D-Bo: 3-D(esigns)

I've been doing some digging, trying to get to the bottom of Bo Diddley's guitar designs. The story goes… his Gretsch, a pretty standard single cutaway design was either hindering his antics or caught him in the tender bits. He explains that he designed a new guitar that would not hinder his movements. However, creating guitars with sharper and more elaborate corners seems contrary to that explanation. He was an innovator and a showman, so I think he needed a guitar to reflect that.


In 1959 Diddley approached a Gretsch employee to build 3 guitars of his design using Gretsch hardware, but sculpting bodies to his specs. The only information I can find about this Gretsch employee is half a name: "Juliano." I don't know if everyone is pulling from the same source, but the internet is talking about Juliano. Who knows how much of a role he played in the final guitars… Diddley was a mechanic and a carpentar, building himself guitars throughout his career, so I would guess he knew what he was doing. He designed three guitars, the outlines of which are above, from left to right: The Cadillac, The Jupiter Thunderbird and the Cigar Box (he sometimes called the Square Guitar). He pretty much played variations of these designs for the rest of his career.

Diddley gave one of his Jupiter Thunderbirds to Billy F. Gibbons "at some point." The ZZ Top frontman shares that flare for spectacle and funky guitars with Bo Diddley. Now Gibbons likes things light. He plays with 7 gauge strings and most of his custom guitars and/or touring guitars are heavily chambered to the point of being essentially hollow-bodied. Although I'm finding heavier strings to be more what I'm looking for (on bass), a lighter bass itself sure sounds like a good idea. So… Bo Diddley gave Billy F. Gibbons one of his Jupiter Thunderbirds and rather than put that instrument through a tour, he had Gretsch create the Billy Bo. Along with some very nice hardware, the Billy Bo Jupiter Thunderbird is heavily chambered. Since 2005 Gretsch has made the Billy Bo and the Cigar Box guitars originally designed by Bo Diddley.

Bo Diddley also worked with guitar builder, Tom Holmes. Although I'm still digging up info on Tom Holmes it appears that they worked together for a good while. I came across this awkwardly entertaining promotional footage of Bo Diddley introducing a line of Tom Holmes guitars and basses.

Extra silly at the 9-minute mark:

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