Bo Diddley, diddley bows, cigar
box guitars and the truth
In my countless hours of internet searches,
I repeatedly found stories referring Bo Diddley’s rectangle guitar as a cigar box guitar. Obviously, the
shape of the guitar makes people think “the Gunslinger” based the design on a cigar box guitar. This is,
however, untrue. Bo Diddley and the cigar box guitar have nothing in common.
Pictured to the right is Bo Diddley’s
first homemade guitar, built by his own hands in 1945. The rectangle shape that became his trademark was already in
the developmental stages here when he built this beauty. It appears that he used thin wood and not a cigar box to build
it. (Could it have been wood from a door?) ...and you gotta love that cool trapazoid shape!
Some specs: The frets are
incorrectly positioned and are equally spaced up to the 10th fret. After the 10th, they gradually become smaller.
Also, this guitar was originally acoustic. Bo added pickups to it in 1955. He eventually donated this guitar to the Hard Rock Cafe in 1997.
AND FROM THE “YOU DON’T KNOW DIDDLEY DEPT.”
Bo Diddley did NOT get
his name from the diddley bow, a primitive one-string instrument. According to the Giant Guitar/Diddley Bow website, Bo never played a diddley bow or any other slide instrument. Apparently his fingers were too big
to fit into a slide. Bo has stated elsewhere that the name was simply a nickname that stuck.
I have come across another possible
origin of his name. In some southern slang, a “bo diddley” was a shady character. Another name for a bo diddley was “bojangles.”
...go figure!
