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Bo Diddley (December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008) was an American rock and roll singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Often cited as a key figure in the transition from blues to rock and roll, he introduced more insistent, driving rhythms and a hard-edged guitar sound. He was also known for his characteristic rectangular guitar.
Bo Diddley was well known for the "Bo Diddley beat," a rumba-like beat (see clave), 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 "shave and a haircut" beat, Diddley came across it while trying to play Gene Autry's "(I've Got Spurs That) Jingle, Jangle, Jingle".5 Three years before Bo's "Bo Diddley", a song that closely resembles it, "Hambone", was cut by Red Saunders' Orchestra with The Hambone Kids.
In its simplest form, the Bo Diddley beat can be counted out as a two-bar phrase:
"One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and..." The bolded counts are the clave rhythm.His 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 own recordings, Bo Diddley used a variety of rhythms, from straight back beat to pop ballad style, frequently with maracas by Jerome Green.
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Once you saw Bo Diddley perform, you realized that he was a living legend. So much of what you read about him was either untrue or misinterpreted that you got the impression that the people writing, should have just listened instead. I read the song 'Bo Diddley' was played with one chord. They never tell you that Bo used various inversions while playing it. Bo was a showman who could easily eclipse any of his contemporaries as well as the "young comers."
bo diddley lived in archer, fla. which is where i was born. =P