Donegan got as far as creating his own sound version of music he wanted to hear himself. A further or the same thought on RIL and Elvis. I’ve fwd’d it to everyone who might care. A lot of people on this page are unhappy about the absence of a full explanation of the influence of Leadbelly, and the precise explanation of the formative forces brought to bear on early Beatles music. An all-star evening celebrating the impact of Lonnie Donegan’s first British Music Industry Changing hit – Rock Island Line. He played the guitar in a way that sounded like anyone could do it. Before every … They were major stars in Britain until the 60s brought Elvis clones like Adam Faith and then finally the supergroups that Lonnie himself had inspired (Mick Jagger once sang with the Chris Barber band). Yeah I always reckoned Donegan was deep like that. Why was it Donegan, and not Elvis (or even George Melly?!) The band was lead by Benjamin Jäger. Billy Bragg on how one song - Rock Island Line - kickstarted the skiffle craze in 50s Britain and gave birth to the great British bands of the 60s. "Rock Island Line" is an American blues/folk song performed and first recorded by Lead Belly in the 1930s. The Very Best Of. –. It was first recorded by Kelly Pace and Group in 1943. Both Bob Dylan and Lonnie Donegan drew their collective inspiration from Leadbelly – Richard Williams doesn’t say this in his first Article. I just renewed my passport (not sure why, but still). "Rock Island Line," which he did in what (for England in the mid-'50s) passed for an authentic American blues style, quickly assumed a life of its own, garnering massive radio play and … Stream ad-free or purchase CD's and MP3s now on Amazon.co.uk. I hope I have not infected this page with outrageous unrealistic opinions. that became the portal to everything that followed? But I’ll continue to indulge my fantasies with it, whatever anybody thinks. It’s a long time since I did any theory…, Put me on the right track thats for sure. Those years, as the time when one began to listen to music for the first time, and a most incredible ‘moment’ was taking place easily, naturally, and like an inevitability. To hear him doing it in Skiffle you will have to turn to the Basement Tapes, for which a Motorcycle Crash was necessary. Rock Island Line. (Big Lonnie Donegan Fans.) Donegan’s rough-and-ready style was at odds with the polished crooners who dominated the charts. Country: Europe. This might be of interest to some. ( Log Out /  I learned that music which was genuinely exciting was good and I wanted hear more. How can you critique “Rock Island Line” and not mention Lead Belly, the person whose version of the song was taken by Donegan? One directly influenced the cultural landscape of the ’50s; the other indirectly influenced the ’60s by inspiring …. Donegan was on a Tour with Holly and recognized the Crickets as a Skiffle band. You’re absolutely right. After the chart success, on both sides of the Atlantic, of his first single, Rock Island Line, Lonnie and his group gradually separated (on good terms) from the Barber band. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Label: Nervous Records (2) – NERCD 094. A little later on in our musical education, we learnt that the flattened third is one of the two “blue notes” in a major scale (the other being the flattened seventh). My credentials for saying what I say are based on the fact that I have liked listening to Lonnie Donegan and Bob Dylan, and found analogies between them. It’s simply not possible, as a basic theoretical principle, to flatten a third – you might as well call a geometric shape with four sides a triangle, or tea coffee. Versions have been recorded by other artists. When I first read this piece (by Richard the original Article) I thought I’m not qualified to Comment on this. Because everyone has wanted respectively to hear the music of Lonnie Donegan and Bob Dylan. Getting feelings about what I feel could be called the feeling. And is that just a social/cultural thing about how skiffled is positioned as DIY culture or, as you suggest, could there actually be something specific about the skiffle sound that meant it got through to this generation? More special guests to be announced. The intervening (for BD) accidental Act was The Animals, who stole Bob Dylan’s stolen ‘House Of The Rising Sun’ and gave him his ‘wild mercury sound’ a distinctive effect that he had no difficulty in being able to steal. Anyway, it’s up there now. But not in Skiffle: in the Language he had learnt from the Animals. How about you take my name off your list!Obtuse, irritating:  you must have a very lowthreshold to use these words because someonedisagrees with your point of view. There’s a railroad in Louisiana and just outside of New Orleans they used to have a toll and the engineers pull up to the toll booth & blow the whistle then talk to the depot and tell’em what they have on board. Ray Charles did with Gospel Music what Lonnie Donegan and Bob Dylan did with Folk, Dylan more than Donegan. Oo dear, you’ve just given me a reason to submit the last Chapter of my Article: There is little possibility of the conclusion of the Skiffle argument being accomplished in this context. Having broken the ice Bob Dylan is at liberty to introduce Surrealism to the Contours of The Anthology of American Folk Music, as only he could have done. And that F natural, I reckon, is the first blue note most of my generation ever heard, or at least noticed, and its impact was immense. You Gotta Move is arch Skiffle, when everyone puts their instruments down and starts playing music. So as to not lose their audience, they put down their instruments and picked up guitars, a double bass and a washboard. You might want to tell that to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, for whom the “flattened fifth” was the symbol of bebop. The skiffle craze was short-lived, lasting barely eighteen months, but in that time it inspired a generation of British boys to pick up a guitar and play. Blowing on their instruments very hard, they found that their lips were numb after half an hour. When they gathered in the label’s studios on 13 July 1954, it became apparent that the band did not have enough material to fill an album so it was decided that they should record songs from the band’s popular skiffle breakdown. The Rock Island Line is a mighty good road – The Rock Island Line is the road to ride – The Rock Island Line is a mighty good road – If you want to ride, you gotta ride it like you find it – Get your ticket at the station of the Rock Island Line. The Rolling Thunder Review is a Heavy Rock Skiffle Band. Oh and Donegan’s severe limitations allowed him to swing like fuck on “Betty Betty Betty”, the rockingest British record of the 50s with the best guitar solo. plus-circle Add Review. Schoolboys in their thousands picked up guitars and formed skiffle groups. Thought I might be in danger of ‘setting somebody off’ by revealing my cherished (theoretical) Dylan/Donegan in parallel moment. Change ). 1: Studio Sessions for free, and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists. The Advantage this music has in circumstances like that is that it is Indestructible. In 1933, John A Lomax visited Cummins Prison Farm, south of Little Rock, collecting work songs for the Library of Congress. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. And there was the urgent informality of Donegan’s vocal delivery, so different from the crooners who dominated the airwaves in the middle 1950s. He stood at the back with the rhythm section during the jazz numbers, but when he came to the front during the breakdown, he grabbed the audience with his renditions of Lead Belly’s most famous songs, Rock Island Line prominent among them. Here was a chap who looked the part - open-necked shirt, acoustic guitar, sounding like an American cowboy, singing about railroads. Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes, Freight Train All proceeds go to Lonnie’s grandson’s therapy for … “Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance” is skiffle. The closest Donegan got to it on his own part was ‘Muleskinner Blues’ on his Donegan On Stage EP recorded at Conway Hall. It’s therefore absolutely possible to ‘flatten’ a fifth – which gives you a tritone, which was indeed the symbol of bebop. The Rolling Thunder Review is a Heavy Rock Skiffle Band. From the department of correcting corrections: That’s not how to use a semi-colon. They had a Common affinity in a submerged and undisclosed Hillbilly sound. I don’t think they are too far away from Richard Williams’ theme. I am sure that this writer perfectly understands what he is saying and his theory may be impeccable however my 13 year old self just thought it was a great song sung by an artist of whom I immediately became a lifelong fan. I hope this will not confuse too many people. Oh the Rock Island Line it is a mighty good road Oh that Rock Island Line it is the road to ride The Rock Island Line it is a mighty good road But if you want to ride, you got to ride it like you find it Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line Cloudy in the west, looks like rain, Bought me a ticket on a … When Donegan covered Holly’s song Love is Strange with a better version of his own he released one of the only true Love Songs ever recorded. Island was loosely related to Brainticket, only because the band's vocalist Jäger was with a group called Toad, which featured Cottonwoodhill era members of Brainticket. The Basement Tapes are a Skiffle Session. It’s not a ‘flattened third’, which doesn’t exist – it’s a minor third. The Lonnie Donegan Band. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. The song Rock Island Line was written by Clarence Wilson and was first performed by Rock … Nancy Whiskey and Shirley Douglas). Thank you, Richard; took me back to Walthamstow Town Hall, sitting in my school blazer, stomping my feet to the Chris Barber Band. Great piece, though. On the day of the recording, a group of eight prisoners, led by Kelly Pace, came up to Lomax’s mic and sang Rock Island Line. I didn’t stay a Beatles adherent as the Stones appeared but I’ll always remember that moment. And I wasn’t “critiquing” “Rock Island Line”, whatever that means. 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