3. Bo DiddleyBo Diddley
Ellas Bates, a guitar player from Mississippi, decided to call himself Bo Diddley and wrote his first song and called it ‘Bo Diddley’. Then he wrote ‘Hey, Bo Diddley’, then he wrote ‘Go, Bo Diddley’, then he wrote ‘Diddley Daddy’, and everybody loved him because of that ‘dah, dada, dah (pause) da dah’ beat. He got on the Ed Sullivan Show by promising to play a big Merle Travis hit song called ‘Sixteen Tons’. Instead he played (guess what) ‘Bo Diddley’ and got himself banned forever from the Ed Sullivan Show.
He was my hero.
Selected in other Baker’s Dozens: Richard Hawley
