Lonnie Donegan - not serious folk music - dear me Joe how I hate to hear those words - but you are of course absolutely right. Skiffle is fun I've played and sung such stuff for years and whenever me and a few like minds have done a skiffle gig the whole audience has enjoyed the music. Mind you we do take bag full of stuff they can bang, blow or scrape so they can join in. Did you ever play a comb and paper? And its good to see all the kids joining in.

It so happens I have just loaned a tape of some Donegan songs as a sampler for the son of a friend of mine He is 14yrs old and has an interest in what he calls "early music - yer know stuff from the fifties and all that".

Skiffle is still alive and well in the South East UK with the Southern Skiffle Society working hard to keep the music here in front of the punters ear as it were ( if anybody wants details of this organisation email me via the Mudcat). In fact they put on a show at the Royal Albert Hall and who was top of the bill - yup the incomparable Lonnie Donegan. 69 years old the survivor of 3 heart attacks and five wives or the other way round. He was absolutely outstanding! He was on for an hour and a half with an excellent band and he was singing better now than he was on that CD you've got. A copy of which is in my Donegan collection.

As a matter of interest when Skiffle took off in the UK in the mid 1950's over 250,000 guitars were imported in to the UK and there were literally 1000's of Skiffle bands playing coffee shops and cafes up and down the country. With 3 simple instruments you could have a band. 1 guitar, 1 T chest bass ( made out of a T chest with a broomstick - my wife played the one I made at a recent gig) and 1 washboard for the skiflly rhythmn.

Skiffle is where the Beatles started, the Rolling Stones were influenced by it and most of the early 60's bands would have started as simple skiffle bands. A bunch of folk with simple cheap instruments getting together to do their stuff and entertain the public - Great Stuff!.

I have read that Donegan and the skiffle craze encouraged more people in the UK than before or since to learn an instrument - principally guitar - and get to know something about performing skiffle, folk, blues and rock 'n roll. It certainly is where I started and scratch any folk or blues singer of a certain age and you'll find a skiffle influenced muso underneath.

That's me on that.

Have a drink on me Down the Rock Island Line coz I'm off with Long Gone Lost John.

Ian Ian