Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ellas Bates McDaniel arrived in the world on the 30th of December 1928 inside a small town called McComb Mississippi. He was the only child of Ethel Wilson who was just sixteen years old when she gave birth to him.
Scholars trace this pattern back to sub-Saharan African music traditions known as clave rhythms. One scholar identified this specific beat in thirteen rhythm and blues recordings made between 1944 and 1955.
Diddley implied during a 2005 interview that the rectangular design sprang from an embarrassing moment during an early gig. He jumped around on stage with a Gibson L5 guitar and landed awkwardly which caused him to hurt his groin badly enough to change his approach to performance.
That syncopated groove appeared three years before his famous hit song with similar timing in a track called Hambone. That recording came from the Red Saunders Orchestra with the Hambone Kids.
Many family members were present when he died at one forty-five am EDT on June second 2008. He suffered a heart attack on August twenty-eighth 2007 while recovering in Gainesville after being admitted to intensive care following a stroke.