I recently interviewed Billy Boy Arnold following a show at New York City’s City Winery. This is the second part of that interview. As a solo artist Billy Boy recorded “I Wish You Would” and “I Ain’t Got You” which were famously covered by the Yardbirds. (Bo Diddley’s “She’s Fine, She’s Mine” with Billy Boy blowing his harp was the first recording of the song that became “You Don’t Love Me,” recorded as an extended jam by the Allman Brothers and forming the entire second side of “At Fillmore East.” That story will be in the book The Unbroken Circle.)
There have been many stories told about how Ellas McDaniel became Bo Diddley, including theories that the name derives from the Diddley Bow (essentially a one string guitar, typically a single wire attached to the side of a sharecroppers cabin in the Mississippi Delta.)
Billy Boy was there on the south side of Chicago, and he is very clear on the origins of the name Bo Diddley: Continue reading
The Unbroken Circle 