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Bo Diddley helped turn the blues into rock ’n’ roll, influencing Buddy Holly, Elvis, and the Beatles. To do it, he built his own guitar with a rectangular body and a pickup he made from parts of an old turntable. Gretsch made the Twang Machine based on his design, and Diddley’s eye-catching design encouraged rock ’n’ roll’s burgeoning showmanship. It also established DeArmond single coil pickups’ place in the rock pantheon, and everyone had to have that twang.