UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi

Subject: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,Bluesman James
Date: 28 Dec 10 - 05:34 PM

One of the great things about the Internet is it allows you to have international discussion For many years, I have been involved with Billy Bragg www.billybragg.co.uk great site, great labor (labour) songs and political threads with a US twist.
Well the subject of music comes up alot and through these discussions, you find out a lot of interesting things. Like the Village Folk Music - which was suppose to be so unique and primal wasn't the first
There was an interest in traditional roots music (for lack of a better word) years before the village revival.
It all started somewhere in the 40's when Blues greats Leadbelly, Big Bill Bronzy, and, Josh White started touring Europe and the UK and found a new audience. They also inspired some folks to pick up guitars and play along.
One of them was a jazz singer/banjo player from Glassgow named Lonnie Gleason Donnegan. He was singing with this trumpeter Ken Collyer Collyer was playing Dixieland or traditional jazz as it was known over there. without all of the details known, Lonnie Donegan cuts a version of Leadbelly's "Rock Island Line" and it becomes a smash hit in the Uk. Suddenly, its a monstrous hit and all of these folks started picking up guitars, wash tub basses, harmonicas and the like. One of them was a group of chaps from Liverpool who were called "The "Quarryman" who later became ....whats their name Oh The Beatles.
Lonnie Donegan was not a guitar virtuoso. He did not develop all of the intricities of Leadbelly and Josh White as did Bert Janch or John Renborun or the Late Dave Van Ronk and Stephan Grossman.
But he had drives, guts and a legitimate love for the music
So whenever I talk to my friends who rant and rave about the Village and what they did and sometimes have to say "You weren't the first"

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: Leadfingers
Date: 28 Dec 10 - 07:30 PM

When 'Rock Island Line' was released , Ken (The Guv'ner) Colyer had left the band , and Trombonist Chris Barber was in charge , Chris played Teachest Bass
with Beryl Bryden on washboard . The Skiffle Group was a 'Novelty' act as part of the Chris Barber Jazz Band when they did concerts .

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 28 Dec 10 - 07:43 PM

What is "Village" folk revival? This is the first time I've heard that term.   We had Greenwich Village of course, which was ONE of the mecca's for folk music - arguably the epicenter of the folk revival that most people recognize from the '50s and '60s.   

I'm not sure what you mean when you say it was "unique".

The folk revival in this country began long before the 1940s.   You can trace the roots to interest in folk song going back to the Lomax's and festivals began springing up in the 1930's.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 28 Dec 10 - 08:10 PM

Well the Washington Square gang seemed to have unique in many peoples memories Ron. Obviously I wasn't there, so I don't know.

I remember being in a Cambridge (England ) folk club around 1967. An unaccompanied singer got up and starting slagging off Dylan for stealing our music and sang a pretty rough version of Scarborough Fair.

Then Roy Harper (the guest singer for the night) got up and he said, this is a Bob Dylan song, without whom this folk club would be empty, and harper sang Girl of the North Country, with exquisite guitar picking.

Of course there was folk music right back as far as people can remeber it. And people collected it for nearly as long. And people debated about what was folk music.

However it was only when Dylan lit a fire under it that it became a worldwide phenomenon, a desirable piece of real estate with provincial folkclubs proliferating (and in some cases being sold as thriving businesses) - and that made it something people wanted to argue about and kill for.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 28 Dec 10 - 08:18 PM

The Greenwich Village folk scene was the epicenter, but just about any major college town had a "scene". Next to Greenwich Village, the Cambridge-Boston area was a vital scene, as was the music and events that were happening in DC.

The "revival" really took off with the Kingston Trio in 1958, but a good argument can be made for the Weaver's in 1950 as launching what would become known as the revival, but it was around for decades - the revival was only when more people began to notice and commercial interests saw a way to make money.

Give Dylan credit for his art, but the revival was in full blast before he arrived on the scene.

It amazes me that anyone interested in "folk" music would make claims of "stealing" music, since the folk process was really about using songs in such fashion.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 28 Dec 10 - 08:31 PM

Used to happen regularly in English folk clubs - people saying Dylan stole the songs.

Of course you're right Ron. the folk revival was well under way. But in England after Dylan and Donovan started getting in the charts - it really exploded. In a tiny little town like Grantham, where I was at college. there were three folk clubs when I arrived in 1967.

I can remember thinking - if I learn Dallas rag and a couple of Blind Boy Fuller songs on the guitar - I'll have a better qualification than this teaching certificate I'm studying for.

When the folk enthusiasts started going trad - the people stopped going to folk clubs. By the early 70's the entire network had shrunk and evaporated, and most of the folk clubs were dismal affairs where professional singers had no place.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 28 Dec 10 - 09:33 PM

There is always a place for both. In my opinion, the revival artists like Dylan grew out of a folk tradition and were part of a modern community, the same factors but modern times and tools. The songs were created for similar reasons and used in the similar fashion.   Put a trad singer or a singer-songwriter on a stage, they are doing the same thing. Diversity is what makes it all interesting and shows the connections with our past, present and future.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,Bluesman James
Date: 28 Dec 10 - 10:00 PM

As far as the time line goes, I am using "Dave Van Ronk The Mayor of McDougall Street" edited by Elijah Wald as a source. Dave credits the folk music happening in the late 50's Donnegan's hit "Rock Island Line" was several years before. Donnegan's only commercial success in the US was "Does the chewing gum loose its flavor on the bedpost overnight" kind of a silly nonsense ditty that had nothing to do with the Leadbelly- Big Bill material he made famous in the UK
I realize the Weavers had hits in the late 40's with "Good Night Irene"
What is significant was that Lonnnie had "working class appeal". It has been postulated that the English working class are not as racist and moralistic as their American counterparts and were able to appreciate Leadbelly and Big Bill Broonzy for that reason. I suppose that is another thread.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 04:24 AM

The English of all classes are racist and moralistic enough. That bloody generation that were my parents and teachers certainly were. They fought the war and they were consequently right about everything.

Lonnie was a hugely popular entertainer. he credited the very middle class BBC with introducing him to Broonzy etc. Certainly when   Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger started talking up Woody Guthrie in the late fifties early 60's - we had met many of the tunes through Lonnie.

Chas McDevitt and Nacy Whiskey were another Brit skiffle act. I heard Chas say that he played the Ed Sullivan show the week that the Everlys were at number one with By Bye Love. McDevitt's hit was the skiffle version of Liba Cotten's 'Freight Train'.

Lonnie had a longer career though with many hits. I was privileged to see his last gig in Nottingham a few years back. he was simply magnificent.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,Bluesman James
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 04:48 AM

I always had the impression that the British are not as "moralistic" about sex. I have heard many many English "Bawdy house" songs that you simply could not sing here.
Historically, most of your moralistic fanatics, Oliver Cromwell Jonathan Edwards etc, you banished over here so their fanaticism has taken root and is (unfortunately) an integral part of our culture and politics. George Orwell talks about it in his Essay,"England, Your England"
What I am basically trying to say is that many of the Blues artists I was strongly influenced by, Leadbelly, Josh White and Big Bill Broonzy, went to the UK and Europe seeking new audiences They found them and inspired many to play and Lonnie Donegan was one of them. He had a great deal of commercial success - starting what we now call "The Skiffle Movement. Many early "British Invasion artists. - The Beatles, Chad and Jeremy, Peter and Gordon started out as Skiffle Performers.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 05:02 AM

There's no question that the American bluesmen who got to the UK through the efforts of a few people like Chris Barber in the late 40s and 50s were very surprised at the reception they received and the status they were accorded - quite different from the status they were accorded at that time in the US. There's also no question that, several years later, the British blues enthusiasts rekindled an interest in the music in the US - Buddy Guy himself has attested to that on several occasions.

However, I think Al's right in categorising a large part of his (and my) father's generation as racist and stiff-necked in many respects. It was the section of that generation who were interested in jazz and blues - a minority - who provided the springboard for people like Broonzy and Terry & McGhee to get over here. Where I would differ with Al is on the question of bawdy. There was always been a strong tradition of vulgarity in this country - surfacing from time to time with singers like George Formby - in immortal artists like Max Miller, Rex Jameson ("Mrs. Shufflewick") and Bobby Thompson ("The Little Waster"). In that, I suspect we're probably a bit more broad-minded than the US, though the activities of some local British Watch Committees in the 1950s might counteract that argument!

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,Bluesman James
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 09:04 AM

Funny, youj should mention Max Miller There is a Lonnie Donegan duet with Max Miller on a silly tune "Titilations" If I am spelling it correctly. Too stupid to be immmoral in my taste.
May I add as evidence of the popularity of the Skiffle Movement, there is a Peter Seeger LP - name escapes me- he performs an instrumental "I knew Leadbelly" He does an introduction where he states "we never had anything as big as the Skiffle Movement" back in the states. -

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 09:08 AM

I don't think Chris Barber ever played teachest bass. He played ordinary upright bass borrowed from Jim Bray (Chris chose bass as his second instrument at music college). Ennui prevents me from correcting all the proper names misspelt in the opening thread.

RtS

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,Captain Colin
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 12:30 PM

Bluesman James is making the point that the great American folk scare had already been preceded by Donegan-led skiffle here in the UK(don't know where the Gleason came from by the way), and that this was even true in the USA too, at least to the very limited extent of Donegan's Rock Island Line hit.Donegan wasn't introuced to blues and folk by visiting American bluesman though, his interest grew through AFN radio and associating with American servicemen in Vienna whilst doing his National Service- Donegan was already an accomplished and knowledgeable folk/blues singer before Josh White came to the UK, and he never saw Leadbelly perform. The general point holds good nevertheless.

Good to see Al Whittle contributing b.t.w.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: tritoneman
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 01:17 PM

I heard an interview with Lonnie Donegan once where he said that, in the early 1950's, he discovered and learnt a lot of american folk and blues material from records that he borrowed from the American Embassy Library. He confessed that because they were totally unobtainable in the UK he sometimes 'lost' them and just paid the fine to the library! Maybe he did us all a favour. Would we have heard that music if Lonnie hadn't learnt and performed it? Would we have been so keen to hear Broonzy, Sonny Terry etc when they came over? Would the blues boom of the 1960's have occurred - a boom that some claim re-kindled American interest in the blues? Hang on, I think I'm getting a bit carried away here......

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 02:08 PM

Chad and jeremy.....a blast from the past!

Aye aye captain

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: Vic Smith
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 02:20 PM

Leadfingers wrote

"Chris played Teachest Bass "

I'm fairly sure that this is wrong. When Chris Barber had his skiffle group in the days of the Ken Colyer band and in the early days of his own band, there was sometimes a "skiffle spot" led by Lonnie Donegan in their jazz club and concert appearances. In these skiffle spots Chris would play bass but it would be a regular musical double bass and Chris was always a skilled player of the instrument. He usually switched to double bass when Monty Sunshine played his solo in Chris Barber concerts and I think he was also on double bass when Monty made his hit recording of Petit Fleur.

Tea-chest basses were common amongst the rank and file amateur skiffle groups, but Chris Barber was much more musically sophisticated than that.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi (Chad
From: GUEST,Bluesman James
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 03:16 PM

Chad and Jeremy are still arounmd. They did a show at Sugarloaf. They have an active web site and they stil have their voices. Jermey use to have this Gibson 12 string that was to die for.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,sgs
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 10:58 PM

we should also note american revival artists who were not trad blues singers who contributed to the non-skiffle aspects of the british revival in the early 50s to pre-Dylan early 60s:

jack elliott
derroll adams
peggy seeger (work inseparable from ewan maccoll)
hedy west (influenced carthy)
possibly charles river boys, tom rush and certainly baez from boston scene

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 06:01 AM

American roots music, Alan Lomax, Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, Bert Lloyd, The RVW Library - everything that followed

L in C#
PS Did Lonnie Donegan get lonnie from Lonnie Johnson?

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 06:10 AM

PS Did Lonnie Donegan get lonnie from Lonnie Johnson?

So I understand, Les. And a great role model HE is!

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 06:17 AM

True, true!

A friend has a poster that shows how jazz evolved into all its many forms. The central graphic is a tree. You can guess what the roots represent and how Miles Davis, Bix, Louis and all the others might be near the trunk and others out on limbs.

I guess the 'folk' thing could also be represented in a similar way

Best wishes Will

Les

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 06:40 AM

Lonnie Gleason Donegan. Rubbish, I seem to remember that his given name was Anthony or "Tony" Donegan. The story is that When blues singer guitarist Lonnie Johnson came to London in 1952 as part of a concert to raise funds for flood relief in the UK (New Orleans musician playing in London for flood relief believe it or not)Tony Donegan was on the same bill possibly with Colyer or Barber's band. It was then that Donegan adopted the name Lonnnie. One story says that the compere at the show got mixed up in his intro and mis-named him Lonnie?
Regarding Chris playing tea chest bass, having seen Chris on numerous occasions and spent time with him socially and doing some PR work for him I don't think so. Talking to a dance band leader at one time in Dundee Chris said that he took up trombone because the posture required for his first choice of instrument used to cause him back pain. I seem to recall that he was speaking of the violin but it might have been Double Bass.
Regarding Leadbelly he never made it to England. I believe he was only in France in 1949. Big Bill Broonzy and Brother John Sellars came to the UK around 1955 to 57 Terry and McGhee 1958 and Muddy Waters in 1958, and it should be pointed out that these people were brought over to appear alongside British Jazz Revivalist musicians as that is where the blues audience came from at the time.
Describing Ken Colyer's band as "Dixieland" would have him spinning in his grave and as for comparing Bet Jansch and John Renbourne's guitar playing to that of Leadbelly ????

Hoot

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: greg stephens
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 09:35 AM

Leadbelly did play inParis in 1949. Alexis Korner is the only person I have ever met who went over to see him, he went with Beryl Bryden(the washboard player on Lonnie's Rock Island Line).

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 09:57 AM

I'll leave the history of skiffle to those who believe they're the more knowledgeable 'experts' here.
My first recollections are of Lonnie, the Vipers Skiffle Group, with Jean Van den Bosch, Wally Whyton & Co and hearing about the Skiffle Cellar in Greek St., Soho, which I once visited in 1958, only to find it closed at the time of day I was able to be there.
I was a once proud owner of the Vipers 10" LP.
In 1957, I helped form a skiffle group, we called ourselves the Treble O Skiffle group and played at a few venues in the Southend-on-Sea area for fun, including the Pier Pavilion.
We made one record at one of those tiny seaside voice recording studios, the 'dogbox' only just fitted through the doorway.
Our only claim to fame, was when another group called themselves the Tremeloes, whose biggest hit came in 1967, "Silence is Golden."
We lost a local cinema organised skiffle contest in 1958, to a group who played Rock & Roll, that's show business for you.
I performed regularly at a folk club in Westclif-on-Sea, but my US based style was shunned by English folk purists.
One time, myself and my buddy, Les Weston appeared at the Troubador, near Earl's Court, London, but my best memory of that, was hitchhiking to Fenchurch St station and getting a lift from Bob Monkhouse, a really nice guy.
Good memories.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 12:53 PM

"as for comparing Bert Jansch and John Renbourne's guitar playing to that of Leadbelly ????"

not so much renbourne and not so much to leadbelly, but jansch, nic jones, whiz jones, carthy, simpson, davey graham, cuffe, gaughan, et al all used american folk-blues guitar techniques (hurt, jefferson, hopkins, lipscomb, blind willie johnson, blake, lonnie johnson, doc watson, etc) to accompany british/scots trad song...graham may have brought DADGAD back from the mideast, but carthy and simpson's modal tunings and percussive RH derive from american OT banjo techniques...

weren't all the UK guys except graham skifflers?

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,elijah wald
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 01:24 PM

The skiffle movement only predated the Greenwich Village folk revival if we ignore the latter until its third wave. The Village was the center of what as far as I know was the first fairly large-scale attempt of urban Americans to play the music of rural Americans--what we normally mean by a folk revival--starting in the late 1930s. The UK got this directly from Greenwich Village, thanks--if I'm recalling correctly--to a BBC broadcast of Josh White and Lead Belly at the Village Vanguard in the early 1940s. If there had not been a Village scene nurturing Lead Belly, Lonnie Donegan would likely never have heard "Rock Island Line" in the first place.

That is not to deny the influence of Donegan's hit in the US--I assume that Snooks Eaglin's version of "Rock Island Line" was based on Donegan's, and there was certainly a lot of give-and-take between the UK and US scenes. But the Village was firmly established as the center of US folk revivalism by the mid 1940s, thanks to the Almanac Singers, Josh White, Burl Ives, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Susan Reed, and others, who were by far the best known "folksingers" of that period and all of whom except the Almanacs made their names at the Vanguard and Cafe Society, specifically because the Village audience was into folksongs, along with jazz.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 02:49 PM

It would appear to me that any folk oriented singer in he UK that played guitar to accompany themselves would have to have been influenced in one way or another by the better known American performers. There was no-one over here to take inspiration from unless you wanted to sound like Elton Hayes.

Hoot

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,Bluesman James
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 08:36 PM

I stand corrected! Elijah Wald is a scholar/musician researcher who I have the greatest respect for. His work on Robert Johnson I highly recommend.
One of the books/references I cited was Dave Van Ronk They Mayor of McDougall Street Mr Wald edited that book and wrote the last chapter.
My original hypothesis that Lonnie Donegan was directly influenced by Big Bill and Leadbelly was not correct.
I had some friends who swore Leadbelly toured the UK.
Nevertheless, Lonnie was a major influence and he may be responsible for the original Blues scene in the UK: Alexis Keorner, Cyril Davies, Graham Bone etc. I suppose we could have another thread on that.
My last comment: Billy Bragg: singer/songwriter social activist wrote a wonderful essay about Donegan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/jun/21/popandrock

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 09:08 PM

I Sit Corrected ! Why I posted TeaChest I CANT Imagine ! I KNEW Chris Barber was a Double Bass player as well as a Trombonist . Thanks RtS nd Vic for pointing out my error .

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: GUEST,Bluesman James
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 09:22 PM

Mr. Leadfingers; May I recommend a Cd: Van Morrison, Chris Barbare Lonnie Donegan The Skiffle Sessons -Live in Belfast
Its a wonderful Cd where Van Morrison acknowledges Donegan as an influence:
http://www.amazon.com/Skiffle-Sessions-Live-Belfast-1998/dp/B00003NH9P/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293761993&sr=1-1

Chris Barber plays both Double Bass and trombone He does a nice solo on "Frankie and Johnnie"

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: tritoneman
Date: 31 Dec 10 - 09:42 AM

Yes I agree Bluesman James. The Skiffle Sessions- Live in Belfast is a superb CD. Lonnie is in excellent form and there are some very tasty guitar breaks from Big Jim Sullivan and Paul Henry. A friend of mine was lucky enough to see the gig live in Belfast.

Subject: RE: UK Skiffle VS the US (Village) Folk Revi
From: Newport Boy
Date: 31 Dec 10 - 10:17 AM

Anthony Gleason Donegan was born in Glasgow, but you can't describe him as a 'jazz singer/banjo player from Glasgow' unless he was more precocious than I realised. He left Glasgow when he was 2 years old and lived in East Ham, London. He attended Davies Lane Junior School in Leytonstone, where my wife taught in 1959.

Lonnie was remembered by the older members of staff, and was known as Tony Donegan - I seem to remember that that's how he was billed on the original LP of Ken Colyer's 'New Orleans to London' - I know it was one of the early recordings.

Phil