Bo Diddley

CTL-E-5858 · Person · musician · 1928–2008

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07111 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5858.

Bo Diddley, born Ellas Otha Bates on December 30, 1928, in McComb, Mississippi, and later known as Ellas McDaniel after his adoptive mother, was an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter raised in Chicago from childhood. Reuters' obituary reporting records that he took the name McDaniel from his adoptive mother, played classical violin as a boy, picked up the nickname Bo Diddley as a teenager after moving to Chicago, and began playing music on Chicago street corners in the 1940s. Britannica notes that he was raised in Chicago and got his stage name while recording for Chicago's Chess Records, the label that released his string of 1950s records beginning with his signature song "Bo Diddley" in 1955. His syncopated signature rhythm — the Bo Diddley beat, with African roots — became, in Britannica's assessment, an irresistible rock and roll dance sound that fellow artists widely adopted, and his experiments with guitar effects and his flamboyant stage shows shaped early rock. NPR's 2008 obituary coverage confirms that Chess Records released his hits after his 1955 breakthrough and that he died of heart failure at his home in Archer, Florida, on June 2, 2008, at the age of 79. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998.

The record

• Also known as: Ellas McDaniel, Ellas Otha Bates, The Originator

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 1 — 747 Program, Wave 8; first Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Bo Diddley entity in the live graph at 3,523 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5858 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — corpus scan sample, readiness rank 2145 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #205). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — a Chicago-raised blues and rock-and-roll pioneer recorded by Chess Records (CTL-E-0165, homed), central to the graph's Chicago music scope. Vital status: DECEASED (June 2, 2008, per Reuters and NPR reporting of that date); tribute treatment. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998, per Reuters (June 2, 2008); no other statistic is asserted. MEDIA: photo HELD (wire and label photographs of Diddley are third-party works; no file-page verification in this pass); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5858-bo-diddley.svg); video HELD (no CTL Short or other video for this subject verified with a cataloged URL in this pass); audio HELD (his Chess/Checker recordings are third-party copyrighted; no cleared audio in this pass). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot under the media-layer rule; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No CTL Short or other video for this subject was verified with a cataloged URL in this pass.) | audio = HELD (His Chess/Checker recordings are third-party copyrighted; HELD — no cleared audio in this pass.)

Relationships

• Chess Records — recorded for
  Bo Diddley's signature records, beginning with "Bo Diddley" in 1955, were released by Chicago's Chess Records (Checker/Chess).

Sources

• Reuters, "Rock 'n roll legend Bo Diddley dies in Florida" (June 2, 2008) — supports his 1928 McComb birth as Ellas Bates, the McDaniel name, the Chicago move and street-corner start, the 1955 signature song, the 1987 Rock Hall induction, and the 1998 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award — https://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0228500620080602/ (build store)
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Bo Diddley" (accessed 2026-10-16) — supports his Chicago upbringing, the Chess Records association, the African-rooted syncopated beat and its adoption by other artists, and his guitar-effects experimentation — https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bo-Diddley (build store)
• NPR via Montana Public Radio, "Remembering Rock and Roll Legend Bo Diddley" (June 2, 2008) — supports the Chicago playground origin of the nickname, the 1955 chart breakthrough, the Chess Records releases, and his June 2, 2008 death at age 79 — https://www.mtpr.org/2008-06-02/remembering-rock-and-roll-legend-bo-diddley (build store)

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Record CTL-E-5858 · Combined Graph record U-07111 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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