Fire Damages Bronzeville Home Where Bo Diddley Lived As A Youngster

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A fire damaged a Bronzeville neighborhood building where R&B icon Bo Diddley once lived.

The Fire Department said the blaze broke out Monday evening in the masonry-construction building at 4746 S. Langley Ave. No one was injured.

As recounted in a 2004 document by writer Dave Hoekstra, Bo Diddley – whose real name was Ellas Bates McDaniel – was born in McComb, Mississippi and moved to the Langley Avenue building with his family when he was 7 years old.

Hoekstra reported Diddley learned to play classical violin and trombone at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Bronzeville, and began making his own boxed-shaped guitars while attending Foster Vocational School at 720 W. O'Brien St. – now James M. Rochford Street – near the old Maxwell Street Market district.

Diddley signed with Chicago's iconic Chess Records in 1955 and recorded the song "Bo Diddley," backed with "I'm a Man." He went on to compose numerous other hits for himself and others, and to influence generations of popular musicians.

He later moved from Chicago to Washington, D.C., and also spent time working as a deputy sheriff in Los Lunas, New Mexico, in the early 1970s, according to a New York Times report.

Diddley played at the first-ever blues festival in Grant Park in 1969, and also performed at the 1986 and 2002 Chicago Blues Festivals.

He passed away in 2008.

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