What is Skiffle?

Subject: What is Skiffle?
From: GUEST,Nick
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 12:09 AM

I have a copy of Stan Hugils Book Shanties from the 7 Seas. In it he talks about "Skiffle " bands reviving some sea shanties. There is a Jug & Skiffle band thread active on the board.

What pray tell is Skiffle, and what is a "Skiffle" band? The term is new to me. Sociable! N

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 12:34 AM

CLICK HERE for some, Nick.

~S~

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: Metchosin
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 02:17 AM

that link will tell you a lot about jugbands, but Skiffle, although related, came out of the UK, with Lonnie Donnegan the annointed king and also included a lot of English Music Hall tunes in the repetoire. Putting Lonnie Donnegan in the Forum Search should give you a lot more info.

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: GUEST,Ned Ludd
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 03:55 AM

I've been in two english medicine show/jug stle bands and we always get called Skiffle. I think the difference is where you were brung up.Skiffle is playing rythmic music on anything tou can get a tune out of, following a long english tradition of 'rough bands' but taking much of its influence (and tunes) from the USA.

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: Metchosin
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 04:14 AM

Here's a good link

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: GUEST,Nick
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 08:51 PM

Thanks all Nick

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: GutBucketeer
Date: 09 Sep 01 - 11:39 PM

I just found this great site!

http://www.glass-artist.co.uk/music/skiffle/skiffax.html

If the link doesnt' work here is what it said (there is even more on the site).

WHAT IS SKIFFLE?

The term "SKIFFLE" has a variety of meanings but always refers to informal, good time music, usually using home-made or improvised instruments such as the washboard, wash-tub or tea-chest bass, kazoo, cigar-box fiddle, comb and paper etc.

Depending on your age and country you might define skiffle as:

1) The spasm bands, usually children, seen on the streets of New Orleans around 1900.

2) Rent-party music in 1920s and 30s USA involving piano, guitar, fiddle, but rarely the washboard.

3) The jug bands of Louisville and Memphis 1920s and 30s.

4) Novelty Jazz Bands of the 1940s and 50s using clarinet/sax mouthpieces on bamboo or wooden pipes, plungerphone, funnel with trumpet mouthpiece, washtub bass etc.

5) A mixture of USA folk music, tin-pan alley, and music-hall played as pop music in Britain in the late 1950s, typically using guitar, washboard and tea-chest bass. Lots of famous British rock stars got started by playing in skiffle bands, e.g. the Beatles, Van Morrison (who made a skiffle CD with Lonnie Donegan in 1999) Although they will probably have never heard of Leadbelly or Woody Guthrie, for a lot of British people over a certain age this music is part of their pop music nostalgia.

6) Current bands playing jug-band, Leadbelly songs etc. or "British" skiffle i.e. songs recorded by British artists in the 1950s, but all generally copying originals thus extending the life of this music

7) Current bands making their own music or adapting popular songs so the music lives and changes

The word "SKIFFLE" was probably first used by pianist Hersel Thomas (who died in 1926) to describe the music played at a house rent party (also called "skuffle" music). A record called "Hometown Skiffle" was released in 1929 featuring featuring Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, Will Ezell, Charlie Spand, The Hokum Boys and Papa Charlie Jackson.

"SKIFFLE" was later used to describe American black folk bands who mostly had to improvise traditional African instruments by using household implements. The bent sapling with cord tied to a skin over a hole in the earth became the washtub bass. (Tea-chest in UK). The gourd became a jug and the scraped ass's jaw became the washboard. The kazoo developed from an African instrument using an animal skin as the membrane (often built into a mask and used for religious ceremonies).

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 Sep 01 - 12:12 AM

Well, I dunno. I play washboard in secret but I don't see any scraped asses around here.

~S~

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Sep 01 - 01:17 AM

Maybe you're looking in the wrong direction?

:>)

A

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 10 Sep 01 - 02:17 AM

It only happens when you slide down the washboard. Also when sliding down your cellar door...but that's a different song entirely.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 Sep 01 - 11:00 AM

Thanks, I knew SOMEBODY would come along and add a line. It's fun to be a straight man. Woman. If a bit twisted... and that's how I slide down the washboard. And if I twist around just far enough... Amos, yer right!

~S~

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Sep 01 - 06:47 PM

It's all really skiffle when you get down to it. People making music together using whatever they have, and worried more about how it feels like than how it sounds.

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Nov 01 - 09:37 AM

Well finally he's done it, but on another thread of course..........

THE BELOW COMES FROM OUR OWN ROGER THE SKIFFLER AND IS REPOSTED HERE ....so I can find it in the the future...

**********************************************************

WHAT IS SKIFFLE?

The term "SKIFFLE" has a variety of meanings but always refers to informal, good time music, usually using home-made or improvised instruments such as the washboard, wash-tub or tea-chest bass, kazoo, cigar-box fiddle, comb and paper etc. Depending on your age and country you might define skiffle as:

1) The spasm bands, usually children, seen on the streets of New Orleans around 1900.

2) Rent-party music in 1920s and 30s USA involving piano, guitar, fiddle, but rarely the washboard.

3) The jug bands of Louisville and Memphis 1920s and 30s.

4) Novelty Jazz Bands of the 1940s and 50s using clarinet/sax mouthpieces on bamboo or wooden pipes, plungerphone, funnel with trumpet mouthpiece, washtub bass etc.

5) A mixture of USA folk music, tin-pan alley, and music-hall played as pop music in Britain in the late 1950s, typically using guitar, washboard and tea-chest bass. Lots of famous British rock stars got started by playing in skiffle bands, e.g. the Beatles, Van Morrison (who made a skiffle CD with Lonnie Donegan in 1999) Although they will probably have never heard of Leadbelly or Woody Guthrie, for a lot of British people over a certain age this music is part of their pop music nostalgia.

6) Current bands playing jug-band, Leadbelly songs etc. or "British" skiffle i.e. songs recorded by British artists in the 1950s, but all generally copying originals thus extending the life of this music

7) Current bands making their own music or adapting popular songs so the music lives and changes

The word "SKIFFLE" was probably first used by pianist Hersel Thomas (who died in 1926) to describe the music played at a house rent party (also called "skuffle" music). A record called "Hometown Skiffle" was released in 1929 featuring featuring Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, Will Ezell, Charlie Spand, The Hokum Boys and Papa Charlie Jackson.

"SKIFFLE" was later used to describe American black folk bands who mostly had to improvise traditional African instruments by using household implements. The bent sapling with cord tied to a skin over a hole in the earth became the washtub bass. (Tea-chest in UK). The gourd became a jug and the scraped ass's jaw became the washboard. The kazoo developed from an African instrument using an animal skin as the membrane (often built into a mask and used for religious ceremonies).

RtS (got the kazoo, just need the mask- and I mean need! "a face made for radio, a voice made for mime")

**********************************************************

And there ya' go folks..........Right from the orifice of the horse.

Spaw

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 23 Nov 01 - 09:46 AM

I hate to mention it, Pat but Gutbucketeer posted the same defiinition to this thread already! I didn't see the original, I musta' been in Greece at the time!
RtS (the ass's ass)

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Nov 01 - 11:09 AM

Geeziz.....I just remembered the thread and didn't read it (my own pet peeve) this second time!!! What an asshole!!!!

Greece you say? Hell Skiff, I'm obviously fried!!!!!!

Spaw (needing some time at the NYCFTTS)

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: Cappuccino
Date: 23 Nov 01 - 02:41 PM

Lonnie Donegan is still playing, and is still brilliant; the live skiffle album he made with Van Morrison, which also featured a certain Dr. John on keyboard (because, apparently, he just happened to be playing a show down the road and wandered up to see what was happening) is an absolute classic of relaxed skiffle-meets-blues-meets-folk.

- IanB

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 04:00 AM

The sub-title to a recent CD called Skiffle Revival says it all really:
"Songs about trains, women, alcohol and death" !! A good enough definition for the blues,too,really!

[Chas McDevitt claims on the sleeve "The Dan Burley Skiffle Group of the late 1930s and 1940s gave their name to the genre" but quotes above give an earlier usage.]

RtS
(I'll skiffle off now!)

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 05:08 PM

love skiffle! How sad that somebody has to ask what it is. Didn't skiffle happen in America?

You oughta try it.

I remember Frank Zappa saying at a gig. Hello Bristol! Have you guys heard of a dance called The Twist, I think Bristol's just about ready for it.....

Surely America's ready for skiffle...

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 05:35 PM

As you may know:

The kids in Bristol are sharp as a pistol
When they do
The Bristol Stomp.

Of course, that was Bristol, Pennsylvania, just outside Philly, back in about 1958-59 or so.

And no, WLD, sadly enough, Skiffle did not happen in the US. Closest thing we had was the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, just one small part of the folk revival (or "Folk Scare"). Great stuff, surely, but not nearly enough of it...

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 09:51 AM

Dan Burley was a boogie woogie piano player and journalist who hosted skiffle parties (rent parties) paying skiffle piano. His recordings including the two (Skiffle Blues and Skiffle Jam)which led to Ken Colyer adopting the term are available on an Austrian CD South Side Shake 1945-1951 Wolf WBJ 008 (available from Amazon US quicker than from Amazon UK). Dan Burley's Skiffle Boys included at times Sticks & Brownie McGhee, Pops Foster, Tiny Grimes and Danny Barker among others.
In his "jiver's bible" glossary he describes Skiffling and scuffling as "feverish activity". (I particularly like the phrase: Like the farmer and the 'tater,plant you now and dig you later defined as: I must go but I'll remember you)
Doc Pomus in the CD booklet talks of playing at one of Dan's skiffle parties and " I never heard the word "skiffle" again until years later when an English folk singer(sic) by the name of Lonnie Donegan played something he called "skiffle music". It sounded british or scottish or something in between, but it had nothing to do with what used to go on Monday nights at the Baby Grand in Harlem, new York".

RtS

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: Wesley S
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 12:53 PM

Roger - What's the state of Skiffle music in England right now? Active? Dormant?

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 09:21 AM

Still some diehards around, I used to get to an annual multiband gig with some other 'Catters but it didn't run last year or this. Mostly in pubs rather than stadia! The Lonnie D musical, Donegan Sons' band and Peter Leegan LD tribute band still tour.

Rts

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 26 Sep 26 - 02:48 PM

Skiffle and After - 1991
Omnibus - BBC Radio 4
Skiffle music uses washboards and brooms as instruments. In this programme the origins and world of the 'do-it-yourself' music style is explored by Dave Gelly, with examples from Woody Guthrie and Peter Sellers.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0376k1m

Billy Bragg on skiffle, Hokusai's Great Wave, Capt Jack Sparrow returns, Nicola Benedetti, poetry and atrocity - 2017
Front Row - BBC Radio 4
Billy Bragg talks to John Wilson about the music that changed the world - skiffle. His book arguing this, Roots, Radicals and Rockers, is also an insightful survey of post-war youth culture. This was simple music, played on homemade instruments by teenagers - punk before punk. But many skiffle players went on to great things - members of The Beatles, for instance.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08qxfns
first item. ~8 minutes

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: GUEST,The Sandman
Date: 26 Sep 26 - 03:36 PM

Billy Bragg comparing punk to Skiffle, Rubbish. SKIFFLE inspired youngsters to make home made acoustic music.
Skiffle musicians famously utilized household or found objects—such as washboards, thimbles, and tea-chest basses—when they could not afford professional instruments.
PUNK MUSIC did not do this.some punk musicians smashed instruments on stage, did skifflers do this?
1970s punk was an aggressive, high-volume electric rock revolt.

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: GUEST,The Sandman
Date: 26 Sep 26 - 04:11 PM

The Sex Pistols attacked the monarchy on one occasion
The Clash wrote songs like "White Riot" and "London Calling" that focused on high unemployment, racial tensions, and police brutality during Britain's economic crisis in the 1970s.
The Vipers Skiffle Group did not write anti-establishment songs.Led by singer and songwriter Wally Whyton, the group primarily performed and rearranged traditional American and British folk, blues, and country standards
.While the British skiffle movement itself possessed a do-it-yourself, anti-commercial ethos that challenged the mainstream music industry of the 1950s, the Vipers' repertoire consisted of traditional material rather than original political protest tracks
Punk had more in common with Ewan MacColl than skiffle.
Bragg is wide of the mark with his comments

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 26 Sep 26 - 04:27 PM

"Skiffle music uses washboards and brooms as instruments." And tea chests. That might explain why it died out. It's much harder to play washing machines, vacuum cleaners and teabags. Though it might be interesting to try.

Subject: RE: What is Skiffle?
From: GUEST,The Sandman
Date: 26 Sep 26 - 04:39 PM

Skiffle was great, but it has not changed the world as Bragg, tries to claim
Lonnie Donegan started as a jazz banjo player
While in Ken Colyer's Jazzmen with Chris Barber, Donegan sang and played guitar and banjo in their Dixieland set. He began playing with two other band members during the intervals, to provide what posters called a "skiffle" break.
"Skiffle music uses washboards and brooms as instruments." And tea chests. That might explain why it died out" quote Paul Burke
The above is yet more unsubstantiated comment