The above, as well as being just a great record on its own merits, must’ve influenced countless bands. Teenage Fanclub freely admit as such. What are your suggestions for almost obscenely influential records?
In.Flu.Ential.
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Lonnie Donnegan – Rock Island Line.
The legend says: the birth of skiffle which then invented the 60s
absolutely
I think Lonnie’s Showcase L.P. released for Christmas 1956 was more influential, although it is always Rock Island Line that is cited.
The most typical skiffle group of all were also the most famous, The Quarrymen.
Their first gig was in the summer of 57, a full 18 months after Rock Island Line charted with, bizarrely, skiffle running concurrently with rock ‘n’ roll … Cumberland Gap, no. 1 in the summer of 57, came out one year after Hound Dog!
The Quarrymen are playing skiffle songs, as well as a bit of rock ‘n’ roll, after most of Little Richard’s classics have been recorded.
After reading up on skiffle via local papers etc. (I’m not sure that the word, from memory, was referenced until 57), very few skiffle groups, if any, seem to have had Rock Island Line in their set.
Again, from memory, I’m not sure The Quarrymen ever did it.
Influential maybe but still a bit shit, no? No? Ok, as you were 😀
I loved that Billy Bragg podcast about his skiffle book. At the end of a very long and detailed explanation of the origins and importance of the British skiffle boom he said that, er, with one or two exceptions no-one would choose to listen to the actual music now.
I think both Elton and John Lennon said that they their vocations made clear by listening to Heartbreak Hotel on the radio. Possibly at the same time? Only one radio station and all that.
The Velvet Underground and Nico – what Brian said.
If they ‘re as influential as they’re claimed to be, why aren’t there any other bands featuring viola players?
Chuck Berry – Those riffs, all over rock and pop music in the following decades.
They invented Heavy Metal, you know. Apparently.
The Comsat Angels invented Goth. They did. They admit it on some sleeve notes. Thanks guys!
Seeing as they have a post just below this…
Van halen 1 must be the best album to have influenced the most amount of crap bands.
Fisherman’s Blues begat the Levellers and a billion folk punk fiddle bands.
Hmmm…The Pogues were in their pomp way before FB, as indeed were The Men They Couldn’t Hang. Both exemplars of ‘folk-punk’, I reckons.
Neither fit my category of folk punk fiddle bands, even when Bobby Valentino gets in with the latter (but, actually, now you say it, when he does……., and late enough in their career to make ’em wonder if they were missing trick.)
A pedant writes: Bobby Valentino played on TMTCH’s second album, How Green Is The Valley from 1986 and I think, every album since then although I concede he wasn’t a live performer with them in those days.
Surely Dubliners, Chieftans and many many more….
Drums, dear boy. And short hair, if you are about to say Fairport Span.
Plenty of drums in Irish music – but they call a drum a flahaellelh (pronounced ‘hrrrrphhh’)
Interestingly my 17 yr old daughter and all her friends like “Big Star”. They see nothing particular hip or cool about this – its just Spotify regularly throws them into their “Daily Mix” lists, presumably because they also listen to “The Smiths” and “REM”.
Radiohead for high over-emoting whiny singing.