"Bo Diddley got his very name from fighting. Eight-year-old Ellas McDaniel moved to Chicago from McComb, Mississippi, with his mother's cousin. This wasn't unusual -- the South Side was full of kids from Mississippi. But Ellas was as Country as Country could be, and he learned that that don't play in Chi. Littler kids were whippin' up on him, so he learned to fight back. One day, while proving something to some kid with his fists, a neighborhood girl said, "Man, you're a bo diddley!" No one knew what she meant, but the name stuck.
Bo did the boxing thing, and quit for the right reason. He actually used the name "Bo Diddley" when he started boxing, and it gained him some notoriety -- his big ol' country fists gained him even more notoriety. Don't be fooled by the glasses and the plaid suits, people: this was a bad man in the ring. But he quit when he got married -- Mrs. Diddley didn't like it, and that's the only respectable reason for a man to give up the game. But that's where he met Roosevelt Jackson, his first bass player and they formed the Hipsters together in 1945".
-snip-
If this is a true story, perhaps the girl made a mistake and meant to say "diddley bow" but the words came out wrong. She probably was referring to that handmade musical instrument that as unsophisticated as it was, still made beautiful music.
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Btw, here's a quote about Bo Diddley from the person who launched the site that I quoted from in last post:
"You are probably thinking Bo Diddley. Although I know that it does sounds logical, in fact there is no connection at all between the two. I was both Honored and Embarassed when Mr. Elias McDaniel himself, AKA "Bo Diddley", contacted me to tell me," I have never played the diddley bow, or any form of slide guitar. My fingers are too big to fit any slide or bottleneck. Please correct your info, and Thanks, I enjoyed the rest of your site..."