Ellas McDaniel Jr. was just a year old when his father went from relative obscurity, driving an asphalt truck and playing rhythm and blues on the street corners of Chicago, to worldwide fame.
“He was trying to put diapers on me and my sister. That’s what led him to play on street corners,” McDaniel said last week from the home of Chiefland friend Duane Schwingel. “My mother (Ethel) worked for the Polo Meat Co., cuttin’ up chickens.”
Life was hand-to-mouth when his father, influential R&B stylist Bo Diddley, hit it big with the release of “I’m a Man” in 1954 and walked through a door of opportunity that few blacks in America at that time had experienced.
It was troubled times for America.
McDaniel said he remembers seeing blacks being beaten and dragged down the street by police dogs. At his father’s shows, blacks and whites were forced to stand apart on opposite sides of the room. Still, the fans kept coming, proving the power the music had to break down racial barriers.
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