Ramblings

If you’ve heard of Lonnie Donegan, it’s probably because of the old radio favourite, My Old Man’s a Dustman, a music hall style comedy record. Or perhaps you’ve heard his frantic skiffle recordings like Cumberland Gap. But it is little appreciated today that in the 1950s he had very few peers in Britain who could sing American folk and blues with such authenticity.

Although remembered as the “King of Skiffle”, he drew heavily from American folk and blues music, which had been largely unknown to his 1950’s British audience. By introducing this music to Britain, he paved the way for the explosion of beat and R&B groups in the 1960s.

Skiffle is rarely played these days, but it was hugely influential on its audience. Just as Buddy Holly proved that you didn’t have to look like Elvis to be a rock’n’roll star, Skiffle showed that you didn’t need a lot of equipment (or tuition) to play music. Teenaged skiffle bands grew up all over Britain – not least one called Johnny and the Moondogs in Liverpool.

• “We studied his records avidly. We all bought guitars to be in a skiffle group. He was the man.” – Paul McCartney
• “He really was at the very cornerstone of English blues and rock.” – Brian May
• “I wanted to be Elvis Presley when I grew up. But the man who really made me feel like I could actually go out and do it was Lonnie Donegan.” – Roger Daltrey
• “Remember, Lonnie Donegan started it for you.” – Jack White of The White Stripes at the Brit awards
• “If there was no Lead Belly, there would have been no Lonnie Donegan; no Lonnie Donegan, no Beatles.” – George Harrison

Anthony Donegan was born to an Irish mother and a Scottish father in Glasgow in 1931. His father was a professional violinist who had played with the Scottish National Orchestra. When Donegan was 2, the family moved to East Ham in Essex.

As a child growing up in the early 1940s Donegan listened mostly to swing jazz and vocal acts, and became interested in the guitar, buying his first one at 14 in 1945. He learned songs such as Frankie and Johnny, Puttin’ On the Style, and The House of the Rising Sun by listening to BBC radio broadcasts. By the end of the 1940s he was playing guitar around London and visiting small jazz clubs.

Donegan first played in a major band after Chris Barber heard that he was a good banjo player and asked him to audition. Donegan had actually never played the banjo but he bought one for the audition and succeeded more on personality than talent – much in the way that the Beatles later impressed Brian Epstein. His stint with Barber’s trad jazz band was interrupted when he was called up for National Service in 1949. A posting to Vienna brought him into contact with American troops, and access to US records and the American Forces Network radio station.

In 1952, he formed the Tony Donegan Jazzband, which played gigs around London. On 28 June 1952 at the Royal Festival Hall they opened for the blues musician Lonnie Johnson, from whom Donegan adopted his first name – possibly for the sound of it as much as in tribute. He then played in Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen and again in Chris Barber’s Jazz Band.

In these bands Donegan sang and played guitar and banjo in their Dixieland set. He began playing with two other band members during the intervals, to provide what posters called a “skiffle” break, after the Dan Burley and his Skiffle Boys of the 1940s. With a washboard, tea-chest bass, and a cheap Spanish guitar, Donegan played folk and blues songs by artists such as Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie.

The “skiffle” break proved popular and in July 1954 he recorded a fast version of Lead Belly’s “Rock Island Line” which reached number 8 in both the UK and in the USA in 1956 but because it was a band recording, Donegan made no money beyond his session fee. It’s fair to say the British audience had never heard anything like it: it sparked many kids to take up the guitar, and kick-started their musical careers.

Rock Island Line had its origins as a prison work song, and was first commercially recorded by Lead Belly. Donegan’s top ten US success was a very rare achievement for a British artist in the 1950s, and arguably its impact in the UK was comparable with Rock Around The Clock and Heartbreak Hotel. American actor and comedian Stan Freberg recorded a very funny spoof version of Rock Island Line.

Donegan was on a mission to popularise folk music, especially where it had black origins. So he would often preface his recordings with a short, often humorous introduction, with an educational purpose. In 1956 he said: “I’m trying to sing acceptable folk music. I want to widen the audience beyond the artsy-craftsy crowd and the pseudo intellectuals – but without distorting the music itself.” In a 1959 Panorama programme he said “You know in my little span of life I’ve come across such a sea of bigotries and prejudices. I get so fed up with it now. I feel I have to do something about it.” I’ll leave the reader to judge how much progress we’ve made since then.

He followed up with the boisterous (and crude) Diggin’ My Potatoes, which had been recorded at a concert at the Royal Festival Hall in October 1954. The folk/blues song, a none too subtle accusation of infidelity, was first recorded by Little Son Joe in 1939. For a British singer of the day, his feeling for the blues is remarkable. Listen to the polite applause at the end: this is Britain before Elvis Presley, before even Bill Haley. Food rationing had only just ended.

I crept up to the winda
Thought I heard a moan
I heard somebody say "Ooh!
You suckin' my sweet bone."

Not much double entendre there. I’m wondering if the audience knew what had hit them.

His next single, the rowdy Lost John, his version of a slave work song, reached No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart.

Heels on the front
Heels behind
You couldn't tell whichee way
Long John gwyin'

Wonderful. He appeared on television in the United States on the Perry Como Show and the Paul Winchell Show in early 1956. He recorded his debut album, Lonnie Donegan Showcase, in summer 1956, with songs by Lead Belly and Leroy Carr. The LP sold in the hundreds of thousands.

Bring a Little Water Sylvie sees Donegan mimicking black singing styles in a cover of the Lead Belly song.

Also on the album was Wabash Cannonball – like Rock Island Line, a train song. The origins of Wabash Cannonball go back to 1882.

Tom Dooley is a traditional North Carolina folk song based on the 1866 murder of a woman named Laura Foster in Wilkes County, North Carolina by Tom Dula. The song had been a US number 1 for the Kingston Trio.

You took her on the hillside
For to make her your wife;
You took her on the hillside,
And there you took her life.

Donegan enjoyed two number one hits in 1957 with Cumberland Gap and Puttin’ on the Style/Gambling Man. Puttin’ on the Style was a cover of a pop hit for Vernon Dalhart in 1925, taken from the oral folk tradition.

Preacher in the pulpit roars with all his might
Sing glory hallelujah with the folks all in a fright
Now you might think he's Satan that's coming down the aisle
But it's only our poor preacher, boys, putting on his style

Humour was never far from Donegan’s music, as you can hear in his version of The Battle of New Orleans, a cover of Johnny Horton’s US number 1. 

Well, this here's the story about the Battle of New Orleans
Which was fit between the Yankees of course, and them there English people
In which the British came off rather ignominiously
Means they never done no good, no how, alright, now shut up, right

Many of his recordings owe more to George Formby and the British music hall as they do to folk or blues music. Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight?) reached number 5 in the US, his second top ten US single.

Does your chewing gum lose its flavor
on the bedpost overnight?
If your mother says don't chew it,
Do you swallow it in spite?
Can you catch it on your tonsils,
Can you heave it left & right?

Ironically Donegan is best remembered for My Old Man’s a Dustman, a pure music-hall song which was not well received by skiffle fans, but he should care as it reached number one in the UK.

Now, one day while in a hurry
He missed a lady’s bin
He hadn’t gone but a few yards
When she chased after him
“What game do you think you’re playing”
She cried right from the heart
“You missed me, am I too late?”
“Nah, jump up on the cart!”

You’ll recognise the next song. Originally a Bahamian folk song, Donegan recorded it as I Wanna Go Home. Although less lively than the later Beach Boys version known as Sloop John B, the wistful mood of Donegan’s version is more in keeping with the lyrics.

When the Highwaymen had a number one hit in the USA and Britain with their somewhat soporific version of Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Donegan made his own recording in competition, which was less successful, but which has a much livelier, boisterous gospel feel. The song is a spiritual: “Michael” is a reference to St Michael, in Catholic tradition the conductor of souls into heaven. Like many spirituals, it celebrates the promise of afterlife following a trouble filled life on earth.

Be not afraid though you have sinned, hallelujah

His last hit single on the UK chart was a return to his folk and blues roots with his cover version of Leadbelly’s Pick a Bale of Cotton. Ironically, the end of his chart run came with the rise of The Beatles and the other groups he had inspired, who were largely standing on his shoulders.

Lonnie Donegan died on 3 November 2002, aged 71, after suffering a heart attack in Market Deeping, Lincolnshire mid-way through a UK tour. He had been due to perform at a memorial concert for George Harrison with the Rolling Stones.

Finally, try listening to this untypical but I think rather lovely traditional American folk song he recorded in 1961 called Bury Me Beneath the Willow, a beautiful song which he sings with great sensitivity.

Bury me beneath the willow
Beneath the weeping willow tree
When she learns that I am sleeping
Then I know she'll think of me

Without Lonnie Donegan the course of British pop and rock music – and so, world pop and rock music – would have been much the poorer.