Bo Diddley: the beat, the square guitar and the Originator | Ultimate Guitarist Reunion

Why fans still care

BO DIDDLEY put a rhythm on a record in 1955 and players have been reaching for it ever since. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame calls him “the Originator”. His first single, Bo Diddley, went to number 1 on the R&B chart, and the Library of Congress added it and its B-side, I’m a Man, to the National Recording Registry.

The critic Robert Christgau is careful about the claim. He says Bo didn’t invent the “swung three-and-two”, he isolated it and built a whole record around it. NPR names Eric Clapton, Who’s Who number 3, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Who’s Who number 6 and Bruce Springsteen, Who’s Who number 17 in · Ultimate Eagles Reunion (story coming soon) among those who carried the beat on.

Early life

He was born in McComb, Mississippi, on 30 December 1928, and raised in Chicago by a relative, Gussie McDaniel, whose surname he took. Premier Guitar calls her his mother’s first cousin.

Before the guitar there was the violin. He studied it classically as a boy, and Premier Guitar traces his fast scratching across a few strings back to that bowing arm. He took up guitar at 12 after hearing John Lee Hooker.

As a teenager he built a square guitar of his own, clamping a Victrola needle housing to the tailpiece as a pickup. “Somebody stole the square guitar I built,” he told Vintage Guitar in 1997. He said he worked the beat out at about 15 or 16, banging away on a guitar.

Career chapters

1. 1928Born in McComb, Mississippi
2. 1951A regular spot at the 708 Club in Chicago, by the estate’s account
3. 1955Bo Diddley and I’m a Man on Checker; number 1 on the R&B chart
4. 1955The Ed Sullivan Show, and a ban
5. 1958Gretsch builds his rectangular guitar
6. 1985Live Aid in Philadelphia with George Thorogood, Who’s Who number 12
7. 1987Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
8. 1998Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
9. 2008Dies at home in Archer, Florida, aged 79

Checker and the first single 1955

Bo Diddley and I’m a Man came out together on Checker in 1955. Christgau points to what’s on it: distorted guitar, toms and maracas, and no bass at all. Premier Guitar adds tremolo on the guitar.

The B-side had a life of its own. The Library of Congress notes it inspired Muddy Waters’ answer song, Manish Boy. On Spotify it’s now his most played track, with 49 million streams by May 2026.

Ed Sullivan 1955

He was booked for The Ed Sullivan Show in November 1955. He was cut off after his first song and banned from the show. The show’s own history puts the mix-up down to a set list that read “Bo Diddley. Sixteen Tons”.

Say Man and the hits

Say Man, a comic back and forth with Jerome Green, became his only Top 40 pop hit.

Thorogood, the Stones and the later years 1979 to 2008

George Thorogood, Who’s Who number 12 first heard him in 1966 and met him in 1979. On 13 July 1985, at Live Aid in Philadelphia, Bo walked on to play Who Do You Love? with Thorogood, Who’s Who number 12 and the Destroyers.

He toured with the Clash, and Nike commercials brought him a new audience. His later album A Man Amongst Men, produced by Mike Vernon, had Keith Richards, Who’s Who number 31, Ronnie Wood, Who’s Who number 19, Richie Sambora, the Shirelles, Johnny “Guitar” Watson and Jimmie Vaughan as guests.

In May 2007 he fell ill after a show in Council Bluffs, Iowa. It was reported differently at the time, as a stroke by his estate and as a heart attack by AFP. He died at home in Archer, Florida, on 2 June 2008, aged 79, with more than 35 family members there.

Craft, sound and style

The beat

Bo said the rhythm was “basically an Indian chant” when NPR asked him in 2007. The Library of Congress hears storefront church music in it, and treats the 1955 record as the template for the beat.

A rhythm can’t be copyrighted, so he never earned from the beat itself. His answer, to the St. Louis American: “So what? I ain’t starving.”

The square guitar and the Gretsch family

His first Gretsch was a Jet Firebird. He saw one in a photo, he told Vintage Guitar, and liked its colour, shape and neck. Gretsch remembers a ’57 G6131 as his favourite.

In 1958 Gretsch built him a rectangular guitar with DeArmond pickups. His estate calls it “The Twang Machine”. He said Gretsch only ever made one authorised square guitar for him. Gretsch’s own blog tells it differently, crediting Giuliano Balestra with three more, so the count depends on who you ask. The shape lives on in the production Gretsch G6138 Bo Diddley.

Gretsch also made him two Cadillac-shaped guitars. Balestra built a modified Jupiter Thunderbird, which went to Billy Gibbons, Who’s Who number 5 and became the Gretsch G6199 Billy-Bo. Later builders included Tom Holmes in Tennessee, Kid Guitars in Japan, and Chris Kinman, whose rectangular guitar Bo named “The Mean Machine”.

Tremolo and tuning

The shimmer came from a DeArmond tremolo unit, which used a canister of fluid shaken by a small motor. Premier Guitar names it as a Model 60 in one piece and a 601 in another, and says the 601 is the one on the 1955 single.

He often tuned to open E (E B E G# B E) and moved a capo to change key, Premier Guitar says.

The showman

“You have to be a showman, and that’s what I try to be,” he told Vintage Guitar. The guitars were part of it. As his Chess-era saxophonist Gene Barge put it to NPR, he made his guitars himself.

Stories people still tell

1. Who got the Thunderbird.

   Billy Gibbons, Who’s Who number 5 and ZZ Top opened for Bo and then stayed on stage to back him, by Gibbons’s account to Gretsch. The Jupiter Thunderbird later went to Gibbons, Who’s Who number 5, and Gretsch turned it into the Billy-Bo.

2. The 60th birthday film.

   When Chuck Berry, Who’s Who number 36 turned 60, the concert became the film Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll, and Bo is one of the people interviewed in it.

Legacy

The Hall of Fame inducted him in 1987, and the Recording Academy gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998. When he died, B.B. King, Who’s Who number 2 told the Los Angeles Times that “one of the founding fathers of rock ’n’ roll has left the building”.

Gretsch still makes guitars in his shapes, and the 1955 single is on the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.