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 Foundation Rhythm and Blues Foundation The Rhythm and Blues Foundation is an independent American nonprofit organization dedicated to the historical and cultural preservation of rhythm and blues music. The idea for the foundation came in 1987 during discussions about royalties with entertainer Ruth Brown, entertainment attorney Howell Begle, and Ahmet Ertegün, the head of Atlantic Records. Ertegün provided a $1.5 million donation, and the foundation was officially established in 1988 in Washington, D.C. and in 2005 moved its offices to Philadelphia, P.A. The Foundation provides financial support, medical assistance and educational outreach through various grants and programs to support R&B and