Bo Diddley:BO DIDDLEY, who has died of heart failure aged 79, was belatedly acknowledged as one of the most widely copied pioneers of rock'n'roll music, but he did not bother to hide his disgust about the decades he had spent struggling for the recognition he felt was his due.
He had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in 1987and was added to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1989. In 1996, he was given a lifetime achievement award at the Rhythm & Blues Foundation pioneer awards, and another lifetime award from the Grammys in 1998.
But, as Bo pointed out: "It didn't put no figures in my chequebook. It just told people they thought enough of Bo Diddley for me to be honoured by putting my name on something, which was really great, but it didn't put no bucks in my kitty."
Born Otha Ellas Bates in McComb, Mississippi, his surname changed to McDaniel in his infancy when he was adopted by his mother's cousin, Gussie McDaniel. He moved to Chicago when he was eight. The fateful name change to "Bo Diddley" occurred during his teens, though Diddley was never certain how the name came about. "I don't know where they got it, but the kids in grammar school gave me that name," he recalled.
He became involved in music while still at school, singing on street corners, learning the guitar and performing with the Hipsters and the Langley Avenue Jive Cats. He had even begun studying the classical violin, but it was when he heard bluesman John Lee Hooker that he was inspired towards blues and R&B.
It was not until 1955 that Diddley earned himself a recording deal with Chicago's Checker label, a subsidiary of Marshall Chess's famous Chess Records. The company had been impressed with his demo recordings of I'm a Man, You Don't Love Meand his theme tune Bo Diddley and duly released the latter as his first single. It went to number two on the US R&B charts, boosted by having the sizzling I'm a Manfor its B-side.
With his first release, Diddley had imprinted his trademark style on the world. The records with which he would regularly blitz the charts throughout the 1950s were pile-driving performances packed with grinding guitar riffs, bluesy harmonica and his familiar paint-stripping vocals, all roped together around the spine-rattling rhythms that have remained his most distinctive characteristic.
Until 1962, the hits kept on coming, from Who Do You Loveand Crackin' Up to Road Runnerand You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover. Despite his long streak of success, he was nonetheless heard mostly on the R&B charts, with only the jokey Say Man in 1959 crossing over to the pop charts.
Diddley would later claim that for all his hits, he was never paid royalties throughout these years. "I am owed," he said darkly. "I've never got paid. A dude with a pencil is worse than a cat with a machine gun."
Racial segregation was still a fact of American life and Diddley was less than amused when he saw the way in which white artists were able to exploit aspects of his style to achieve major crossover pop success. Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away was built on his version of the classic Bo Diddley beat.
In Britain, any number of artists, including the Yardbirds, the Animals, the Pretty Things and the Rolling Stones, revered Diddley and either covered his songs or wrote their own Diddleyised material. When Bo toured Britain in 1963, the Stones were on the same bill and dropped all Diddley songs from their set as a mark of respect.
With new artists emerging during the pop boom of the 1960s, Diddley slipped from the musical forefront. He always maintained a vigorous touring schedule, but new recordings arrived only intermittently after the mid-60s, and his material never matched the force of his classics. Even if Diddley felt he had never been paid what he was owed, successive generations of musicians continued to be aware of his primordial influence on rock'n'roll.
In 1973, he recorded The London Bo Diddley Sessionswith several British musicians, including Roy Wood of Wizzard.The same year filmgoers saw Bo in Let the Good Times Roll, alongside such contemporaries as Bill Haley and Little Richard. He also featured in DA Pennebaker's documentary, Keep On Rockin'. In 1976, RCA released 20th Anniversary of Rock 'n'Roll, a tribute to Diddley featuring a stellar roll call including Alvin Lee, Joe Cocker, Keith Moon, Billy Joel and Roger McGuinn.
In 1979, The Clash asked him to open for them on their American tour. In 1983, he made a cameo appearance in the Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy comedy, Trading Places and in 1989, he performed at the Celebration for Young Americans at George Bush snr's presidential inauguration.
Money problems continued to dog him, but he gained some relief in 1994 when a Los Angeles judge awarded him $400,000 from the estate of his dead manager, Martin Otelsberg.
He once lamented that "me and Chuck Berry are the ones that opened the doors and broke the ice, but everybody does not understand what we contributed to this thing called rock'n'roll".
Diddley celebrated his half-century as a musician in 2005 by touring Europe, Australia and the US. The following year, he headlined a fundraising concert in the Florida Keys to benefit Ocean Springs, Mississippi, a town devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
In May 2007, he had a stroke after a gig in Council Bluffs, Iowa, but within a month had recovered sufficiently to be discharged from a hospital near his home in Archer, Florida, where he lived with his fourth wife, Sylvia Paiz.
He is survived by Sylvia and four children from previous marriages.
Bo Diddley (Otha Ellas Bates); born December 30th, 1928; died June 2nd, 2008.