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Thirsty Ear invites you to come celebrate the 75th birthday of one of rock-&-roll's greatest icons. Among the elite few of America's early rockers, Diddley's signature "bomp, ba-bomp-bomp, bomp bomp" beat influenced everyone from the Stones, the Doors, and the Beatles to hundreds of today's rock artists.

Born Otha Ellas Bates in McComb, Mississippi in 1928, he started out as a boxer, where he received the sobriquet Bo Diddley. Switching to music, Diddley worked the blues clubs of Chicago with a repertoire influenced by Louis Jordan, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters. His very first bump-and-grind single, "Bo Diddley"/"I'm A Man," in 1955 featured a devastating blues riff on his fuzzy, tremolo-laden guitar. "It was a new kind of guitar-based rock-&-roll, soaked in the blues and R&B, but owing allegiance to neither," says All Music Guide. Before long, Diddley's distorted, amplified, custom-made guitar, with its rectangular shape and pumping rhythm style, became a familiar, much-imitated trademark, as did his self-referential songs such as "Bo Diddley's A Gunslinger," "Diddley Daddy," and "Bo's A Lumberjack." Over the next few years he'd produce a catalog of classics unrivaled by all but a few of his pioneering peers, "Who Do You Love?" and "Mona" among them.

One of the first to be inducted into the Rock-&-Roll Hall of Fame, Diddley remains a galvanizing performer whose live performances have supplanted studio work as his main focus. Bo recently turned 75, and this is a rare opportunity to celebrate three quarters of a century with one of the most influential musicians America has ever produced.