Skiffle recordings

Long description:

These recordings can be played by anyone within the European Union.

The skiffle craze that swept the UK for a couple of years in the late 1950s was short-lived but laid the foundation for decades of successful British Rock and Pop music. Future members of bands such as The Shadows, Led Zeppelin, The Hollies, Deep Purple and, famously, The Beatles first performed as part of skiffle groups.

The music’s sudden popularity can be traced back to the post-war British Traditional Jazz movement. One of the leading ‘Trad’ bands, Chris Barber’s Jazz band, played classic jazz favourites and, in the concert interval, extended their range to include roots music from the USA - blues, folk blues and Memphis jug-band music - played by a stripped-down line-up of the musicians. Barber and his band-member Lonnie Donegan identified this music as ‘Skiffle’ after a 78RPM record they regularly played called ‘Hometown skiffle’. Their interval feature rapidly gained in popularity such that two of the songs were recorded on the band’s ‘New Orleans Joys’ LP. Subsequently, due to their popularity, Decca issued the songs as a single with ‘Rock island line’ as the ‘A’ side under the name ‘Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group’ and the record went to number one in the charts.

In the wake of this success, skiffle groups sprang up all over the UK. The music was relatively simple to learn and the instrumentation (tea-chest bass, washboard, guitar) affordable. Groups found performance spaces in small venues, particularly the fashionable coffee shops that were becoming gathering places for British youth. Performers such as The Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group, The Vipers and The City Ramblers captured the imagination of British youth and the music was heard everywhere.

Thousands of young people set up their own skiffle bands and made music for the first time and many rock musicians who would be famous in the 1960s and beyond first learnt their trade in skiffle bands. These musicians include John Lennon, Cliff Richard, Jimmy Page, Roger Daltrey, Ritchie Blackmore, David Gilmour, Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood, and the movement is viewed by many as the birth of British Rock music.

In this collection you can hear Lonnie Donegan’s famous hits as well as skiffle numbers by The Chas McDevitt Skiffle group, Johnny Duncan and the Bluegrass Boys and The Vipers amongst others.