Bo Diddley Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation and a Grammy Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He is also recognized for his technical innovations, including his distinctive rectangular guitar, with its unique booming, resonant, shimmering tones. Born in McComb, Mississippi, as Ellas Otha Bates, he was adopted and raised by his mother's cousin, Gussie McDaniel, whose surname he assumed. In 1934, the McDaniel family moved to the South Side of Chicago, where he dropped the Otha and became Ellas McDaniel. He was an active member of Chicago's Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he studied the
Rhythm and Blues (professional wrestling) Honky Tonk Man, gave them the team name “Rhythm and Blues,” and made changes to Greg Valentine’s appearance. Valentine had always been a blonde, ungimmicked wrestler who favored the traditional wrestling robe, but when teamed with the Honky Tonk Man, Valentine’s hair got dyed jet black, he was given Elvis style shades, a white jacket and a guitar he quite obviously did not know how to play. Commentator Gorilla Monsoon nicknamed Greg Valentine “Boxcar” when he saw his changed appearance (most likely after Blues singer “Boxcar Willie”). As a commentator, Roddy Piper once opined "Elvis would be turnin' over in