What do you think?
Rate this book
Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World
Roots, Radicals & How Skiffle Changed the World is the first book to explore this phenomenon in depth – a meticulously researched and joyous account that explains how skiffle sparked a revolution that shaped pop music as we have come to know it. It’s a story of jazz pilgrims and blues blowers, Teddy Boys and beatnik girls, coffee-bar bohemians and refugees from the McCarthyite witch-hunts. Billy traces how the guitar came to the forefront of music in the UK and led directly to the British Invasion of the US charts in the 1960s. Emerging from the trad-jazz clubs of the early ’50s, skiffle was adopted by kids who growing up during the dreary, post-war rationing years. These were Britain’s first teenagers, looking for a music of their own in a pop culture dominated by crooners and mediated by a stuffy BBC. Lonnie Donegan hit the charts in 1956 with a version of ‘Rock Island Line’ and soon sales of guitars rocketed from 5,000 to 250,000 a year. Like punk rock that would flourish two decades later, skiffle was a do-it-yourself music. All you needed were three guitar chords and you could form a group, with mates playing tea-chest bass and washboard as a rhythm section.
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2017
63 people are currently reading
1015 people want to read
About the author
Billy Bragg
35 books72 followersStephen William Bragg (born 20 December 1957) — known as Billy Bragg — is an English alternative rock musician and left-wing activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, and his lyrics mostly deal with political or romantic themes. His music career has lasted more than 30 years.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 97 reviews
November 27, 2017
Skiffle was the punk rock of its day. Here's three chords now form a band...
I loved this detailed and impressive history of Skiffle in which Billy Bragg aims to rehabilitate Skiffle's importance and reputation.
Skiffle was the Punk Rock of the late 1950s, just as punk erased the barriers between audience and performer, so did Skiffle. To start a skiffle band all it took was a combination of: a few chords, a cheap guitar, a tea chest bass, some songs, and a washboard, and you could make music.
Lonnie Donegan conquering the charts in the UK and the USA during 1956 was the catalyst for the formation of thousands of skiffle bands all over Britain, and virtually every significant British artist of the next decade had some connection to the movement.
'Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World' covers some of the same territory as (the excellent) 'The Restless Generation' by Pete Frame, however it is every bit as good. Billy Bragg provides a wealth of fascinating detail about how and why Skiffle happened, in addition to the other contemperaneous trends in society, cinema, teenage spending power, other musical trends and genres, etc.
Lonnie Donegan is the book's central character, however Trad Jazz purist Ken Colyer's key role is also covered in detail. Colyer is an unsung catalyst whose passion and influence laid the groundwork for the Skiffle revolution that forever changed Britain's popular music landscape.
If you enjoy music books and want an enjoyable history of how and why popular music, in the late 1950, transformed from staid adult-centric fare into energetic guitar-led music for teenagers then this marvellous book is for you.
Bravo Billy, a great read.
I loved this detailed and impressive history of Skiffle in which Billy Bragg aims to rehabilitate Skiffle's importance and reputation.
Skiffle was the Punk Rock of the late 1950s, just as punk erased the barriers between audience and performer, so did Skiffle. To start a skiffle band all it took was a combination of: a few chords, a cheap guitar, a tea chest bass, some songs, and a washboard, and you could make music.
Lonnie Donegan conquering the charts in the UK and the USA during 1956 was the catalyst for the formation of thousands of skiffle bands all over Britain, and virtually every significant British artist of the next decade had some connection to the movement.
'Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World' covers some of the same territory as (the excellent) 'The Restless Generation' by Pete Frame, however it is every bit as good. Billy Bragg provides a wealth of fascinating detail about how and why Skiffle happened, in addition to the other contemperaneous trends in society, cinema, teenage spending power, other musical trends and genres, etc.
Lonnie Donegan is the book's central character, however Trad Jazz purist Ken Colyer's key role is also covered in detail. Colyer is an unsung catalyst whose passion and influence laid the groundwork for the Skiffle revolution that forever changed Britain's popular music landscape.
If you enjoy music books and want an enjoyable history of how and why popular music, in the late 1950, transformed from staid adult-centric fare into energetic guitar-led music for teenagers then this marvellous book is for you.
Bravo Billy, a great read.
May 21, 2017
In this book, Billy Bragg tells the fascinating story of the importance of skiffle on British music; where it originated from and how it inspired a generation of (mostly) boys, growing up in the austerity years of post-war Britain, to pick up an instrument and form bands. He begins by telling us of a dinner he was invited to by John Peel, to meet Lonnie Donegan. It later transpired that Peel was so nervous about being in the company of his hero that he had invited Bragg in order to help the conversation along. Indeed, Lonnie Donegan is central to this book – almost an accidental hero, who stepped into the spotlight with the unlikely instrument, a guitar, and created an explosion across the country.
However, like so many books about the history of music, we begin in the United States, with the music of Lead Belly (or, as he was then, convicted felon Huddie Ledbetter), whose songs were taped by a professor, John Lomax, who went around prisons taping folk and blues songs. Lead Belly became his assistant and, meanwhile, between the wars, English lovers of music began to collect American jazz and blues records. The book also tells the unlikely story of Ken Colyer, who he names the ‘Godfather of skiffle,’ a 1930’s jazz lover who travelled from Soho to New Orleans. Like so many things in this story, this was no simple matter. Colyer had to sign on to work on ships – trusting to luck that, eventually, he would find himself heading in the right direction and could, finally, meet his heroes.
Before Lonnie Donegan appeared in the charts with, “Rock Island Line,” everything that was perceived as cool came from the States. Music in the charts was polished and perfect, not raw. It is, certainly, this attitude, and the fact that much of the music came from working class streets, that appeals to Bragg. He is keen to emphasise the fact that so many of these fledgling musicians could not read music and likens the skiffle boom to that of Punk Rock, many years later. All you needed to start a skiffle band was three chords and a guitar – failing that you could find a washboard, broom handle or other hand-made instrument. These were boys used to ‘making do and mending,’ who were inventive and willing to go and hunt out the things they were interested in. Whether tracking down a particular song, or trying to obtain a guitar, nothing was easy and so was more prized once obtained.
There is also much about the fact that skiffle emerged from the trad jazz scene, but was certainly not welcomed. Jazz purists were dismissive of such commerciality, but Donegan’s popularity could not easily be ignored. While purists such as Nancy Whiskey sniffed that she had, “never liked skiffle anyway,” and artists who had flirted with this new music turned back to folk, or jazz, they were right to scent danger. A new music would overtake skiffle, and the charts, with skiffle bands, such as the Quarrymen, turning into the Beatles, and spearheading the British Invasion of the Sixties.
I really enjoyed this interesting account of the history of skiffle. If you enjoy, or are interested in, the early years of the British music scene, then you will be fascinated by this. Jack Good, Tommy Steele, Larry Parnes, Joe Meek, George Martin, Cliff Richard and more all appear in this book. There are countless later rock stars, from David Bowie to Pete Townsend, Mick Jagger to Dave Davies, who were inspired by Skiffle to pick up guitars – or who witnessed such music played live and whose own lives were changed forever. Sometimes Bragg is a little keen to emphasise the political, or class structure, to make a point, but that is in keeping with the book and the times. This is certainly full of enthusiasm and was an immensely readable account of how skiffle changed the British music scene and created the possibility for thousands of young people to realise that they could make music for themselves. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
However, like so many books about the history of music, we begin in the United States, with the music of Lead Belly (or, as he was then, convicted felon Huddie Ledbetter), whose songs were taped by a professor, John Lomax, who went around prisons taping folk and blues songs. Lead Belly became his assistant and, meanwhile, between the wars, English lovers of music began to collect American jazz and blues records. The book also tells the unlikely story of Ken Colyer, who he names the ‘Godfather of skiffle,’ a 1930’s jazz lover who travelled from Soho to New Orleans. Like so many things in this story, this was no simple matter. Colyer had to sign on to work on ships – trusting to luck that, eventually, he would find himself heading in the right direction and could, finally, meet his heroes.
Before Lonnie Donegan appeared in the charts with, “Rock Island Line,” everything that was perceived as cool came from the States. Music in the charts was polished and perfect, not raw. It is, certainly, this attitude, and the fact that much of the music came from working class streets, that appeals to Bragg. He is keen to emphasise the fact that so many of these fledgling musicians could not read music and likens the skiffle boom to that of Punk Rock, many years later. All you needed to start a skiffle band was three chords and a guitar – failing that you could find a washboard, broom handle or other hand-made instrument. These were boys used to ‘making do and mending,’ who were inventive and willing to go and hunt out the things they were interested in. Whether tracking down a particular song, or trying to obtain a guitar, nothing was easy and so was more prized once obtained.
There is also much about the fact that skiffle emerged from the trad jazz scene, but was certainly not welcomed. Jazz purists were dismissive of such commerciality, but Donegan’s popularity could not easily be ignored. While purists such as Nancy Whiskey sniffed that she had, “never liked skiffle anyway,” and artists who had flirted with this new music turned back to folk, or jazz, they were right to scent danger. A new music would overtake skiffle, and the charts, with skiffle bands, such as the Quarrymen, turning into the Beatles, and spearheading the British Invasion of the Sixties.
I really enjoyed this interesting account of the history of skiffle. If you enjoy, or are interested in, the early years of the British music scene, then you will be fascinated by this. Jack Good, Tommy Steele, Larry Parnes, Joe Meek, George Martin, Cliff Richard and more all appear in this book. There are countless later rock stars, from David Bowie to Pete Townsend, Mick Jagger to Dave Davies, who were inspired by Skiffle to pick up guitars – or who witnessed such music played live and whose own lives were changed forever. Sometimes Bragg is a little keen to emphasise the political, or class structure, to make a point, but that is in keeping with the book and the times. This is certainly full of enthusiasm and was an immensely readable account of how skiffle changed the British music scene and created the possibility for thousands of young people to realise that they could make music for themselves. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
August 5, 2017
While this book was very interesting, it took me quite some time to get through it. As a lover of all things related to music, I was very excited to read Roots, Radicals, and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World. I did enjoy the book, particularly the background and all of the cultural references. Billy Bragg goes into A LOT of detail. If you love music, you will enjoy this book. Thanks to Faber & Faber and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
March 8, 2021
Through studying the Beatles I have come to learn about and appreciate all the genres that influenced them. Two uniquely British ones, that I probably would never have heard of otherwise, are music hall and skiffle. Music hall is evoked by, and made relevant to the Beatles, through the likes of: Joe "Mr. Piano" Henderson, Mrs. Mills, Al Jolson, and whoever they heard sing "My Old Dutch". These are just a few examples of many. Paul was probably the most inspired out of all of them by the genre, with songs like "When I'm Sixty-Four", "Honey Pie", and "Your Mother Should Know" paying loving homage. However, the singalong scene on the bus near the end of the Magical Mystery Tour film shows how the four of them were happy to indulge, singing numbers like "The Happy Wanderer", "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts", and "Toot, Toot, Tootsie" at the top of their lungs, with not a care in the world. Watching them makes one yearn for a nice road trip singalong, where one can earnestly belt out "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" with friends. A song both Mrs. Mills and Joe Henderson would chop out on the piano was "Moonlight Bay". The Beatles gave a marvellously harmonized performance of this song with Morecambe and Wise on Two of a Kind, alongside their more relevant hits of the day, songs like "This Boy" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand".
Well, let's not get sidetracked. The latter genre was skiffle, and after duly looking into it to educate myself on the Beatles' upbringing, I happened to fall in love with it, and listen to more than necessary. I listened to Lonnie's discography and all the Just About As Good As It Gets! volumes of "Great British Skiffle". The Wikipedia page for the genre is scant, but thoroughly intriguing. I can't get enough of the tea chest (or tub) bass and washboard as musical instruments. It's too perfect. Then I saw a photo of the young boys who'd define disco in the 70's as the Bee Gees, but here they weren't even teens yet, and they were strumming toy guitars in their skiffle band in the 50's, and it was too perfect to not delve further into the genre and its history.
I'm very glad I did, because I got to learn that skiffle evolved out of trad jazz. The banjo and/or guitars of trad bands were brought to the forefront, and the wind instruments fell behind. This is perfectly represented by Lonnie Donegan going from being the banjo player in Chris Barber's Jazz Band, to becoming his own highly successful solo act, a household name, and inspiration, chiefly through the success of his cover of "Rock Island Line", to countless bands of the rock age, the Beatles being just one of the famous examples.
Bragg takes us way back, and I find myself adding very scratchy recordings from over a hundred years ago to my iTunes library, stuff by the Original Dixieland Jass Band and the like. Bragg brings us to appreciate the lesser-known Ken Colyer as much as the figurehead Lonnie Donegan, and after listening to tapes of Colyer's band, I have come to discover that British jazz is where it's at. This is a terrific genre that's given me hours of amusement. Bragg mentions so many songs and albums and artists, and they're all worth a listen. For example, Chris Barber's Jazz Band's version of "Petite Fleur". Awesome stuff!
I will make a diversion here to mention my one real gripe with this book. Bragg doesn't seem to give Elizabeth Cotten her due. Her life was a remarkable one in that she overcame such adversity to make so many strong, affecting recordings, and invent a new style of picking (just like we have Travis picking and etcetera, there is also Cotten picking) along the way. The way she is portrayed here doesn't seem very justified:
Peggy Seeger was the nineteen-year-old banjo-playing daughter of Charles Seeger, a pioneering ethno-musicologist and song collector, and Ruth Crawford, a composer and folklorist. Both had worked with Lomax and his father, John, at the Library of Congress in the 1930s. Peggy had grown up surrounded by folk music. Her parents’ house in Chevy Chase was always full of musicians – her half-brother Pete would come by and play banjo for her and her brother Mike when they were children; Lead Belly was a frequent visitor, as was Woody Guthrie; even the housemaid, Elizabeth Cotten, was a folk artist of considerable talent.
It's as if Bragg isn't quite sure how to present her. It comes across terribly vague and unsure. "Considerable talent".
later on:
However, one of the stand-out songs in her repertoire hadn’t come from the anthologies compiled by her musicologist parents, nor from the library at Harvard. Seeger had learned ‘Freight Train’ from an African American woman who was housemaid at her family’s Washington, DC residence. Born in North Carolina in 1895, Elizabeth Cotten was hired by the Seegers in 1945, after she found Peggy wandering alone in Woodward and Lothrop, Washington’s largest department store, and returned her to her mother. ‘Libba would have come probably when I was ten,’ recalls Seeger, ‘but it wasn’t until I was about fourteen that I came into the kitchen and found her playing the guitar that always hung on the wall. Up until then, whenever you came in the kitchen she was ironing or she was cooking or she was putting dishes away or whatever.’ Cotten had played since childhood, initially mastering the banjo and then moving on to the guitar. Being left-handed, she developed her own distinctive picking style to allow her to play guitars strung for right-handed people. However, she had ceased playing after joining the church in the early 1920s. Working in a house full of musicians had encouraged her to pick up the instrument again, and she began entertaining the Seeger children with songs she’d played as a child, among them one she’d composed herself, ‘Freight Train’. With its mournful lyrics concerning the killing of a friend, a hanging and a burial, it must have sounded like a classic American murder ballad when Peggy Seeger played it in the coffee bars and skiffle clubs of Soho. And in the febrile atmosphere that followed Lonnie Donegan’s runaway success with what everyone assumed to be a traditional railroad song, it was only a matter of time before someone exploited Seeger’s repertoire.
Here her standing is rectified a bit, but she still falls in the shadow of the more famous Seegers. Oh well. Whoever is reading this, go listen to "Shake Sugaree" and tell me it isn't incredibly moving. It is sung by her 10 year old daughter. Cotten and her influential, dextrous playing, is not to be overlooked. It is my opinion that she deserved a bit more credit and praise in this book. So, “Shake Sugaree” made my eyes well up and spill over with tears within seconds. So did the Fisk Jubilee Singers singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. Anything genuine like that, where the pain and emotion really comes through the melody and lyrics, which are often plain and simple. You can hear the oppression and strife. Even in something relatively jubilant, like Sister Rosetta Tharpe's "Strange Things Are Happening Everyday". Now, back to me gushing about the Beatles.
Very groovy to have Tony Sheridan’s career detailed, as well as Royston Ellis’, two people with strong Beatles connections. Hell, even Bert Kaempfert gets his moment in the sun. Simply thrilling. The contextualization of these events would make Mark Lewisohn (whom Bragg namechecks, citing his authority on all things Beatles) proud. Bragg, demonstrating how he can write with a bit of cheeky suspense, the way most encyclopedias and textbooks could never, often will lay out an otherwise unremarkable scene or happening, before informing us at the end, by revealing the names of the people involved, that we just witnessed a pivotal moment in music history. Moments that signal the birth of a band or genre. Of course we have the iconic meeting of John and Paul, but there are also the infamous residents of Gambier Terrace hanging out with Royston the beat poet. "England's answer to Allen Ginsberg" as Lennon put it. Incidentally, despite publishing this book 4 years after Tune In was released, Bragg makes a slight error when asserting Ellis gave the Beatles their name. As Lewisohn writes in the notes of Tune In:
Royston Ellis claims he came up with, or somehow confirmed, the name Beatles for them, but this isn’t right. They were using it, and it had appeared in print, a month before they met him. If he told them “Beatles” was a good spelling and worth sticking with, he was right—it was, and they were going to. In a published letter Ellis wrote about them within three weeks of his Liverpool trip, the word was spelled “Beetles.”
Of course, this is just my obsessive quibbling and doesn't trouble Bragg's credibility.
To wrap this up, I will say that I came for the Beatles, but stayed for such an enjoyable, eye-opening, enriching ride through the history of the American folk revival, blues, ragtime, jazz, Teddy Boys, Angry Young Men, Beatniks, rock n' roll, trad, Ken Colyer (his exploits are not to be missed), with stops along the way to give detailed descriptions of coffee trades and wartime rationing, hair styles and guitar productions, Young Communist Leagues and Nuclear Disarmament, refugees and immigrants, prisoners and plantations, with so many social upheavals and musical revolutions. I encourage everyone to just drink it all in. Bragg highly recommends The Restless Generation to learn more about the rock n' roll generation, and how they, too, changed the world, along with skiffle. God bless.
Well, let's not get sidetracked. The latter genre was skiffle, and after duly looking into it to educate myself on the Beatles' upbringing, I happened to fall in love with it, and listen to more than necessary. I listened to Lonnie's discography and all the Just About As Good As It Gets! volumes of "Great British Skiffle". The Wikipedia page for the genre is scant, but thoroughly intriguing. I can't get enough of the tea chest (or tub) bass and washboard as musical instruments. It's too perfect. Then I saw a photo of the young boys who'd define disco in the 70's as the Bee Gees, but here they weren't even teens yet, and they were strumming toy guitars in their skiffle band in the 50's, and it was too perfect to not delve further into the genre and its history.
I'm very glad I did, because I got to learn that skiffle evolved out of trad jazz. The banjo and/or guitars of trad bands were brought to the forefront, and the wind instruments fell behind. This is perfectly represented by Lonnie Donegan going from being the banjo player in Chris Barber's Jazz Band, to becoming his own highly successful solo act, a household name, and inspiration, chiefly through the success of his cover of "Rock Island Line", to countless bands of the rock age, the Beatles being just one of the famous examples.
Bragg takes us way back, and I find myself adding very scratchy recordings from over a hundred years ago to my iTunes library, stuff by the Original Dixieland Jass Band and the like. Bragg brings us to appreciate the lesser-known Ken Colyer as much as the figurehead Lonnie Donegan, and after listening to tapes of Colyer's band, I have come to discover that British jazz is where it's at. This is a terrific genre that's given me hours of amusement. Bragg mentions so many songs and albums and artists, and they're all worth a listen. For example, Chris Barber's Jazz Band's version of "Petite Fleur". Awesome stuff!
I will make a diversion here to mention my one real gripe with this book. Bragg doesn't seem to give Elizabeth Cotten her due. Her life was a remarkable one in that she overcame such adversity to make so many strong, affecting recordings, and invent a new style of picking (just like we have Travis picking and etcetera, there is also Cotten picking) along the way. The way she is portrayed here doesn't seem very justified:
Peggy Seeger was the nineteen-year-old banjo-playing daughter of Charles Seeger, a pioneering ethno-musicologist and song collector, and Ruth Crawford, a composer and folklorist. Both had worked with Lomax and his father, John, at the Library of Congress in the 1930s. Peggy had grown up surrounded by folk music. Her parents’ house in Chevy Chase was always full of musicians – her half-brother Pete would come by and play banjo for her and her brother Mike when they were children; Lead Belly was a frequent visitor, as was Woody Guthrie; even the housemaid, Elizabeth Cotten, was a folk artist of considerable talent.
It's as if Bragg isn't quite sure how to present her. It comes across terribly vague and unsure. "Considerable talent".
later on:
However, one of the stand-out songs in her repertoire hadn’t come from the anthologies compiled by her musicologist parents, nor from the library at Harvard. Seeger had learned ‘Freight Train’ from an African American woman who was housemaid at her family’s Washington, DC residence. Born in North Carolina in 1895, Elizabeth Cotten was hired by the Seegers in 1945, after she found Peggy wandering alone in Woodward and Lothrop, Washington’s largest department store, and returned her to her mother. ‘Libba would have come probably when I was ten,’ recalls Seeger, ‘but it wasn’t until I was about fourteen that I came into the kitchen and found her playing the guitar that always hung on the wall. Up until then, whenever you came in the kitchen she was ironing or she was cooking or she was putting dishes away or whatever.’ Cotten had played since childhood, initially mastering the banjo and then moving on to the guitar. Being left-handed, she developed her own distinctive picking style to allow her to play guitars strung for right-handed people. However, she had ceased playing after joining the church in the early 1920s. Working in a house full of musicians had encouraged her to pick up the instrument again, and she began entertaining the Seeger children with songs she’d played as a child, among them one she’d composed herself, ‘Freight Train’. With its mournful lyrics concerning the killing of a friend, a hanging and a burial, it must have sounded like a classic American murder ballad when Peggy Seeger played it in the coffee bars and skiffle clubs of Soho. And in the febrile atmosphere that followed Lonnie Donegan’s runaway success with what everyone assumed to be a traditional railroad song, it was only a matter of time before someone exploited Seeger’s repertoire.
Here her standing is rectified a bit, but she still falls in the shadow of the more famous Seegers. Oh well. Whoever is reading this, go listen to "Shake Sugaree" and tell me it isn't incredibly moving. It is sung by her 10 year old daughter. Cotten and her influential, dextrous playing, is not to be overlooked. It is my opinion that she deserved a bit more credit and praise in this book. So, “Shake Sugaree” made my eyes well up and spill over with tears within seconds. So did the Fisk Jubilee Singers singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. Anything genuine like that, where the pain and emotion really comes through the melody and lyrics, which are often plain and simple. You can hear the oppression and strife. Even in something relatively jubilant, like Sister Rosetta Tharpe's "Strange Things Are Happening Everyday". Now, back to me gushing about the Beatles.
Very groovy to have Tony Sheridan’s career detailed, as well as Royston Ellis’, two people with strong Beatles connections. Hell, even Bert Kaempfert gets his moment in the sun. Simply thrilling. The contextualization of these events would make Mark Lewisohn (whom Bragg namechecks, citing his authority on all things Beatles) proud. Bragg, demonstrating how he can write with a bit of cheeky suspense, the way most encyclopedias and textbooks could never, often will lay out an otherwise unremarkable scene or happening, before informing us at the end, by revealing the names of the people involved, that we just witnessed a pivotal moment in music history. Moments that signal the birth of a band or genre. Of course we have the iconic meeting of John and Paul, but there are also the infamous residents of Gambier Terrace hanging out with Royston the beat poet. "England's answer to Allen Ginsberg" as Lennon put it. Incidentally, despite publishing this book 4 years after Tune In was released, Bragg makes a slight error when asserting Ellis gave the Beatles their name. As Lewisohn writes in the notes of Tune In:
Royston Ellis claims he came up with, or somehow confirmed, the name Beatles for them, but this isn’t right. They were using it, and it had appeared in print, a month before they met him. If he told them “Beatles” was a good spelling and worth sticking with, he was right—it was, and they were going to. In a published letter Ellis wrote about them within three weeks of his Liverpool trip, the word was spelled “Beetles.”
Of course, this is just my obsessive quibbling and doesn't trouble Bragg's credibility.
To wrap this up, I will say that I came for the Beatles, but stayed for such an enjoyable, eye-opening, enriching ride through the history of the American folk revival, blues, ragtime, jazz, Teddy Boys, Angry Young Men, Beatniks, rock n' roll, trad, Ken Colyer (his exploits are not to be missed), with stops along the way to give detailed descriptions of coffee trades and wartime rationing, hair styles and guitar productions, Young Communist Leagues and Nuclear Disarmament, refugees and immigrants, prisoners and plantations, with so many social upheavals and musical revolutions. I encourage everyone to just drink it all in. Bragg highly recommends The Restless Generation to learn more about the rock n' roll generation, and how they, too, changed the world, along with skiffle. God bless.
August 23, 2017
Ever wonder where rock and roll came from? Billy Bragg's account isn't just gripping, it's extremely well-researched and fun. There's histories of songs and performers here and lists of recordings and performances all tied up into one smart social history. Is there anything Billy Bragg can't do?
November 6, 2017
Extremely articulate history of how the trad jazz movement in Britain spawned the Skiffle scene and how the do-it-yourself ethos of that movement gave birth to the massive changes in youth culture, music, and everything else which became the 60's. Very good look at a little examined pocket of important history in music. - BH.
October 4, 2017
As the Goodreads summary states, this book is incredibly well researched and detailed, taking you back to the America roots of what became a very British type of music and led the way for the British Invasion of America in the 60s. Some of this America music I was very familiar with, artists like Lead Belly, well at least their music. I knew little if anything of their lives or the world in which they were creating music. How it made it’s way to the UK was through a small group of people who were pursing an ideal for want of a better word, known as “trad jazz”. Skiffle was an offshoot of this, played inbetween sets to keep the audience entertained at gigs.
What makes skiffle so different from what came before is that it the birth of guitar-based music in the UK and it ties in perfectly with the birth of the teenager, who after the restrictions of post-war Britain, finally find themselves with money in their pockets to spend and a desire to break with the formality of their parents generation. They are looking for a way to express themselves and enjoy themselves and through skiffle they found a way. In the states, it is mirrored by the rise of rockabilly, the king of which was Elvis Presley.
The King of Skiffle for us, was a young man from Glasgow who became a chart hit almost by accident. Reading about his rise to fame, and how much of a fluke it was, was fascinating. What was also interesting to me was how he didn’t write his own music (at least in the beginning) but created a British sounds from what I consider American legends (can you say Woodie Guthrie?). And how much of a craze that sound became.
This is the best part of the story I thought, which didn’t focus too much on Dunegan’s life but looked instead at the impact he had on music in general (as well as other bands and artists which followed him). For a short period in time (just two years of ’57 and ’58) it seems that every young man and quite a few young women picked up guitars and learnt to play three chords, enough to throw out a tune and express themselves.
Among these young men were three that would change the music world as we knew it: John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. And this is where the story ends, with a musical phenomenon that came from nowhere (seemingly), inspired a generation of musicians, and changed and transformed itself into music that influences what we hear today. It’s a pretty inspirational story and one that shows the power of youth when they chose to use it to change the world.
I have to say that the number of artists named and the number of musical references (magazines, venues etc.) was a bit overwhelming at times, as was trying to keep an eye on the timeline as the book tended to bop back and forth. I felt guilty in a way that I knew I wouldn’t remember everything I had read but my husband, who is a much bigger music fan than me and also read the book, didn’t have this problem and found it completely fascinating.
What both of us thought made this book stand out was the passion with which it was written and the love Billy Bragg has for his subject matter. This wasn’t just well researched, it was well written and, to me, it felt like it was written from the heart by a man who knows the music and has been influenced it by it himself. This won’t be a read for everyone but for those who love British music, folk and rock, I would say it’s one you should pick up. Like it a lot!
What makes skiffle so different from what came before is that it the birth of guitar-based music in the UK and it ties in perfectly with the birth of the teenager, who after the restrictions of post-war Britain, finally find themselves with money in their pockets to spend and a desire to break with the formality of their parents generation. They are looking for a way to express themselves and enjoy themselves and through skiffle they found a way. In the states, it is mirrored by the rise of rockabilly, the king of which was Elvis Presley.
The King of Skiffle for us, was a young man from Glasgow who became a chart hit almost by accident. Reading about his rise to fame, and how much of a fluke it was, was fascinating. What was also interesting to me was how he didn’t write his own music (at least in the beginning) but created a British sounds from what I consider American legends (can you say Woodie Guthrie?). And how much of a craze that sound became.
This is the best part of the story I thought, which didn’t focus too much on Dunegan’s life but looked instead at the impact he had on music in general (as well as other bands and artists which followed him). For a short period in time (just two years of ’57 and ’58) it seems that every young man and quite a few young women picked up guitars and learnt to play three chords, enough to throw out a tune and express themselves.
Among these young men were three that would change the music world as we knew it: John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. And this is where the story ends, with a musical phenomenon that came from nowhere (seemingly), inspired a generation of musicians, and changed and transformed itself into music that influences what we hear today. It’s a pretty inspirational story and one that shows the power of youth when they chose to use it to change the world.
I have to say that the number of artists named and the number of musical references (magazines, venues etc.) was a bit overwhelming at times, as was trying to keep an eye on the timeline as the book tended to bop back and forth. I felt guilty in a way that I knew I wouldn’t remember everything I had read but my husband, who is a much bigger music fan than me and also read the book, didn’t have this problem and found it completely fascinating.
What both of us thought made this book stand out was the passion with which it was written and the love Billy Bragg has for his subject matter. This wasn’t just well researched, it was well written and, to me, it felt like it was written from the heart by a man who knows the music and has been influenced it by it himself. This won’t be a read for everyone but for those who love British music, folk and rock, I would say it’s one you should pick up. Like it a lot!
May 13, 2024
This book would seem to have been designed for my exact cohort: music geeks who came of age during the British Invasion of 1964-1966. Most of my musical heroes at one time or another played in Skiffle bands.
Note: this book might just as well have been subtitled "How Lead Belly changed the world," since a large percentage of Skiffle bands' material went back to Lead Belly.
As a teenager, I often heard British rock 'n' rollers talk about Skiffle and "Trad Jazz" without my having much of an idea of what these terms meant. Trad jazz was practiced by British musicians, most of them purists who wanted to duplicate the sound of early New Orleans jazz. They had no use for improvisation or solos: they thought Louis Armstrong went too far!
When the Trad Jazz bands played in clubs, they would take occasional breaks, during which it became customary for a few members of the band, usually a guitarist, a bassist, and perhaps a washboard player to play a short set with vocals. These performances were the beginning of Skiffle, and the first star to hit the Top Ten and outgrow his band was Lonnie Donegan, with his recording of "Rock Island Line." Soon, there were hundreds of Skiffle bands, and a run on guitars. The musical instrument stores couldn't keep up with the demand.
In the United States, "skiffle" was a synonym for "rent party." When the word made its way to Britain, it became a term for a type of music.
Skiffle was huge in Britain for a couple of years in the 1950s, but then it gave way to folk, rock, and blues trends.
Roots, Radicals & Rockers may seem made for a very narrow demographic, but Billy Bragg is a fine writer, who goes into detail about the history of this music, giving the reader a good social history of both the US and the UK.
If you've heard the Lonnie Donegan version (or the Johnny Cash version) of "Rock Island Line," you'll be familiar with the spoken intro which has the train heading for New Orleans, and going through a checkpoint where the engineer fools a toll-taker out of collecting the toll. This whole narrative has two glaring problems: The Rock Island Line doesn't go to New Orleans, and there are no such toll stations for freight trains in the US. Bragg spends the first chapter explaining what happened to the song in its journey from the American south to Great Britain. It's quite a story. Everything in this book is well-researched, but I'm sorry to report that Bragg misquotes "Rock Island Line." Don't let that mistake keep you from reading.
Note: this book might just as well have been subtitled "How Lead Belly changed the world," since a large percentage of Skiffle bands' material went back to Lead Belly.
As a teenager, I often heard British rock 'n' rollers talk about Skiffle and "Trad Jazz" without my having much of an idea of what these terms meant. Trad jazz was practiced by British musicians, most of them purists who wanted to duplicate the sound of early New Orleans jazz. They had no use for improvisation or solos: they thought Louis Armstrong went too far!
When the Trad Jazz bands played in clubs, they would take occasional breaks, during which it became customary for a few members of the band, usually a guitarist, a bassist, and perhaps a washboard player to play a short set with vocals. These performances were the beginning of Skiffle, and the first star to hit the Top Ten and outgrow his band was Lonnie Donegan, with his recording of "Rock Island Line." Soon, there were hundreds of Skiffle bands, and a run on guitars. The musical instrument stores couldn't keep up with the demand.
In the United States, "skiffle" was a synonym for "rent party." When the word made its way to Britain, it became a term for a type of music.
Skiffle was huge in Britain for a couple of years in the 1950s, but then it gave way to folk, rock, and blues trends.
Roots, Radicals & Rockers may seem made for a very narrow demographic, but Billy Bragg is a fine writer, who goes into detail about the history of this music, giving the reader a good social history of both the US and the UK.
If you've heard the Lonnie Donegan version (or the Johnny Cash version) of "Rock Island Line," you'll be familiar with the spoken intro which has the train heading for New Orleans, and going through a checkpoint where the engineer fools a toll-taker out of collecting the toll. This whole narrative has two glaring problems: The Rock Island Line doesn't go to New Orleans, and there are no such toll stations for freight trains in the US. Bragg spends the first chapter explaining what happened to the song in its journey from the American south to Great Britain. It's quite a story. Everything in this book is well-researched, but I'm sorry to report that Bragg misquotes "Rock Island Line." Don't let that mistake keep you from reading.
June 1, 2018
Love Billy Bragg. Always wondered what a skiffle band was, since that's what the Beatles started as (the Quarryman). I come to learn, to my surprise, from this great pop culture history they were primitive guitar-based bands in Britain that played American roots music--Led Belly, Woody Guthrie. Excellent history of a critical link in the development of rock and roll that had been lost, at least to me until I read this book. Sometimes over detailed. I had to plow through a lot of names I didn't know. But worth it for the insights into what was happening in music in Britain, and to an extent, in the U.S. in 1950-1960.
June 3, 2019
I bought this for my mum and then borrowed it fom her.
I didn't know much about skiffle - indeed, only the very short footnotey sort of info you get in big books about popular music, or biogs of musicians who pass over their skiffle band days quite rapidly in order to get on with joinig the Stones or whatever. I imagine Mr Bragg has pretty much covered everything here. I love reading about music and this is great, really engaging and well-written and full of fun anecdotes. The image of Peggy Seeger taking her scooter from London to Scotland with no helmet, a banjo on her back and a guitar clamped between her knees, is particularly enduring.
I didn't know much about skiffle - indeed, only the very short footnotey sort of info you get in big books about popular music, or biogs of musicians who pass over their skiffle band days quite rapidly in order to get on with joinig the Stones or whatever. I imagine Mr Bragg has pretty much covered everything here. I love reading about music and this is great, really engaging and well-written and full of fun anecdotes. The image of Peggy Seeger taking her scooter from London to Scotland with no helmet, a banjo on her back and a guitar clamped between her knees, is particularly enduring.
December 14, 2018
Look, it was fun to learn a lot more about skiffle, which was one of those things I'd heard about primarily in its role as a precursor to the Beatles and the British Invasion and what not, and, as a long time punk rock fan and DIY musician, it was very cool to get the story of the original "three chords and attitude" music. But while Billy Bragg has always had a knack for knowing how to distill a song to its essence, he doesn't quite do so well with the written word. I found a lot of the infodump-style digressions distracting, but you may well feel differently.
May 6, 2022
A well researched history of skiffle that highlights the important but overlooked role it had in the development of popular music, from the trad jazz of New Orleans and the worksongs of the slaves in the cotton fields, via folk and country, through to R&B and punk. Lonnie Donegan gets his dues and this book brings together a wide variety of strands and highlights why skiffle wasn't all "My Old Man's a Dustman", but instead a key movement that shaped the biggest cultural shifts from the 1950s up to punk.
It should come as no surprise that Billy also draws in the politics of the time, even providing an interesting insight into a campaign by leading skiffle and jazz musicians against racism that predated Rock Against Racism by 20 years.
There are many familiar names in this book, many of who you would never imagine sharing the same book, never mind sentences and Billy skillfully brings these disparate elements together to provide an informative and perceptive narrative.
It should come as no surprise that Billy also draws in the politics of the time, even providing an interesting insight into a campaign by leading skiffle and jazz musicians against racism that predated Rock Against Racism by 20 years.
There are many familiar names in this book, many of who you would never imagine sharing the same book, never mind sentences and Billy skillfully brings these disparate elements together to provide an informative and perceptive narrative.
January 8, 2019
It took me nearly two years to finish which I think says it all. I love Billy Bragg and his music but this is really only for people who have a real interest in how skiffle influenced the beginning of rock and roll and want a lot of detail. Too many names and dates etc that I didn’t need to know about.
March 28, 2018
This book is everything I hoped it would be and so much more. For someone who played and played an uncle’s 78 record of Lonnie’s "Rock Island Line" whilst at my grandmothers on holiday in 1956/7 (I was only eleven or twelve at the time) and was completely entranced, this brilliant volume fills in so many gaps of what I thought was a good grasp I had of the events of the time.
So, let’s start at the end. The author picks on a great story about a 1960 documentary describing youth culture of the day. Made by Daniel Farson, he finds a young poet called Royston Ellis. It was Ellis who later finds a flat where, amongst others, there are four young musicians who play at the Jacaranda night club. He becomes friends with them and introduces them to a Vick nasal inhaler. And claims he was the one who suggested they change the “e” to an “a” to become The Beatles.
There was a nice reminder of how The Quarrymen Skiffle Group in 1957 transformed into the biggest band in the world. But that comes later.
Skiffle was a solely British phenomenon. Staggeringly demonstrated by the fact the Microsoft Word does not recognise the word. (Skiffle, not phenomenon). The book has a marvellous opening in describing its origins and particularly what influenced jazz musician Ken Colyer from his trips to America.
There is a detailed account of the early history of traditional jazz in the UK and how it spawned the breakdown session. It was Bill Colyer who suggested to brother Ken that in the break that the band (The Crane River Jazz Band) took in the middle of their performance, they could play some old American roots music (Lead Belly songs particularly) with a guitar, washboard and bass.
When Ken returned from his trip to the USA (there is a fabulous account of his time there) in 1953, some familiar names (to me) were waiting to form a new jazz band, amongst them Chris Barber, Monty Sunshine and a banjo player called Lonnie (was Tony) Donegan. Their own back stories are a revelation, especially to someone who owns their recordings on vinyl. The band toured Denmark of all places and it was Lonnie who would sing some songs in the gap in the performance (that breakdown session again). He had already started that tradition while with the Chris Barber band.
Then comes one of those many gems that knocked me out. Armed with a domestic Grundig tale recorder, Karl Emil Knudsen organises a recording session at the Gentofte Hotel in Copenhagen. He records not only the whole jazz band’s set (which he later releases commercially) but also some of breakdown session numbers. These would only come to light years later, but four open the Acrobat Music anthology of Lonnie’s work "Midnight Special: The Skiffle Years 1953 – 1957". As a huge fan of Lonnie, it was a privilege to find them on Spotify. With Lonnie on banjo and vocals except for the last of the four when Ken sings a turgid "Midnight Special".
Bragg goes on to describe how the word “skiffle” came into being. That same year, it was appropriated by Bill Colyer during an interview with the BBC when asked what sort of music the breakdown group was playing. He could have answered folk, country, blues, gospel, but instead picked on a word that would dominate the British music scene in the mid fifties.
1954 was a big year. The dawn of skiffle saw Ken Colyer’s new jazz band recording "Back to the Delta" in June which included three songs by Ken Colyer’s Skiffle Group (the author explains why). These were the first skiffle recordings to be released. Then the following month the Chris Barber jazz band recorded "New Orleans Joys". This iconic moment is thrilling described as a final session found Lonnie (guitar), Chris (bass) and latecomer Beryl Bryden (washboard) recording four skiffle numbers. Amongst these songs was "Rock Island Line" and the rest is history.
Listening to these recordings on Spotify (again, "Midnight Special: The Skiffle Years 1953-1957"), I was amazed to find, that after all these years, what a superb performance Lonnie brings to these single takes. His voice has been honed to a sweet yet powerful delivery and the energy of the group is staggering. Although this recording of "Rock Island Line" (that was released as a single the following year and made the top ten in both the UK and USA) is what launched the skiffle craze, I actually prefer "Wabash Cannonball" and "John Henry". Even the other track, "Nobody’s Child", is a glimpse into future rock ballads.
There are occasions in musical history where everything clicks, and this was one of them. If you listen to Ken Colyer’s skiffle songs from "Back to the Delta", ("Midnight Special", "Casey Jones" and "K C Moan", and compare them to Lonnie’s, you will see how the latter is on another planet. "Rock Island Line" was released on 11th November 1955 as a single with "John Henry" on the B side. The first record chart of 1956 saw the single enter the charts at No 17. The author notes “The first British artist to get into the charts singing and playing a guitar” and “Folk at a rock n roll tempo from an ex jazz musician by a composer of blues, Lead Belly”. How Bragg describes the part played by Denis Preston is quite something.
Another comparison, this time one of mine, is to listen to other recordings of "Rock Island Line" as American artists tried to cash in on it’s success. They all miss the raw energy of Lonnie. Even Bobby Darin (his first single release) and Johnny Cash are no match.
There are many fascinating anecdotes from the period. The Backstairs Session EP recording by the Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group (the first stand-alone skiffle release), Lonnie meeting Bert Weedon, (me remembering meeting Bert at a dinner and him signing my programme), Lonnie’s visit to the USA where he appeared on TV, toured and was backed by an American rock and roll trio. His influence on this side of the Atlantic was unprecedented. Art Garfunkel’s first recording was "Rock Island Line", it was the first song Phil Spector learnt to play on guitar and Buddy Holly sang it live.
Interwoven with historical detail of the music, Bragg gives us a wonderful portrait of 1950’s culture. The blandness of the BBC and the innovation of commercial television. Films from the time including Blackboard Jungle and Rock around the Clock. I thought the author was going to gloss over all the riots the latter movie spawned, but no. He goes into superb detail over seven pages of research. There is also a piece about Radio Luxenbourg that had particular relevance for me, having listened to the only modern music station of the time. (Yes, I was an Ovaltiney.) And how this station played Bill Hayley’s controversial "Shake, Rattle and Roll" that the BBC refused to play, despite it reaching No 4 in the UK charts.
There is a good section on American artists. Bill Hayley “having lit the fuse for rock and roll, his next record was a mambo”. The rise of Elvis is well documented. Bragg felt the same as me: “Negotiations under way to bring Elvis to the UK. Good luck with that!” British labels were plying the public with home grown versions of American hits, not always successfully.
I would recommend the hardback copy of this book for the photographs and posters alone. From the three musicians who played on "Rock Island Line" to The Quarrymen in 1957.
Back to the music. There are extensive sections on the growth of skiffle in the UK. Many of the groups are mentioned including The City Ramblers who I cannot remember at all. The 1950’s folk scene emerges and seems to dovetail with skiffle. I well remember the songs "Freight Train" by Nancy Whisky and Chas McDevitt and "Last Train to San Fernando" by Johnny Duncan. The book relates the rise of these bands and others.
Lonnie was back from the USA in July 1956, put a band together and recorded new material. Lost John made No 2 in the charts, but "Bring a little Water, Sylvie" was less successful. However, it was this recording that, for me, that marked the end of skiffle for Lonnie. Long before "Chewing Gum" and "Dustman", producer Denis Preston brought in guitarist Denny Wright “who brought new energy to the group”.
Not only energy but to my mind ELECTRIFICATION! Bragg does not really spell this out, but to me these recordings mark a sea change. Hardly noticeable on "Sylvie" even with a short solo, the next single (again from 1957) "Don’t You Rock Me, Daddy-O" presented Wright’s electric guitar up front. The solo is pure early rock and roll. This charted at No 4 and the follow up "Cumberland Gap" (1957) was Lonnie’s first No 1, with Denny Wright’s electric guitar solo again. So, the acoustic line up from Lonnie’s early work was gone forever.
Listening now, I find these latest recordings are up-tempo versions of folk songs, although some of the words also give hints of novelty numbers to follow. This, to me, is demonstrated by the next single that also became a No 1 hit. Still in 1957, "Gamblin’ Man" was coupled with the more comedic "Puttin’ on the Style". It certainly didn’t occur to me at the time, but I can’t help thinking that it was the electric guitar of Denny Wright, and those who followed him in Lonnie’s band (Jimmy Currie on Jack O’Diamonds, Bill Bramwell and Les Bennetts) who inspired many of the rock musicians who followed. Paul McCartney credits Wright on Wikipedia. On YouTube, there is a live recording of "Cumberland Gap" at Conway Hall in 1957 with an amazing solo from Denny Wright himself.
Lonnie was now a big star, and Bragg relates his appearances on TV and on tour. It was the live performances that had such a big influence on future musicians, some whom would become the biggest names in popular music. Lonnie’s chart success was limited in 1958, however towards the end of the year, "Tom Dooley" reached No 3. Although the author describes how the end of Lonnie’s dedication to skiffle ended in 1960 with his No 1 hit of "My Old Man’s a Dustman", he misses Lonnie’s sell out to comedy songs in early 1959 when he recorded "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Favour (On the Bedpost Overnight?") But he had already been in pantomime at the end of 1957 when he played WisheeWashee in Aladdin.
During this period, the American influence of rock and roll was growing. Bragg gives us a wonderful insight into how many British artists imitated their American counterparts. These would include Tommy Steele, Joe Brown, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury, Vince Eager and Georgie Fame. The first of these recorded "Singing the Blues" and made No 1 in the charts, a cover of an Elvis single.
There are also those sections about the politics of the day. Skiffle’s association with the anti-fascist movement and support of pro-immigration is surprising, as is its links to CND.
As a reference to the influence of skiffle on future stars, Bragg gives us a history of Tony Sheridan and his association with The Beatles. He describes Anthony Esmond Sheridan McGinty as “the best rock ‘n roll guitarist of his generation” and refers to Jimmy Page’s comment that he was “the only English guitarist who was any good in the late 50’s”. Sheridan starts off forming a skiffle group called The Saints. His accomplishment on the guitar led him to being in demand as a session and backing musician in London. Just listen to Sheridan’s guitar solo on Vince Taylor and The Playboys "Right Behind You Baby".
In June 1960, Sheridan was off to Hamburg with a band called The Jets, the first British band to play there. With Sheridan meeting The Beatles there, Bragg has some interesting stuff to tell us about the background to this up and coming group. How John Lennon missed National Service by a whisker, unlike his drummer from The Quarrymen Skiffle Group. Otherwise we may never have heard of Ringo, who started playing in the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group.
Back in Hamburg, “The Beatles backed Sheridan on five or six numbers” when he recorded some tracks for a German record company. These included the iconic "My Bonnie" from 22nd June 1961. Just listen to Tony’s guitar, so impressive to Billy Bragg. The single was released in Germany as Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers and later in the UK as Tony Sheridan and The Beatles. The first appearance of this band on commercial disc. They also recorded on their own during the same sessions including "Ain’t She Sweet", a traditional jazz standard.
There is a marvellous section in the book that describes the influence of Lonnie on The Beatles. According to the author, Paul and George saw him at the Liverpool Empire on 5th November 1956 and John played out his record of "Rock Island Line". The author relates “Lennon began playing his guitar from approximately the last week of 1956” and went on to form The Quarrymen Skiffle Group.
The book closes with a resume of how so many of future British stars started in skiffle groups. Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch played skiffle, Cliff and Tony Meehan also had a skiffle background. The name checks of bands and singers goes on and on. You will have to read the book. Bragg makes this startling discovery: “Of the ten British artists who topped the US charts during that incredible two-year period, only one had no connection with skiffle”. Guess who.
So, the last five pages in the last chapter called “The British are Coming” is a who’s who of the big stars who started in the sixties and even the seventies including, amazingly, the Bee Gees starting life as a skiffle group called The Rattlesnakes. Even Abba?
What I take from this book is that skiffle could have been called anything. It was a mixture of folk, blues, country gospel and bluegrass. But it was a truly British phenomenon, all it needed was three chords, a tea chest bass and a washboard, and that inspired so many youngsters to start a band, a few of the thousands made it big. Very big.
I also found in hindsight, listening Lonnie’s recordings once again (what a treat this has been), how he embraced American rock and roll when his band went electric. The back cover of the book puts you into 1954, when a break in a performance by Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen sees Lonnie swapping his banjo for a guitar and, with a couple of others, sings a Lead Belly song. But for me, it was that week, at the age of eleven or twelve, I spent at my grandmothers when I played and played my uncle’s "Rock Island Line". Thank you Lonnie, and thank you Billy.
So, let’s start at the end. The author picks on a great story about a 1960 documentary describing youth culture of the day. Made by Daniel Farson, he finds a young poet called Royston Ellis. It was Ellis who later finds a flat where, amongst others, there are four young musicians who play at the Jacaranda night club. He becomes friends with them and introduces them to a Vick nasal inhaler. And claims he was the one who suggested they change the “e” to an “a” to become The Beatles.
There was a nice reminder of how The Quarrymen Skiffle Group in 1957 transformed into the biggest band in the world. But that comes later.
Skiffle was a solely British phenomenon. Staggeringly demonstrated by the fact the Microsoft Word does not recognise the word. (Skiffle, not phenomenon). The book has a marvellous opening in describing its origins and particularly what influenced jazz musician Ken Colyer from his trips to America.
There is a detailed account of the early history of traditional jazz in the UK and how it spawned the breakdown session. It was Bill Colyer who suggested to brother Ken that in the break that the band (The Crane River Jazz Band) took in the middle of their performance, they could play some old American roots music (Lead Belly songs particularly) with a guitar, washboard and bass.
When Ken returned from his trip to the USA (there is a fabulous account of his time there) in 1953, some familiar names (to me) were waiting to form a new jazz band, amongst them Chris Barber, Monty Sunshine and a banjo player called Lonnie (was Tony) Donegan. Their own back stories are a revelation, especially to someone who owns their recordings on vinyl. The band toured Denmark of all places and it was Lonnie who would sing some songs in the gap in the performance (that breakdown session again). He had already started that tradition while with the Chris Barber band.
Then comes one of those many gems that knocked me out. Armed with a domestic Grundig tale recorder, Karl Emil Knudsen organises a recording session at the Gentofte Hotel in Copenhagen. He records not only the whole jazz band’s set (which he later releases commercially) but also some of breakdown session numbers. These would only come to light years later, but four open the Acrobat Music anthology of Lonnie’s work "Midnight Special: The Skiffle Years 1953 – 1957". As a huge fan of Lonnie, it was a privilege to find them on Spotify. With Lonnie on banjo and vocals except for the last of the four when Ken sings a turgid "Midnight Special".
Bragg goes on to describe how the word “skiffle” came into being. That same year, it was appropriated by Bill Colyer during an interview with the BBC when asked what sort of music the breakdown group was playing. He could have answered folk, country, blues, gospel, but instead picked on a word that would dominate the British music scene in the mid fifties.
1954 was a big year. The dawn of skiffle saw Ken Colyer’s new jazz band recording "Back to the Delta" in June which included three songs by Ken Colyer’s Skiffle Group (the author explains why). These were the first skiffle recordings to be released. Then the following month the Chris Barber jazz band recorded "New Orleans Joys". This iconic moment is thrilling described as a final session found Lonnie (guitar), Chris (bass) and latecomer Beryl Bryden (washboard) recording four skiffle numbers. Amongst these songs was "Rock Island Line" and the rest is history.
Listening to these recordings on Spotify (again, "Midnight Special: The Skiffle Years 1953-1957"), I was amazed to find, that after all these years, what a superb performance Lonnie brings to these single takes. His voice has been honed to a sweet yet powerful delivery and the energy of the group is staggering. Although this recording of "Rock Island Line" (that was released as a single the following year and made the top ten in both the UK and USA) is what launched the skiffle craze, I actually prefer "Wabash Cannonball" and "John Henry". Even the other track, "Nobody’s Child", is a glimpse into future rock ballads.
There are occasions in musical history where everything clicks, and this was one of them. If you listen to Ken Colyer’s skiffle songs from "Back to the Delta", ("Midnight Special", "Casey Jones" and "K C Moan", and compare them to Lonnie’s, you will see how the latter is on another planet. "Rock Island Line" was released on 11th November 1955 as a single with "John Henry" on the B side. The first record chart of 1956 saw the single enter the charts at No 17. The author notes “The first British artist to get into the charts singing and playing a guitar” and “Folk at a rock n roll tempo from an ex jazz musician by a composer of blues, Lead Belly”. How Bragg describes the part played by Denis Preston is quite something.
Another comparison, this time one of mine, is to listen to other recordings of "Rock Island Line" as American artists tried to cash in on it’s success. They all miss the raw energy of Lonnie. Even Bobby Darin (his first single release) and Johnny Cash are no match.
There are many fascinating anecdotes from the period. The Backstairs Session EP recording by the Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group (the first stand-alone skiffle release), Lonnie meeting Bert Weedon, (me remembering meeting Bert at a dinner and him signing my programme), Lonnie’s visit to the USA where he appeared on TV, toured and was backed by an American rock and roll trio. His influence on this side of the Atlantic was unprecedented. Art Garfunkel’s first recording was "Rock Island Line", it was the first song Phil Spector learnt to play on guitar and Buddy Holly sang it live.
Interwoven with historical detail of the music, Bragg gives us a wonderful portrait of 1950’s culture. The blandness of the BBC and the innovation of commercial television. Films from the time including Blackboard Jungle and Rock around the Clock. I thought the author was going to gloss over all the riots the latter movie spawned, but no. He goes into superb detail over seven pages of research. There is also a piece about Radio Luxenbourg that had particular relevance for me, having listened to the only modern music station of the time. (Yes, I was an Ovaltiney.) And how this station played Bill Hayley’s controversial "Shake, Rattle and Roll" that the BBC refused to play, despite it reaching No 4 in the UK charts.
There is a good section on American artists. Bill Hayley “having lit the fuse for rock and roll, his next record was a mambo”. The rise of Elvis is well documented. Bragg felt the same as me: “Negotiations under way to bring Elvis to the UK. Good luck with that!” British labels were plying the public with home grown versions of American hits, not always successfully.
I would recommend the hardback copy of this book for the photographs and posters alone. From the three musicians who played on "Rock Island Line" to The Quarrymen in 1957.
Back to the music. There are extensive sections on the growth of skiffle in the UK. Many of the groups are mentioned including The City Ramblers who I cannot remember at all. The 1950’s folk scene emerges and seems to dovetail with skiffle. I well remember the songs "Freight Train" by Nancy Whisky and Chas McDevitt and "Last Train to San Fernando" by Johnny Duncan. The book relates the rise of these bands and others.
Lonnie was back from the USA in July 1956, put a band together and recorded new material. Lost John made No 2 in the charts, but "Bring a little Water, Sylvie" was less successful. However, it was this recording that, for me, that marked the end of skiffle for Lonnie. Long before "Chewing Gum" and "Dustman", producer Denis Preston brought in guitarist Denny Wright “who brought new energy to the group”.
Not only energy but to my mind ELECTRIFICATION! Bragg does not really spell this out, but to me these recordings mark a sea change. Hardly noticeable on "Sylvie" even with a short solo, the next single (again from 1957) "Don’t You Rock Me, Daddy-O" presented Wright’s electric guitar up front. The solo is pure early rock and roll. This charted at No 4 and the follow up "Cumberland Gap" (1957) was Lonnie’s first No 1, with Denny Wright’s electric guitar solo again. So, the acoustic line up from Lonnie’s early work was gone forever.
Listening now, I find these latest recordings are up-tempo versions of folk songs, although some of the words also give hints of novelty numbers to follow. This, to me, is demonstrated by the next single that also became a No 1 hit. Still in 1957, "Gamblin’ Man" was coupled with the more comedic "Puttin’ on the Style". It certainly didn’t occur to me at the time, but I can’t help thinking that it was the electric guitar of Denny Wright, and those who followed him in Lonnie’s band (Jimmy Currie on Jack O’Diamonds, Bill Bramwell and Les Bennetts) who inspired many of the rock musicians who followed. Paul McCartney credits Wright on Wikipedia. On YouTube, there is a live recording of "Cumberland Gap" at Conway Hall in 1957 with an amazing solo from Denny Wright himself.
Lonnie was now a big star, and Bragg relates his appearances on TV and on tour. It was the live performances that had such a big influence on future musicians, some whom would become the biggest names in popular music. Lonnie’s chart success was limited in 1958, however towards the end of the year, "Tom Dooley" reached No 3. Although the author describes how the end of Lonnie’s dedication to skiffle ended in 1960 with his No 1 hit of "My Old Man’s a Dustman", he misses Lonnie’s sell out to comedy songs in early 1959 when he recorded "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Favour (On the Bedpost Overnight?") But he had already been in pantomime at the end of 1957 when he played WisheeWashee in Aladdin.
During this period, the American influence of rock and roll was growing. Bragg gives us a wonderful insight into how many British artists imitated their American counterparts. These would include Tommy Steele, Joe Brown, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury, Vince Eager and Georgie Fame. The first of these recorded "Singing the Blues" and made No 1 in the charts, a cover of an Elvis single.
There are also those sections about the politics of the day. Skiffle’s association with the anti-fascist movement and support of pro-immigration is surprising, as is its links to CND.
As a reference to the influence of skiffle on future stars, Bragg gives us a history of Tony Sheridan and his association with The Beatles. He describes Anthony Esmond Sheridan McGinty as “the best rock ‘n roll guitarist of his generation” and refers to Jimmy Page’s comment that he was “the only English guitarist who was any good in the late 50’s”. Sheridan starts off forming a skiffle group called The Saints. His accomplishment on the guitar led him to being in demand as a session and backing musician in London. Just listen to Sheridan’s guitar solo on Vince Taylor and The Playboys "Right Behind You Baby".
In June 1960, Sheridan was off to Hamburg with a band called The Jets, the first British band to play there. With Sheridan meeting The Beatles there, Bragg has some interesting stuff to tell us about the background to this up and coming group. How John Lennon missed National Service by a whisker, unlike his drummer from The Quarrymen Skiffle Group. Otherwise we may never have heard of Ringo, who started playing in the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group.
Back in Hamburg, “The Beatles backed Sheridan on five or six numbers” when he recorded some tracks for a German record company. These included the iconic "My Bonnie" from 22nd June 1961. Just listen to Tony’s guitar, so impressive to Billy Bragg. The single was released in Germany as Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers and later in the UK as Tony Sheridan and The Beatles. The first appearance of this band on commercial disc. They also recorded on their own during the same sessions including "Ain’t She Sweet", a traditional jazz standard.
There is a marvellous section in the book that describes the influence of Lonnie on The Beatles. According to the author, Paul and George saw him at the Liverpool Empire on 5th November 1956 and John played out his record of "Rock Island Line". The author relates “Lennon began playing his guitar from approximately the last week of 1956” and went on to form The Quarrymen Skiffle Group.
The book closes with a resume of how so many of future British stars started in skiffle groups. Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch played skiffle, Cliff and Tony Meehan also had a skiffle background. The name checks of bands and singers goes on and on. You will have to read the book. Bragg makes this startling discovery: “Of the ten British artists who topped the US charts during that incredible two-year period, only one had no connection with skiffle”. Guess who.
So, the last five pages in the last chapter called “The British are Coming” is a who’s who of the big stars who started in the sixties and even the seventies including, amazingly, the Bee Gees starting life as a skiffle group called The Rattlesnakes. Even Abba?
What I take from this book is that skiffle could have been called anything. It was a mixture of folk, blues, country gospel and bluegrass. But it was a truly British phenomenon, all it needed was three chords, a tea chest bass and a washboard, and that inspired so many youngsters to start a band, a few of the thousands made it big. Very big.
I also found in hindsight, listening Lonnie’s recordings once again (what a treat this has been), how he embraced American rock and roll when his band went electric. The back cover of the book puts you into 1954, when a break in a performance by Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen sees Lonnie swapping his banjo for a guitar and, with a couple of others, sings a Lead Belly song. But for me, it was that week, at the age of eleven or twelve, I spent at my grandmothers when I played and played my uncle’s "Rock Island Line". Thank you Lonnie, and thank you Billy.
July 10, 2023
Entertaining and informative account of the origins of skiffle and British Pop.
January 13, 2018
One of the best books on popular music I have read. [More detailed review to follow.]
December 22, 2017
An enjoyable look at the skiffle music and it's influence on the culture and music of the late 50s and early 60s. Bragg's obvious love for his subject shines through and he writes well though it's a little disjointed at times.
July 12, 2017
Billy Bragg's account of the origins of skiffle, its growth and effects in the UK and of how it lead to the British Beat Boom of the sixties, is both exhaustive and fascinating. Bragg writes clearly and concisely, successfully putting across how a bunch of trad jazz enthusiasts used the intervals between sets at jazz clubs to play songs by Leadbelly and other blues singers, in turn creating the skiffle movement. Like the punk movement of the seventies, skiffle got teenaged kids interested in playing music. Get a cheap guitar, learn three chords and you were away. As Bragg points out, nearly every important British band of the sixties contained members who had started out in skiffle groups, from the Beatles and the Stones to Led Zeppelin and beyond. He also explains how skiffle appealed to the teenagers who were shaking free of the effects of post-war austerity and looking for their own way of entertaining themselves. Great book, well worth reading by anyone interested in how British popular music went from the dull uniformity of the fifties to the vibrant world beaters of the sixties.
February 6, 2019
I approached this book with only a cursory knowledge of skiffle, and finished it not knowing if my knowledge had grown for having read it. When the author states that Peggy Sue was Buddy Holly’s first single -- it wasn’t, it was his sixth -- then I can only regard the rest of the text to be questionable at best, dubious at worst.
August 27, 2017
Exceeded all expectations
November 4, 2017
Billy Bragg shows himself to be an intelligent, diligent researcher and an entertaining writer with just a hint of wit from time to time. I must also note that at no time is he ever self-serving. You would hardly know that the man had his own band and was a successful punk rocker. I was completely fascinated by his "historian" voice, given the cockney, mouthy songwriter we know from his music.
He makes the case that the "skiffle" movement in post WWII Britain was the attempt of youth to latch onto an authentic kind of grass-roots-based acoustic music based on the roots/blues/folk of African American musicians in the 1930s and '40s in the American south.
I dearly wish that this book came with a music CD, primarily so I could have figured out the meaning of "Trad Jazz" which is not a term I was familiar with. From what I can tell, it is related to dixieland jazz, and the various purist segments of fans in Britain collected the records and attempted to play it themselves. In the process of doing this, they encountered black roots music such as that of Leadbelly and other black acoustic blues singers. The splintering of this acoustic folk/blues from the "trad jazz" was the start of "skiffle," which appears to be a term appropriated from African American "rent parties" where this music was played, in order to describe British youth trying to replicate this music.
The bottom line is that after WWII, British youth were tired of being lectured by their parents about how much they owned them for fighting the war. They were tired of the commercial music available on the radio. They were tired of large dance bands replicating jazz standards in British dance halls. They wanted something authentic that was their own.
Now what I found so interesting about this book was the view if afforded me from the other side, so to speak. I was a college student in 1969 and many of my friends were playing acoustic roots music based on Leadbelly, as learned from people like Pete Seeger, Dave Van Ronk, David Bromberg, as well as the jug band music of Geoff and Maria Muldaur and many , many others. This music, if we had been in England and were British, I think would have qualified as "skiffle." But white college kids (and in fact, any musicians I was aware of, at least in the Northeast of the U.S.) never used this term.
The dynamics and the politics of the various musical persuasians in their attempt to be real and authentic pre-dated the American 60s but I could relate to it.
There is one chapter about how American, Peggy Seeger (sister of Pete) and her husband, British songwriter Ewan McColl exerted their influence over the Folk Song Society of England (or whatever it was called). They took exception to Brits performing American roots music (or for that matter, Scottish or Australian folk songs) with bad accents. They encouraged members to discover the folk songs of their own heritage (okay, good) but also attempted to forbid anyone from performing a song that was not from their heritage or in their own accented speech. At this time, Billy Bragg puts in one of his rare editorial opinions--he says, "Why did Peggy and Ewan need to become the folk police? This is an interesting issue.
For another perspective on this, read Dave van Ronk's memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, where he talks about his respect for the cultures of the roots songs he was performing but that he felt that a good performance was a respectful performance.
Another interesting point Bragg makes is that virtually EVERY British invasion rock band of the 60s got their start in skiffle. Not just John Lennon, whom we all heard say it a million times, but Bragg goes down the list--dozens of British rock bands all started with skiffle.
There are many other interesting revelations--the policies enforced by the American and British musicians unions, preventing foreign bands from touring or appearing on TV or radio until a sometime in the late 50s, I think, which made it impossible for Brits to hear the American musicians they craved- it was even hard to get their records. This spawned a whole industry of British bands producing copy cat recordings of the current hits in the U.S. If you read Elvis Costello's memoir, he talks about how his father, a dance band leader, received numerous disks of American hits which he would then teach his band to play and then give little Elvis the disks to keep; this explains Costello's wide repetoire.
Anyway, this whole book was a revelation. Billy Bragg is an excellent writer.
Next I would like him to write his own story, because he really kept quite a distance and did not intrude on the history he was trying to tell. Perhaps his own turn next?
Great book!
He makes the case that the "skiffle" movement in post WWII Britain was the attempt of youth to latch onto an authentic kind of grass-roots-based acoustic music based on the roots/blues/folk of African American musicians in the 1930s and '40s in the American south.
I dearly wish that this book came with a music CD, primarily so I could have figured out the meaning of "Trad Jazz" which is not a term I was familiar with. From what I can tell, it is related to dixieland jazz, and the various purist segments of fans in Britain collected the records and attempted to play it themselves. In the process of doing this, they encountered black roots music such as that of Leadbelly and other black acoustic blues singers. The splintering of this acoustic folk/blues from the "trad jazz" was the start of "skiffle," which appears to be a term appropriated from African American "rent parties" where this music was played, in order to describe British youth trying to replicate this music.
The bottom line is that after WWII, British youth were tired of being lectured by their parents about how much they owned them for fighting the war. They were tired of the commercial music available on the radio. They were tired of large dance bands replicating jazz standards in British dance halls. They wanted something authentic that was their own.
Now what I found so interesting about this book was the view if afforded me from the other side, so to speak. I was a college student in 1969 and many of my friends were playing acoustic roots music based on Leadbelly, as learned from people like Pete Seeger, Dave Van Ronk, David Bromberg, as well as the jug band music of Geoff and Maria Muldaur and many , many others. This music, if we had been in England and were British, I think would have qualified as "skiffle." But white college kids (and in fact, any musicians I was aware of, at least in the Northeast of the U.S.) never used this term.
The dynamics and the politics of the various musical persuasians in their attempt to be real and authentic pre-dated the American 60s but I could relate to it.
There is one chapter about how American, Peggy Seeger (sister of Pete) and her husband, British songwriter Ewan McColl exerted their influence over the Folk Song Society of England (or whatever it was called). They took exception to Brits performing American roots music (or for that matter, Scottish or Australian folk songs) with bad accents. They encouraged members to discover the folk songs of their own heritage (okay, good) but also attempted to forbid anyone from performing a song that was not from their heritage or in their own accented speech. At this time, Billy Bragg puts in one of his rare editorial opinions--he says, "Why did Peggy and Ewan need to become the folk police? This is an interesting issue.
For another perspective on this, read Dave van Ronk's memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, where he talks about his respect for the cultures of the roots songs he was performing but that he felt that a good performance was a respectful performance.
Another interesting point Bragg makes is that virtually EVERY British invasion rock band of the 60s got their start in skiffle. Not just John Lennon, whom we all heard say it a million times, but Bragg goes down the list--dozens of British rock bands all started with skiffle.
There are many other interesting revelations--the policies enforced by the American and British musicians unions, preventing foreign bands from touring or appearing on TV or radio until a sometime in the late 50s, I think, which made it impossible for Brits to hear the American musicians they craved- it was even hard to get their records. This spawned a whole industry of British bands producing copy cat recordings of the current hits in the U.S. If you read Elvis Costello's memoir, he talks about how his father, a dance band leader, received numerous disks of American hits which he would then teach his band to play and then give little Elvis the disks to keep; this explains Costello's wide repetoire.
Anyway, this whole book was a revelation. Billy Bragg is an excellent writer.
Next I would like him to write his own story, because he really kept quite a distance and did not intrude on the history he was trying to tell. Perhaps his own turn next?
Great book!
May 17, 2017
Popular music is a house of many mansions. Consider not only the main rooms – jazz, blues, country, folk, hip hop, electronic, easy listening, Latin, R & B and soul, rock ‘n roll, and pop – but also all the myriad sub-divisions, ranging from rockabilly to reggaestep, from lounge to liquid funk, and salsa to shoegaze. All forms of music have their ardent champions and skiffle has found its most eloquent advocate in Billy Bragg whose ‘Roots, Radicals and Rockers’ is subtitled ‘How Skiffle Changed the World’.
At first this seems a vain boast, given that skiffle is often derided as a moribund sub-set of an entire category - folk music – which is all too frequently characterized as terminally ‘uncool’.
Bragg himself concedes that skiffle exists “in the dead ground of British pop culture, between the end of the war and the rise of the Beatles”, having left “little tangible evidence” of its relatively brief period of popularity, so that in the popular consciousness it registers, if at all, as a footnote to the formation of the Beatles (the original Quarrymen being a skiffle group) and in the recordings of Lonnie Donegan who sold out in making novelty songs like ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’ just as clearly (but much less profitably) as Elvis did when he started making films.
The modern British teenager was certainly shaped by more profound forces than skiffle including the baby boom, full employment and the end of National Service but when Bragg talks about skiffle changing the world he’s really thinking more about its musical legacy and in the book’s last chapter – "The British Are Coming” – he makes a convincing case for the argument that “skiffle was boot camp for the British Invasion” by pointing to the origins in skiffle of John Lennon, Alan Price, Paul Jones, Wayne Fontana, Dave Clark, Bill Wyman, Gerry Marsden, Graham Nash, Roger Daltrey, Ronnie Wood, Rod Stewart, Marc Bolan, Ian Hunter, Jack Bruce. Joe Cocker, Jimmy Page and a host of other seminal figures in the UK pop and rock scene of the 1960s and beyond.
An interesting connection not mentioned by Bragg and further proof of skiffle’s pervasive influence is that John Howlett, the co-writer of ‘Crusaders’, which eventually became the radical 1968 British feature film ‘If ….’ about revolution in a private school, had partly expressed his own rebellious spirits by belonging to a skiffle group when he was as a student at Tonbridge School.
It is clear that what appeals to Bragg is not just the music but its practitioners’ attitude and the way in which skiffle was produced: “the first music for teenagers by teenagers in our cultural history”. Not surprisingly then, Bragg sees punk as the spiritual heir of skiffle: music produced at a time of austerity, which rejected the overproduced confections of the then mainstream and comprised a rough-and-ready three-chord DIY form of expression which was raucous, energetic, empowering and authentic.
It is not possible to read this highly entertaining and informative book without being swept away by Bragg’s enthusiasm. He deserves high praise for this exercise in musical archaeology which successfully rescues skiffle from near oblivion and belatedly gives it its due.
At first this seems a vain boast, given that skiffle is often derided as a moribund sub-set of an entire category - folk music – which is all too frequently characterized as terminally ‘uncool’.
Bragg himself concedes that skiffle exists “in the dead ground of British pop culture, between the end of the war and the rise of the Beatles”, having left “little tangible evidence” of its relatively brief period of popularity, so that in the popular consciousness it registers, if at all, as a footnote to the formation of the Beatles (the original Quarrymen being a skiffle group) and in the recordings of Lonnie Donegan who sold out in making novelty songs like ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’ just as clearly (but much less profitably) as Elvis did when he started making films.
The modern British teenager was certainly shaped by more profound forces than skiffle including the baby boom, full employment and the end of National Service but when Bragg talks about skiffle changing the world he’s really thinking more about its musical legacy and in the book’s last chapter – "The British Are Coming” – he makes a convincing case for the argument that “skiffle was boot camp for the British Invasion” by pointing to the origins in skiffle of John Lennon, Alan Price, Paul Jones, Wayne Fontana, Dave Clark, Bill Wyman, Gerry Marsden, Graham Nash, Roger Daltrey, Ronnie Wood, Rod Stewart, Marc Bolan, Ian Hunter, Jack Bruce. Joe Cocker, Jimmy Page and a host of other seminal figures in the UK pop and rock scene of the 1960s and beyond.
An interesting connection not mentioned by Bragg and further proof of skiffle’s pervasive influence is that John Howlett, the co-writer of ‘Crusaders’, which eventually became the radical 1968 British feature film ‘If ….’ about revolution in a private school, had partly expressed his own rebellious spirits by belonging to a skiffle group when he was as a student at Tonbridge School.
It is clear that what appeals to Bragg is not just the music but its practitioners’ attitude and the way in which skiffle was produced: “the first music for teenagers by teenagers in our cultural history”. Not surprisingly then, Bragg sees punk as the spiritual heir of skiffle: music produced at a time of austerity, which rejected the overproduced confections of the then mainstream and comprised a rough-and-ready three-chord DIY form of expression which was raucous, energetic, empowering and authentic.
It is not possible to read this highly entertaining and informative book without being swept away by Bragg’s enthusiasm. He deserves high praise for this exercise in musical archaeology which successfully rescues skiffle from near oblivion and belatedly gives it its due.
December 17, 2019
Before I read this book, my knowledge of Britain’s skiffle scene was from reading little anecdotes in the histories of various English rock groups. Anecdotes such as “John Lennon met Paul McCartney when they both played in skiffle groups in Liverpool,” or “Pete Townshend played in several skiffle bands before joining the Who.” But what exactly was a skiffle group and why were they so influential to Britain’s music scene in the late 1950s?
The easy answer is that skiffle was a type of music played by young folks in England during the 1950s, influenced mainly by American jazz, blues, and folk as well as English folk songs. The longer answer is all that, PLUS add to it the fact that as much as skiffle had in common with—and sounded similar to—rockabilly and early rock ‘n’ roll, it had developed mostly on its own, independent from the pop music of the day. This was rebellious music of a D.I.Y. ethic often utilizing handmade instruments such as washboards and the one-string tea chest bass.
But what I really found intriguing was that this music started out as a lark. A local trad jazz band decided to add some variety to their shows by playing a few Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie songs on guitar between their regular jazz sets. Something to break up the regular jazz routine. One of these musicians, Lonnie Donegan, played with a great sense of abandon, ratcheting up the tempo and the volume on the songs to the audience’s delight. Eventually more people were showing up for the mid-show entertainment than the regular night’s jazz.
As the guitar was not strictly a popular instrument in England at the time, the critics were dismissive, but the kids were immediately won over. Once a few record labels got wind of the burgeoning popularity of this new sound and released a few albums, sales of guitars skyrocketed overnight as practically every teen in England started a band, if only to play at coffee houses or school cafeterias. Skiffle contests were a huge thing the country over, with groups of young Brits vying to win the local heat and advance to the next level, hoping to win the big prize: a chance to make their own record. I do believe that this helps to explain how the British Invasion happened to be so big, so explosive. The kids were already primed and ready, and the amount of kids in bands around the country, all fighting for attention, were a huge pool of talent just waiting to be tapped, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of fans waiting for the next big thing to happen. Throngs of school girls would scream their lungs out as their favorite bands hit the stage, in a prelude to Beatlemania years later. I always saw the screaming fans during the Beatles’ shows as coming out of nowhere, but now it all makes sense. This had been building up for years, the Fab Four were simply the latest and biggest band at the time to command that sort of attention, and the kids went wild as soon as they had the chance.
Being a gifted songwriter serves Bragg well here, as he’s economical, yet full of imaginative detail, his research is impeccable, and he has a strong sense of how to tell a story. A great, fun, fast, informative read.
The easy answer is that skiffle was a type of music played by young folks in England during the 1950s, influenced mainly by American jazz, blues, and folk as well as English folk songs. The longer answer is all that, PLUS add to it the fact that as much as skiffle had in common with—and sounded similar to—rockabilly and early rock ‘n’ roll, it had developed mostly on its own, independent from the pop music of the day. This was rebellious music of a D.I.Y. ethic often utilizing handmade instruments such as washboards and the one-string tea chest bass.
But what I really found intriguing was that this music started out as a lark. A local trad jazz band decided to add some variety to their shows by playing a few Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie songs on guitar between their regular jazz sets. Something to break up the regular jazz routine. One of these musicians, Lonnie Donegan, played with a great sense of abandon, ratcheting up the tempo and the volume on the songs to the audience’s delight. Eventually more people were showing up for the mid-show entertainment than the regular night’s jazz.
As the guitar was not strictly a popular instrument in England at the time, the critics were dismissive, but the kids were immediately won over. Once a few record labels got wind of the burgeoning popularity of this new sound and released a few albums, sales of guitars skyrocketed overnight as practically every teen in England started a band, if only to play at coffee houses or school cafeterias. Skiffle contests were a huge thing the country over, with groups of young Brits vying to win the local heat and advance to the next level, hoping to win the big prize: a chance to make their own record. I do believe that this helps to explain how the British Invasion happened to be so big, so explosive. The kids were already primed and ready, and the amount of kids in bands around the country, all fighting for attention, were a huge pool of talent just waiting to be tapped, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of fans waiting for the next big thing to happen. Throngs of school girls would scream their lungs out as their favorite bands hit the stage, in a prelude to Beatlemania years later. I always saw the screaming fans during the Beatles’ shows as coming out of nowhere, but now it all makes sense. This had been building up for years, the Fab Four were simply the latest and biggest band at the time to command that sort of attention, and the kids went wild as soon as they had the chance.
Being a gifted songwriter serves Bragg well here, as he’s economical, yet full of imaginative detail, his research is impeccable, and he has a strong sense of how to tell a story. A great, fun, fast, informative read.
May 17, 2018
Full disclosure. I read this book because I'm a fan of Billy Braggs music, his mission and his sense of humor. I had zero knowledge of skiffle and not much interest to be honest. But I figured if it was written by Bragg than it was at least worth a look.
What I really enjoyed about this book was that it gave a great history lesson on skiffle of course, but also the American South in the 1800s, pre and post war Britain, British social classes, London neighborhoods, race, punk rock, the birth of TV, American music etc. It really educated me on many things about America and Britain that I did not know. This was important to me since I was all that interested in Skiffle, and after hearing some actual Skiffle music, I was even less interested. So I was glad there was a wider area covered in the book. And although I don't like skiffle, the history of Skiffle music was interesting.
As for the writing, this is a well written book. His style is pretty straight to the point and probably won't win any Nobel Prizes, but you would not think his profession something other than writing. Then again as a musician I guess he is actually a writer......but you know what I mean. Bragg gives a clear and engaging history and writes with attention to detail and legitimate enthusiasm that made it easier to read. He adds some color and a bit of humor and won't hesitate to give an opinion. But he never makes it seem like his own personal opinion but rather the opinion of a narrator at large if that makes sense. I was actually disappointed that he didn't talk more about his own experience with the music, society, culture etc. He mentioned the punk Rock Against Racism but didn't mention that he was there. I wished he had given some more of his personal experiences but I understand why he didn't and I appreciate that.
My criticisms of the book? Not too many. But I do have a big one. The subtitle is "How Skiffle Changed the World" but it was never really relayed to me how that happened. Before reading the book I was led to believe that the Beatles (who did in fact change the world to a certain extent) were so influenced by skiffle that their lives and careers would not have been possible without it. But this book makes very few references to how much the Beatles and other British bands listened to and were thus influenced by Skiffle. And the references were essentially in the last chapter and thrown together in what seemed like a hurried and certainly unconvincing fashion. Unconvincing in the sense that there wasn't all that much evidence that the Lennon, Jager, etc were really into Skiffle. There were a few quotes but not enough for that bold subtitle. Would have liked to hear more on that aspect of the history.
What I really enjoyed about this book was that it gave a great history lesson on skiffle of course, but also the American South in the 1800s, pre and post war Britain, British social classes, London neighborhoods, race, punk rock, the birth of TV, American music etc. It really educated me on many things about America and Britain that I did not know. This was important to me since I was all that interested in Skiffle, and after hearing some actual Skiffle music, I was even less interested. So I was glad there was a wider area covered in the book. And although I don't like skiffle, the history of Skiffle music was interesting.
As for the writing, this is a well written book. His style is pretty straight to the point and probably won't win any Nobel Prizes, but you would not think his profession something other than writing. Then again as a musician I guess he is actually a writer......but you know what I mean. Bragg gives a clear and engaging history and writes with attention to detail and legitimate enthusiasm that made it easier to read. He adds some color and a bit of humor and won't hesitate to give an opinion. But he never makes it seem like his own personal opinion but rather the opinion of a narrator at large if that makes sense. I was actually disappointed that he didn't talk more about his own experience with the music, society, culture etc. He mentioned the punk Rock Against Racism but didn't mention that he was there. I wished he had given some more of his personal experiences but I understand why he didn't and I appreciate that.
My criticisms of the book? Not too many. But I do have a big one. The subtitle is "How Skiffle Changed the World" but it was never really relayed to me how that happened. Before reading the book I was led to believe that the Beatles (who did in fact change the world to a certain extent) were so influenced by skiffle that their lives and careers would not have been possible without it. But this book makes very few references to how much the Beatles and other British bands listened to and were thus influenced by Skiffle. And the references were essentially in the last chapter and thrown together in what seemed like a hurried and certainly unconvincing fashion. Unconvincing in the sense that there wasn't all that much evidence that the Lennon, Jager, etc were really into Skiffle. There were a few quotes but not enough for that bold subtitle. Would have liked to hear more on that aspect of the history.
November 10, 2018
A surprising, essential book not just for music lovers, but for anyone interested in a thorough run down of post-WW2 British culture and the emerging influence of its teenage (or youthful) scene-makers.
I was aware of many of the tropes of the book, such as the entrenched British class system, the post-war scarcities and drabness of leisure time activities, but Bragg (again, surprisingly, seeing as he's better known as a musician) creates a context that throws all that together along with Teddy Boys, Pop Art, coffee bars, and where Lonnie Donegan's first big hit "Rock Island Line" actually came from (among other things!).
One notes that while the Brits were curiously and widely appropriating (in the case of Skiffle) Lead Belly's songbook, they weren't exactly beholden to America's lead in pop musical trends. They sorted it out on their own terms with the first wave of youthful musicians bucking the trend by taking New Orleans jazz as their touchstone.
There are multiple passages in the book that made me aware of how prescient (yet now virtually ignored) Skiffle was in terms of the 1960s folk and blues boom, the crossover between culture and progressive politics (with anti-nuclear and anti-racism initiatives) and the whole later day inclination we now call "DIY".
I'll close with this amusing excerpt that quotes Pete Townsend of The Who: "I was used to the tidy music of my dad's era . . . It (Skiffle) was messy. He (Colyer) was messy. The band was messy. The audience was messy". . . In that moment, he grasped the enormity of what was happening. "This instrument (the guitar) was going to change the world. For me, this was absolutely massive because my father was a saxophone player. I could see the end of my father's world - I was going to get a guitar and it was going to be bye-bye, old-timer, and that's exactly what happened."
I was aware of many of the tropes of the book, such as the entrenched British class system, the post-war scarcities and drabness of leisure time activities, but Bragg (again, surprisingly, seeing as he's better known as a musician) creates a context that throws all that together along with Teddy Boys, Pop Art, coffee bars, and where Lonnie Donegan's first big hit "Rock Island Line" actually came from (among other things!).
One notes that while the Brits were curiously and widely appropriating (in the case of Skiffle) Lead Belly's songbook, they weren't exactly beholden to America's lead in pop musical trends. They sorted it out on their own terms with the first wave of youthful musicians bucking the trend by taking New Orleans jazz as their touchstone.
There are multiple passages in the book that made me aware of how prescient (yet now virtually ignored) Skiffle was in terms of the 1960s folk and blues boom, the crossover between culture and progressive politics (with anti-nuclear and anti-racism initiatives) and the whole later day inclination we now call "DIY".
I'll close with this amusing excerpt that quotes Pete Townsend of The Who: "I was used to the tidy music of my dad's era . . . It (Skiffle) was messy. He (Colyer) was messy. The band was messy. The audience was messy". . . In that moment, he grasped the enormity of what was happening. "This instrument (the guitar) was going to change the world. For me, this was absolutely massive because my father was a saxophone player. I could see the end of my father's world - I was going to get a guitar and it was going to be bye-bye, old-timer, and that's exactly what happened."
May 25, 2017
This is a terrific book. Billy Bragg is immensely knowledgeable about the history of Skiffle and has done some meticulous research – and what's more he can really write.
Roots, Radicals and Rockers is a detailed history of Skiffle, that uniquely British phenomenon which was the precursor to so much of the great British music which followed. For example, Bragg gives the full context of George Harrison's famous line "No Lead Belly, no Beatles." What Harrison actually said was, "If there was no Lead belly, there would have been no Lonnie Donegan; no Lonnie Donegan, no Beatles. Therefore no Lead belly, no Beatles." Well, quite.
This is a thorough account of the origins, development and impact of Skiffle, reaching right back to early Blues, Jazz and Ragtime. Bragg certainly hasn't skimmed the surface here because there is a wealth of detail, anecdote and illustration, all of which I found extremely interesting. He also shows a real cultural and political awareness of the context of the music on both sides of the Atlantic, and there's real social history here, too.
The style is very readable and enjoyable. This little quote, which I liked a lot, is a good example: "Before commerce made ownership the key transactional interest of creativity, songs passed through culture by word of mouth and bore the fingerprints of everyone who ever sang them." It's a real pleasure to read.
I have admired and enjoyed Billy Bragg's music and his work in other fields for a long time now. Here, he has shown that he can also produce a fascinating book of real scholarship which is also a pleasure to read. Don't miss this if you have any interest in the history of popular music; it's a gem and very warmly recommended.
(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)
Roots, Radicals and Rockers is a detailed history of Skiffle, that uniquely British phenomenon which was the precursor to so much of the great British music which followed. For example, Bragg gives the full context of George Harrison's famous line "No Lead Belly, no Beatles." What Harrison actually said was, "If there was no Lead belly, there would have been no Lonnie Donegan; no Lonnie Donegan, no Beatles. Therefore no Lead belly, no Beatles." Well, quite.
This is a thorough account of the origins, development and impact of Skiffle, reaching right back to early Blues, Jazz and Ragtime. Bragg certainly hasn't skimmed the surface here because there is a wealth of detail, anecdote and illustration, all of which I found extremely interesting. He also shows a real cultural and political awareness of the context of the music on both sides of the Atlantic, and there's real social history here, too.
The style is very readable and enjoyable. This little quote, which I liked a lot, is a good example: "Before commerce made ownership the key transactional interest of creativity, songs passed through culture by word of mouth and bore the fingerprints of everyone who ever sang them." It's a real pleasure to read.
I have admired and enjoyed Billy Bragg's music and his work in other fields for a long time now. Here, he has shown that he can also produce a fascinating book of real scholarship which is also a pleasure to read. Don't miss this if you have any interest in the history of popular music; it's a gem and very warmly recommended.
(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)
August 17, 2017
Skiffle?
One of the most captivating aspects of history is the way something so apparently trivial can have such an enormous impact and change everything. Billy Bragg’s new book Roots, Radicals, and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World, looks at one of the twentieth-century's greatest fad to fable stories.
Like most in the tail end of the baby boom, I am too young to remember much about the 1960’s but old enough to have been forever captured by its music and culture. Until I began listening to and reading about the influences of Paul McCartney, the big bang of my love of music, I had never heard of Lonnie Donegan or Big Bill Broonzy, and certainly not of the musical form known as “Skiffle.” These names are ever present when folks like Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Pete Townsend, George Harrison, Sir Paul, and most of the rockers who were the explosives of the “British Invasion,” discuss their musical influences.
Skiffle is a very simple form of music to play. All that’s needed is a guitar, and knowledge of three or four chords. Skiffle’s connection to jazz, blues, and folk music gave it a broad appeal, and its simplicity made it easy to learn for the aspiring musicians of post war England. Race was not an issue for Her Majesty’s teenagers the way it was with their racially segregated American cousins. Sadly, most of America would not hear and fall in love with this American music until they were introduced to it by white faces from across the Atlantic.
Billy Bragg’s love of Skiffle and his broad knowledge of music in all its forms are evident throughout the book. His writing is clear and often has the feel of a raucous pub conversation; the kind that leads to more pints rather than punches. Bragg doesn’t seem to have time for arguments or fights, he’s too busy talking about the music he loves.
One of the most captivating aspects of history is the way something so apparently trivial can have such an enormous impact and change everything. Billy Bragg’s new book Roots, Radicals, and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World, looks at one of the twentieth-century's greatest fad to fable stories.
Like most in the tail end of the baby boom, I am too young to remember much about the 1960’s but old enough to have been forever captured by its music and culture. Until I began listening to and reading about the influences of Paul McCartney, the big bang of my love of music, I had never heard of Lonnie Donegan or Big Bill Broonzy, and certainly not of the musical form known as “Skiffle.” These names are ever present when folks like Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Pete Townsend, George Harrison, Sir Paul, and most of the rockers who were the explosives of the “British Invasion,” discuss their musical influences.
Skiffle is a very simple form of music to play. All that’s needed is a guitar, and knowledge of three or four chords. Skiffle’s connection to jazz, blues, and folk music gave it a broad appeal, and its simplicity made it easy to learn for the aspiring musicians of post war England. Race was not an issue for Her Majesty’s teenagers the way it was with their racially segregated American cousins. Sadly, most of America would not hear and fall in love with this American music until they were introduced to it by white faces from across the Atlantic.
Billy Bragg’s love of Skiffle and his broad knowledge of music in all its forms are evident throughout the book. His writing is clear and often has the feel of a raucous pub conversation; the kind that leads to more pints rather than punches. Bragg doesn’t seem to have time for arguments or fights, he’s too busy talking about the music he loves.
July 14, 2018
I’ve never been a fan of either skiffle or trad jazz. I always considered both to be passé, a carbon copy of the real thing. They – Kenny Ball, Acker Bilk, Lonnie Donegan, and the like - would turn up in the record section of Woolworths selling for 90p, usually on the Music for Pleasure label. They would do the odd guest appearances on TV programs such as the Mike and Bernie Winters Show. They were as uncool as uncool could be. Squarer than a box. The sort of thing your dad listened to.
However, it turns out I was wrong to dismiss them so readily.
Starting in the late 40s, trad jazz consisted of musicians dedicated to playing music that had been relegated to the past and was passing from memory. They were young, earnest, committed to authenticity, suspicious of the Tin Pan Alley establishment, and loathed the mediocrity of the popular music of the time. Out of the trad jazz boom grew skiffle which was dedicated to exploring the folk, blues and roots music of America. Out of skiffle came Van Morrison, The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the British folk revival, and much more.
Billy Bragg describes in great detail the journey of this music, including the social context that inspired it, the DIY aspect that democratized it, and the characters that created it. A well written and thoroughly researched book that throws light on a largely forgotten phenomenon. No trad jazz, no skiffle. No skiffle, no Beatles – and we know how they changed everything. And who would ever have thought that Chris Barber was so cool.
However, it turns out I was wrong to dismiss them so readily.
Starting in the late 40s, trad jazz consisted of musicians dedicated to playing music that had been relegated to the past and was passing from memory. They were young, earnest, committed to authenticity, suspicious of the Tin Pan Alley establishment, and loathed the mediocrity of the popular music of the time. Out of the trad jazz boom grew skiffle which was dedicated to exploring the folk, blues and roots music of America. Out of skiffle came Van Morrison, The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the British folk revival, and much more.
Billy Bragg describes in great detail the journey of this music, including the social context that inspired it, the DIY aspect that democratized it, and the characters that created it. A well written and thoroughly researched book that throws light on a largely forgotten phenomenon. No trad jazz, no skiffle. No skiffle, no Beatles – and we know how they changed everything. And who would ever have thought that Chris Barber was so cool.
February 24, 2019
Billy Bragg makes a strong case for the importance of skiffle in late 50's England and shows how profoundly it effects popular music across the western world from that point on. One comes away from this book startled by how encompassing the impact of this low rent, DIY, short-lived musical form was.
However, I couldn't help but feeling the book is more engaging, and perhaps the author was more engaged, with the musical forms that informed skiffle more than skiffle itself. The stories about the British trad jazz revival and Leadbelly and Alan Lomax and The Weavers and Peggy Seeger and the history of the song "Rock Island Line" are what really propel this book, and are enough to make this a great read, but skiffle itself is more an extremely popular byproduct. Spam music.
And yes, Bragg makes a convincing case that the form allowed young people to make music cheaply which inspired hundreds of thousands of them to do so, which is a story worth telling, but I'm not sold on the idea that the music itself, past a few early Lonnie Donegan tracks (Donegan is so important to the form that the book is virtually about him.), is that interesting. I'm not sure that Bragg thinks so, either.
But we are here to praise Donegan, not to bury him, so let's remember that if you liked the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or, indeed, British punk rock, you probably would've had none of it without Lonnie Donegan.
Or, to quote the oft misquoted George Harrison line, "... if there was no Lead Belly, there would have been no Lonnie Donegan; no Lonnie Donegan, no Beatles."
However, I couldn't help but feeling the book is more engaging, and perhaps the author was more engaged, with the musical forms that informed skiffle more than skiffle itself. The stories about the British trad jazz revival and Leadbelly and Alan Lomax and The Weavers and Peggy Seeger and the history of the song "Rock Island Line" are what really propel this book, and are enough to make this a great read, but skiffle itself is more an extremely popular byproduct. Spam music.
And yes, Bragg makes a convincing case that the form allowed young people to make music cheaply which inspired hundreds of thousands of them to do so, which is a story worth telling, but I'm not sold on the idea that the music itself, past a few early Lonnie Donegan tracks (Donegan is so important to the form that the book is virtually about him.), is that interesting. I'm not sure that Bragg thinks so, either.
But we are here to praise Donegan, not to bury him, so let's remember that if you liked the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or, indeed, British punk rock, you probably would've had none of it without Lonnie Donegan.
Or, to quote the oft misquoted George Harrison line, "... if there was no Lead Belly, there would have been no Lonnie Donegan; no Lonnie Donegan, no Beatles."
#/media/File:Therattlesnakesperforming.jpg){kind=link}
October 18, 2018
Billy Bragg tells the story of skiffle, a forgotten chapter in the history of British popular music in an engaging and informative manner. Like al of the best books on popular music, it makes one want to seek out and listen to the music of which he tells.
For the uninitiated, 'skiffle' was an idiosyncratic British take on 'roots' music, drawing its inspiration from the traditions of jazz and the music of the American south, of slaves, and of the blues and of bluegrass and country, to make something both fresh and different and rooted in tradition. And criticallly, something that someone who learned three cords and picked up a guitar, could play. For three hectic years in the late 1950s, amateur skiffle bands wrested the music industry from professional musicians and made it their own.
From Lonnie Donegan to the Vipers, from the inspirations of Huddie Ledbetter, from the jazz stylings of Chris Barber and Ken Colyer the story is laid out ion al its rough and ready glory.
Bragg makes the parallel with the punk explosion of the 1970s, where once more the music industry was upended by enthusiastic amateurs who learned on the job. Of course 'the Man' eventually reestablished control, but these accounts give us hope that one day, creativity and excitement might rise again. In the meantime, a search on spotify can scratch that itch for something real and original.
For the uninitiated, 'skiffle' was an idiosyncratic British take on 'roots' music, drawing its inspiration from the traditions of jazz and the music of the American south, of slaves, and of the blues and of bluegrass and country, to make something both fresh and different and rooted in tradition. And criticallly, something that someone who learned three cords and picked up a guitar, could play. For three hectic years in the late 1950s, amateur skiffle bands wrested the music industry from professional musicians and made it their own.
From Lonnie Donegan to the Vipers, from the inspirations of Huddie Ledbetter, from the jazz stylings of Chris Barber and Ken Colyer the story is laid out ion al its rough and ready glory.
Bragg makes the parallel with the punk explosion of the 1970s, where once more the music industry was upended by enthusiastic amateurs who learned on the job. Of course 'the Man' eventually reestablished control, but these accounts give us hope that one day, creativity and excitement might rise again. In the meantime, a search on spotify can scratch that itch for something real and original.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 97 reviews