Tuesday 27 February 2018

100 Awesome Things - Part 35 - From the Vault 2014

And at last, I'm caught up with all the 'previously on...' 100 Awesome Things posts...

 ~~~2014~~~

 I'm not quite sure how to describe Lonnie Donegan - or his cultural impact upon Britain - to the outside world. A bit like Rod Hull and Emu, if you were to describe him to an outsider they would like blink at you a few times, perhaps scratch their head and say "you what, now?"



Lonnie was the King of Skiffle: an odd little genre which didn't *quite* exist in its own right in the US and disappeared quickly. In the UK this became a form which was basically a hybrid of folk, jazz, blues performed on instruments which were or could be homemade or very cheap: guitars of course, and the old working-class standbys of paper-and-comb, spoons, washboards and the teachest bass.

The best way I can describe how it always 'felt' to me was this: proto-rock and roll, or perhaps more 'acoustic rock and roll'... A gateway drug for what was coming from the USA at the time. A nice lead into Berry, Lewis etc. You may disagree with that characterisation, and it's the kind of debate I love, and that's what the comments section is for.

It became a sensation here in the mid/late Fifties and gangly, quirky-looking Lonnie became its most famous performer. Skiffle might be forgotten except for one thing:

There was a generation of young people who saw Lonnie on TV or heard him on the radio and thought "That's a good idea". The ability to put a skiffle band together cheaply - and the supposed 'easiness' of the music - meant an awful lot of young lads put together their own bands. Including a group called The Quarrymen up in Liverpool.

This review of a book about Donegan includes a pretty good summation of the musicians he influenced, as well as his less-good personality traits and the fact that the kids who idolised him also swept him (and other British music doing interesting thngs at the time - the jazz bands ferinstance) away in 1962/3.

To me, 'skiffle' and 'cockney' music are intertwined: When I was little, my granddad tried to teach me paper-and-comb and spoons, and although I was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, my dad had been one of those little boys hypnotised by Lonnie's performances on TV of American songs like "Rock Island Line" and "Lost John" and "Puttin' On The Style", and so I heard more Donegan as I grew up than I heard contemporary pop music.

You won't hear me complain about that, by the way. This link to Lonnie playing with Chas & Dave later on is actually a perfect example of what I mean about the intertwining... not just in my head apparently.

I've always loved the music, anyway. Imagine my euphoric delight to discover Donegan did a record of 'rocked-up' versions of his old hits in the 70s which included appearances by musicians of that era... including my own much beloved Rory Gallagher on guitar on ROCK ISLAND LINE (The G-Man is also on a very similar sort of record by Jerry Lee Lewis called The London Sessions which I also massively recommend as a curiosity if nothing else.)

That version of Rock Island Line is great I think and features an impressively long sustain on a couple of lyrics, but as others have pointed out, it's still just 'seventies rock' and doesn't compare to the original's magic and wonder. His go at Sleepy John Estes' "Drop Down Baby" features beautiful slide work by RG and is something Clarabella & The Crypt Kickers perform regularly- so much fun to sing.

I love Donegan's music. Just the other night I was singing along very loudly to My Old Man's A Dustman on the way home, followed by Ham N Eggs. But there's only one thing I can use now, isn't there? It's just tremendous. A perfect encapsulation of a moment in cultural time that helped change the whole damn world.

How can I describe Donegan to the outside world? WIth this:


Oh, last thing:

Donegan recorded a lot of Woody Guthrie music. Dylan and his cohort rediscovered the greatness of Woody in great part due to Donegan, not Guthrie directly.

Lonnie Donegan therefore, you could argue, invented both The Beatles and Bob Dylan.

I'm exaggerating of course, but not as much as might be assumed.

 C 2014.

 *
100 Awesome Musical Things

Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners
Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye
Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees
Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson
Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy
Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen
Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors
Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra
Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles
Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave
Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo
Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe
Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows
Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher
Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole
Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy
Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton
Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones
Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors
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