Bo Diddley

When Ellas McDaniel auditioned for Leonard Chess, the producer was baffled by the rhythm, which lacked the traditional blues shuffle. McDaniel (now calling himself Bo Diddley) brought his homemade, rectangular-bodied guitar into Universal Recording in March 1955. Backed by Jerome Green shaking maracas, Diddley laid down a heavily tremolo-soaked, syncopated rhythm based on the "hambone" beat, an African-American percussive tradition. The song had no chord changes, just a mesmerizing, tribal groove. The revolutionary track hit number one on the R&B charts, introducing the famous "Bo Diddley beat" that would instantly become a foundational building block of rock and roll.