Bo Diddley's own "Bo Diddley"

1977 Gretsch Bo Diddley [USA].

This historically important guitar was specially made by Gretsch for the late, great Bo Diddley somewhere around 1977. It weighs just 8.00 lbs and features the unique 'Bo Diddley' rectangular - cigar-box shaped body which is 18 inches long and 12 inches wide. The fully hollow, two inch thick body which is triple bound on the top and back, has a laminated flamed maple top and laminated maple back and sides. Two-piece maple neck with a nut width of 1 9/16 inches, a scale length of 25 1/2 inches and a unique 'Bo Diddley' medium profile. Triple-bound, laminated headstock face with inlaid pearl Gretsch "T-roof" and "Horse Shoe". Two-layer black over white plastic dome-shaped truss-rod cover with three screws. Individual gold-plated Gotoh 'Star' tuners with tulip-shaped metal buttons. Single-bound, lightly scalloped ebony fretboard with 21 medium frets and pearl block position markers and red dot side markers. Fretboard with additional inlaid white line on each side. Three original Gretsch Filter'Tron Humbuckers with gold plastic surrounds and uniform outputs of 2.76k. One volume and one tone control plus five-way pickup "CRL" selector switch, all on 'Telecaster' style metal plate. Master volume control on treble top neck corner, jack-input on top lower edge corner. Gretsch 'Arrow' through 'G' control knobs with knurled sides. Gretsch 'bar-bridge' on height-adjustable ebony base and Gretsch [Bigsby] horse-shoe style vibrato tailpiece. All hardware gold-plated except the bridge and the Bigsby tailpiece. The guitar is signed on the top in black marker "Love From / Bo Diddley / Rock 'n Roll / 12-28-91 / USA". Housed in the original three-latch rectangular black hardshell case with black plush lining (9.00).

This guitar was a gift from Bo Diddley to the actor/musician Steven Seagal (in 1991) and comes with a photograph of Bo Diddley with this guitar (taken in 1991) and three others and also a letter of authenticity from Seagal that states "I Steven Seagal received the Gretsch Bo Didley (sic) guitar from Bo Didley (sic) and it was autographed by Bo Didley (sic) in my presence."

You can hear it in Buddy Holly.  You can hear on the Stone's Not Fade Away. You can hear it on Bruce Springsteen's She's the One. It propels The Strangelove's I Want Candy from 1965 and Bow Wow Wow's version from 1982. It's a standard riff for George Thorogood. The rhythmic figure powers more rock n' roll hits than you can shake a drumstick at.  It's an insistent, driving, staple rhythmic pattern of modern music. The beat is the bedrock of rock n' roll and its pulse is rock's heart.

Everybody on Earth has heard it. If aliens are picking up our radio waves, they've heard it, too.

It's Bo Diddley's signature, a simple five-accent thump n' throb rhythmic line introduced by him back in 1955 on his debut hit single, Bo Diddley. It's one of the many persistent  rhythms he originated, each African-by-way-of-Mississippi-with-a-layover-in-Chicago's-South-Side, savage and relentless. An R&B player, he put the rhythm in rock and made it roll, baby, roll.

His stage presence and moves have influenced every guitar player since. And he loved guitars, big n' loud and, especially, weird-shaped. Bo really loved axes custom-made to his specs and the guys at Gretsch were happy to oblige. While he was often seen playing his Gretsch G5810 Bo Diddley Electromatic Signature model,  he rarely, if ever, played this '77 3-pickup with Gretsch vibrato unit custom Bo-Box that Fred Gretsch cooked up for him per Bo's request.

Bo collected guitars customized for Bo Diddley. On December 28, 1991 he inscribed this ax, as he seems to have routinely done with his guitars, perhaps for reasons of posterity. Enter actor and martial arts virtuoso, Steven Seagal.

Few are aware of it but Steven Seagal is a life-long blues junkie and has been making guitars sing or shed tears for years, playing  with some of the greatest blues legends to ever walk this earth,  including BB King, Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker and his greatest influence, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. Steve began his love affair with the guitar at age 12, and, long before he became an actor, was playing professional gigs. Bo and Steve had a mutual admiration society, and Bo played and sang on Steven's second blues album, Mojo Priest. "Shake," one of the cuts on Mojo Priest, features Bo singing and his immortal, "shave and a haircut, two-bits" rhythm.

In the January 2006 issue of Vintage Guitar, Seagal discussed his esteemed collection of vintage guitars, including those once owned by B.B. King, Freddie King, John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, Muddy Waters and Stevie Ray Vaughn. He doesn't mention this custom-Bo Gretsch simply because he didn't acquire it until later in the year, in May 2006, after the Mojo Priest sessions when Bo presented it to him as a gift. Steve already knew the guitar; he had met Bo Diddley much earlier, in 1991, and, according to his signed affidavit, witnessed Bo inscribe it at that time.

On November 21, 2009, Bo's 1999 red Gretsch Bo-Box, the last ax he used on stage, was offered at Julien's Auctions Music Icons sale and sold for $60,000.

Any guitar that Bo Diddley once touched is solid gold.