Bo Diddley, who died on Monday aged 79, was a rock-and-roll pioneer whose influence far outweighed his commercial appeal. While only a few aficionados of the genre are able to name more than a couple of his songs, Diddley’s trademark syncopated rhythms, mixing rumba and blues, were widely copied by the fledgling pop bands of the 1960s, such as the Rolling Stones, whose version of “Not Fade Away” was a brilliant popular example of the Diddley style.

Born in Mississippi in 1928 as Ellas Otha Bates, Diddley took violin lessons before seeing blues guitarist John Lee Hooker in concert, an encounter that persuaded him to switch to the larger instrument. The origin of his stage name is unclear – it was either copied from a southern slang phrase meaning “nothing at all”, or referred to the diddley bow, a two-stringed instrument used by workers in the fields.