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
Henry Thomas (blues musician) 23 of which were released. The following list is ordered by date of release; dates of recording are given after the song titles. Henry Thomas (blues musician) Henry Thomas (18741930?) was an American country blues singer, songster and musician. Despite a brief recording career in the late 1920s, Thomas influenced performers including Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, The Lovin' Spoonful, The Grateful Dead, and Canned Heat. Often billed as "Ragtime Texas", Thomas's style is an early example of what later became known as Texas blues guitar. Thomas was born into a family of freed slaves in Big Sandy, Texas in 1874.