], 'Bo Diddley' has to be understood as a Latin-tinged record. A rejected cut recorded at the same session was titled only 'Rhumba' on the track sheets." The Bo Diddley beat is similar to " hambone ", a style used by street performers who play out the beat by slapping and patting their arms, legs, chest, and cheeks while chanting rhymes. Somewhat resembling the "shave and a haircut, two bits" rhythm, Diddley came across it while trying to play Gene Autry 's "(I've Got Spurs That) Jingle, Jangle, Jingle ". Three years before his "Bo Diddley",
12420-458: The religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel singers and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, when rural black music began to be recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music
12555-456: The savannah, are conspicuously absent. According to the historian Paul Oliver , "the roots of the blues were not to be found in the coastal and forest regions of Africa. Rather... the blues was rooted in ... the savanna hinterland, from Senegambia through Mali, Burkina Faso, Northern Ghana, Niger, and northern Nigeria". Additionally, ethnomusicologist John Storm Roberts has argued that "The parallels between African savanna-belt string-playing and
12690-546: The self-penned "You Got to Love Me" which was not released until the box set Chess Blues 1947–1967 in 1992. Arnold signed a solo recording contract with Vee-Jay Records , recording the originals of " I Wish You Would " and "I Ain’t Got You". Both were later covered by the Yardbirds . "I Wish You Would" was also recorded by David Bowie on his 1973 album Pin Ups and by Sweet on their 1982 album, Identity Crisis . In
12825-515: The single direct ancestor of the blues. However the call-and-response format can be traced back to the music of Africa . That blue notes predate their use in blues and have an African origin is attested to by "A Negro Love Song", by the English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor , from his African Suite for Piano , written in 1898, which contains blue third and seventh notes . The Diddley bow (a homemade one-stringed instrument found in parts of
12960-488: The song "Seventeen", which was included as a bonus track on the limited-edition version of the disc. In May 2007, Diddley suffered a stroke after a concert the previous day in Council Bluffs, Iowa . Nonetheless, he delivered an energetic performance to an enthusiastic crowd. A few months later he had a heart attack. While recovering, Diddley came back to his hometown of McComb, Mississippi, in early November 2007, for
13095-422: The song. Diddley also wrote "Mama (Can I Go Out)", which was a minor hit for the pioneering rockabilly singer Jo Ann Campbell , who performed the song in the 1959 rock and roll film Go Johnny Go . After moving from Chicago to Washington, D.C., Diddley built his first home recording studio in the basement of his home at 2614 Rhode Island Avenue NE. Frequented by several of Washington, D.C.'s musical luminaries,
13230-472: The songs "I'm Sorry", "Crackin' Up", and "Don't Let it Go". Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts , chants , and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture . The blues form
13365-446: The songs "can't be sung without a full heart and a troubled spirit", conditions that have inspired countless blues songs. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, when Hart Wand 's " Dallas Blues " became the first copyrighted blues composition. In lyrics, the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. Early traditional blues verses often consisted of
13500-406: The southeastern "delicate and lyrical" Piedmont blues tradition, which used an elaborate ragtime-based fingerpicking guitar technique. Georgia also had an early slide tradition, with Curley Weaver , Tampa Red , "Barbecue Bob" Hicks and James "Kokomo" Arnold as representatives of this style. The lively Memphis blues style, which developed in the 1920s and 1930s near Memphis, Tennessee ,
13635-585: The studio was the site where he recorded the Checker LP (Checker LP-2977) Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger . Diddley also produced and recorded several up-and-coming groups from the Washington, D.C. area. One of the first groups he recorded was local doo-wop group the Marquees, featuring Marvin Gaye and baritone-bass Chester Simmons, who moonlighted as Diddley's chauffeur. The Marquees appeared in talent shows at
13770-533: The suggestion of an Igbo origin for blues, because of the reputation the Igbo had throughout plantations in the Americas for their melancholic music and outlook on life when they were enslaved. Other historians have argued that there is little evidence of Sub-Sahelian influence in the blues as "elaborate polyrhythm, percussion on African drums (as opposed to European drums), [and] collective participation" which are characteristic of West-Central African music below
13905-507: The techniques of many blues guitarists are remarkable. The big kora of Senegal and Guinea are played in a rhythmic-melodic style that uses constantly changing rhythms, often providing a ground bass overlaid with complex treble patterns, while vocal supplies a third rhythmic layer. Similar techniques can be found in hundreds of blues records". The lyrics often relate troubles experienced within African American society. For instance Blind Lemon Jefferson 's "Rising High Water Blues" (1927) tells of
14040-640: The time of his death. On May 13, 2007, Diddley was admitted to intensive care in Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska , following a stroke after a concert the previous day in Council Bluffs, Iowa . 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. The next day, as he
14175-571: The town of Ocean Springs, Mississippi , which had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina . The "Florida Keys for Katrina Relief" had originally been set for October 23, 2005, when Hurricane Wilma barreled through the Florida Keys on October 24, causing flooding and economic mayhem. In January 2006, the Florida Keys had recovered enough to host the fundraising concert to benefit the more hard-hit community of Ocean Springs. When asked about
14310-450: The trance-like rhythm and call-and-response, and they form a repetitive effect called a groove . Characteristic of the blues since its Afro-American origins, the shuffles played a central role in swing music . The simplest shuffles, which were the clearest signature of the R&;B wave that started in the mid-1940s, were a three-note riff on the bass strings of the guitar. When this riff
14445-447: The trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove . Blues music is characterized by its lyrics , bass lines , and instrumentation . Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern , consisting of a line sung over
14580-532: The unveiling of a plaque devoted to him on the Mississippi Blues Trail . This marked his achievements and noted 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 Diddley wanted to perform and handed him a microphone, the only time that he performed publicly after his stroke. Bo Diddley
14715-647: The weekend of the funeral. He remembered Diddley at the concerts, performing his namesake tune. Eric Burdon of the Animals flew to Gainesville to attend the service. After the funeral service, a tribute concert was held at the Martin Luther King Center in Gainesville, featuring guest performances by his son and daughter, Ellas A. McDaniel and Evelyn "Tan" Cooper; long-time background vocalist (and original Boette), Gloria Jolivet, and long-time bassist and bandleader, Debby Hastings, Eric Burdon, and former Bo Diddley & Offspring guitarist, Scott Free. In
14850-519: Was 18. However, he was more interested in the joyful, rhythmic music he heard at a local Pentecostal Church and took up the guitar; his first recordings were based on that frenetic church music. Diddley said he thought that the trance-like rhythm he used in his rhythm and blues music came from the Sanctified churches he had attended as a youth in his Chicago neighborhood. Inspired by a John Lee Hooker performance, Diddley supplemented his income as
14985-540: Was a formally trained musician, composer and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban habanera rhythm that had long been
15120-511: Was a free-born black woman from Pennsylvania who was working as a schoolteacher in South Carolina, instructing both slaves and freedmen, and wrote that she "came home with the blues" because she felt lonesome and pitied herself. She overcame her depression and later noted a number of songs, such as "Poor Rosy", that were popular among the slaves. Although she admitted being unable to describe the manner of singing she heard, Forten wrote that
15255-423: Was a local comedian's name, which Leonard Chess adopted as McDaniel's stage name and the title of his first single. McDaniel also stated that his school classmates in Chicago gave him the nickname, which he started using when sparring and boxing in the neighborhood with The Little Neighborhood Golden Gloves Bunch. In the 1921 story "Black Death", by Zora Neale Hurston , Beau Diddely was a womanizer who impregnates
15390-399: Was closely related to ragtime , which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved "the original melodic patterns of African music". The musical forms and styles that are now considered the blues as well as modern country music arose in the same regions of the southern United States during the 19th century. Recorded blues and country music can be found as far back as
15525-477: Was five years old, Gussie McDaniel moved with him and her three children to the South Side of Chicago; he later dropped Otha from his name and became Ellas McDaniel. He was an active member of Chicago's Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church , where he studied the trombone and the violin , becoming so proficient on the violin that the musical director invited him to join the orchestra, in which he played until he
15660-402: Was followed by a heart attack, which he suffered in Gainesville on August 28, 2007. Bo Diddley died on June 2, 2008, of heart failure at his home in Archer, Florida, at the age of 79. Many family members were with him when he died at 1:45 am. EDT at his home. His death was not unexpected. "There was a Gospel song that was sung, at his bedside, and when it was done, he opened his eyes, gave
15795-470: Was furious and banned Diddley from his show, reputedly saying that he would not last six months. Chess Records included Diddley's cover of "Sixteen Tons" on the 1963 album Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger . Diddley's hit singles continued in the 1950s and 1960s: " Pretty Thing " (1956), " Say Man " (1959), and " You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover " (1962). He also released numerous albums, including Bo Diddley Is
15930-492: Was heading back home, he seemed dazed and confused at the airport, and 911 was called, and he was immediately taken by ambulance to Creighton University Medical Center where he stayed for several days. He was then flown to Shands Hospital in Gainesville, where it was confirmed that he had suffered a stroke. 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). The stroke
16065-457: Was heard in slave ring shouts and field hollers , expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content". Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Although blues (as it is now known) can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and
16200-416: Was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues , Delta blues and Piedmont blues , as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues . World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to
16335-440: Was in the sense of a sad state of mind that John James Audubon wrote to his wife that he "had the blues". In Henry David Thoreau 's book Walden , he mentions "the blues" in the chapter reflecting on his time in solitude. He wrote his account of his personal quest in 1845, although it was not published until 1854. The phrase "the blues" was written by Charlotte Forten , then aged 25, in her diary on December 14, 1862. She
16470-472: Was inducted into the Blues Foundation 's Blues Hall of Fame and was ranked number 20 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2005, Bo Diddley celebrated his 50th anniversary in music with successful tours of Australia and Europe and with coast-to-coast shows across North America. He performed his song "Bo Diddley" with Eric Clapton and Robbie Robertson at
16605-581: Was influenced by jug bands such as the Memphis Jug Band or the Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers . Performers such as Frank Stokes , Sleepy John Estes , Robert Wilkins , Kansas Joe McCoy , Casey Bill Weldon and Memphis Minnie used a variety of unusual instruments such as washboard , fiddle , kazoo or mandolin . Memphis Minnie was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. Pianist Memphis Slim began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style
16740-506: Was married four times. His first marriage, at 18, to Louise Willingham, lasted a year. Diddley married his second wife Ethel Mae Smith in 1949; they had two children. He met his third wife, Kay Reynolds, when she was 15, while performing in Birmingham, Alabama . They soon moved in together and married, despite taboos against interracial marriage . They had two daughters. He married his fourth wife, Sylvia Paiz, in 1992; they were divorced at
16875-670: Was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart. The American sheet music publishing industry produced a great deal of ragtime music. By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues", by Baby Franklin Seals (arranged by Artie Matthews ); "Dallas Blues", by Hart Wand ; and " The Memphis Blues ", by W.C. Handy . Handy
17010-439: Was only sixteen, and being unable to support a family, she gave her cousin, Gussie McDaniel, permission to raise her son. McDaniel eventually adopted him, and he assumed her surname. Diddley denied ever having the name "Otha" in a 2001 interview, saying "I don't know where they got that 'Otha' from", but his website, maintained by his estate, confirms it as his middle name. After his adoptive father Robert died in 1934, when Diddley
17145-420: Was played over the bass and the drums, the groove "feel" was created. Shuffle rhythm is often vocalized as " dow , da dow , da dow , da" or " dump , da dump , da dump , da": it consists of uneven, or "swung", eighth notes. On a guitar this may be played as a simple steady bass or it may add to that stepwise quarter note motion from the fifth to the sixth of the chord and back. Hart Wand 's " Dallas Blues "
17280-412: Was playing on the street with backing from Roosevelt Jackson on washtub bass and Jody Williams , who had played harmonica as a boy but took up guitar in his teens after he met Diddley at a talent show, with Diddley teaching him some aspects of playing the instrument, including how to play the bass line. Williams later played lead guitar on " Who Do You Love? " (1956) In 1951, he landed a regular spot at
17415-430: Was published in 1912; W.C. Handy 's " The Memphis Blues " followed in the same year. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith 's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford 's " Crazy Blues ". But the origins of the blues were some decades earlier, probably around 1890. This music is poorly documented, partly because of racial discrimination in U.S. society, including academic circles, and partly because of
17550-532: Was purchased in a Gainesville, Florida, sports apparel store. Diddley felt that Nike should not continue to use the slogan or his likeness and fought Nike over the copyright infringement. Despite the fact that lawyers for both parties could not come to a renewed legal arrangement, Nike allegedly continued marketing the apparel and ignored cease-and-desist orders, and a lawsuit was filed on Diddley's behalf, in Manhattan Federal Court. Diddley played
17685-482: Was released in March 1955, and the A-side , "Bo Diddley", became a number one R&B hit. The origin of the stage name Bo Diddley is unclear. McDaniel said his peers gave him the name, which he suspected was an insult. Diddly is a truncation of diddly squat , which means "absolutely nothing". Diddley also said that the name first belonged to a singer his adoptive mother knew. Harmonicist Billy Boy Arnold said that it
17820-507: Was replaced by the term rhythm and blues . This rapidly evolving market was mirrored by Billboard magazine's Rhythm & Blues chart . This marketing strategy reinforced trends in urban blues music such as the use of electric instruments and amplification and the generalization of the blues beat, the blues shuffle , which became ubiquitous in rhythm and blues (R&B). This commercial stream had important consequences for blues music, which, together with jazz and gospel music , became
17955-444: Was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement. City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate, as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community, and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic. Classic female urban and vaudeville blues singers were popular in
18090-579: Was successful in appointing a new trustee, music industry veteran Kendall Minter. The family was represented by Charles David of Florida Probate Law Group in the 2019 lawsuit. Bo Diddley was posthumously awarded a Doctor of Fine Arts degree by the University of Florida for his influence on American popular music. In its People in America radio series, about influential people in American history,
18225-555: Was the Chicago-based Bluebird Records . Before World War II, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with Scrapper Blackwell on guitar, a format that continued well into the 1950s with artists such as Charles Brown and even Nat "King" Cole . Boogie-woogie was another important style of 1930s and early 1940s urban blues. While the style
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