You Don’t Know Diddley

He was born in McComb, Mississippi as Elias Otha Bates. Adopted and raised by his mother's cousin, he took her family name and became Elias McDaniel. Moving to Chicago when he was seven, he saw John Lee Hooker play the guitar, and there was no turning back. As a man, he assumed the name of one of his early hits, the harbinger of his signature sound, slingin' that signature homemade box-shaped guitar -- "Bo Diddley."

It was a southern black slang meaning "nothing at all," as in "he ain't bo diddley," or "you don't know diddley." There was also the two-stringed "diddley bow" that was popular among field hands "back in the day."

But to most of the world, it was name of that sound, that amplification of "shave and a haircut, two bits," that came out with a rumba, hambone type rhythm, more like "bomp ba-bomp bomp, bomp bomp."

In the late 1980's he teamed with Bo Jackson in the Nike infamous Bo Knows commericals. Saying his one line "Bo you don't know Diddley!"

He was a major influence of both early and later white rockers -- Buddy Holly, The Who, Bruce Springsteen, and Elvis Costello, in that order. Bo didn't copy anybody, and didn't much care for it when others copied him.

In the late 1980s, he appeared in a Nike commercial with Bo Jackson, for the famous "Bo Knows" commercials. His famous one liner: "Bo you don't know Diddley." Back then, my brother-in-law had that tee-shirt. I searched high and low for a tee-shirt like that.

But for all his apparent success, Diddley didn't make diddley, being part of an early generation of black blues-rockers who were "discovered" by white producers who paid him a flat fee and walked off with the royalties, which usually resulted in pawning them off on the mainstream white artists of the time. Even as he was touring in the 1970s and 1980s, he worked as an officer of the law in New Mexico for many years. Nevertheless, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. In 2004, he was number 20 on Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time."

With a history of hypertension and diabetes, Bo had a stroke in May of last year. He returned to McComb, MS, to be honored one last time.

Bo died yesterday of heart failure at his home in Archer, Florida. He was 79. Surrounded by dozens of family members as he passed on, one of them, grandson Garry Mitchell, told Reuters: "There was a gospel song that was sung and he said 'wow' with a thumbs up," Mitchell told Reuters, when asked to describe the scene at Diddley's deathbed. "The song was 'Walk Around Heaven' and in his last words he stated that he was going to heaven."

He was The Originator. He was the Grandfather of Rock and Roll. And if you don't know Bo, you don't know Diddley.

[Sources: Associated Press, Reuters, Wikipedia, Various and Sundry Recollections.]
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