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
British rhythm and blues followed suit, with the Mike Cotton Jazz Band becoming the Mike Cotton Sound, Warwick's Tony and the Talons becoming the Original Roadrunners and Burton on Trent's Atlantix becoming Rhythm and Blues Incorporated. From 1962 demand for blues recordings in Britain and Europe led to new outlets for American recordings, Chicago recordings that were now available included Vee Jay Records through EMI's Stateside label and Chess Records through Pye International's R&B series. These records were enthusiastically sought and collected by a new generation of enthusiasts. The increasing appetite for rhythm and blues was reflected in the growing numbers of Afro-American artists