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 in tone from that of African American artists, often with more emphasis on guitars and sometimes with greater energy. British rhythm and blues singers were criticised for their emulation of rhythm and blues vocal styles, with shouts, glottal stops, moans and cries. However, vocalists such as Van Morrison, Mick Jagger, Eric Burdon and Steve Winwood did not attempt to emulate a particular singer and were seen by critics as able to sing the blues convincingly and with some power. In cover versions of R&B songs, riffs were often simplified or used less frequently. The object of the music was usually