“Lonnie had opened the door and a whole generation rushed though”: Jim Carter (that’s Downton Abbey’s butler “Carson” to you and me).
“A lot of us got out of the factory thanks to Lonnie”: Ringo Starr
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Before the Beatles, there were really only two men in Britain who could truly be called giants in the field of popular music. They were Hank Marvin and Lonnie Donegan. You may think that’s a rather glib statement, ignoring as it does all the great musicians and producers who were toiling away in the pop, jazz and folk worlds. But in terms of longevity and the influence they had on what was to follow, I do believe that before 1962 no two names were more important in British pop music than Hank and Lonnie.
Now read on….
http://i.imgur.com/6NGKHUS.jpg
Actor Jim Carter is a lifelong Lonnie Donegan aficionado and he presents this ITV documentary with the kind of passion born only of a true fan. As he journeys through Lonnie’s life Carter introduces us to some famous faces, all of who owe a huge debt to the skiffle king in one way or another.
Paul McCartney seems truly humble when speaking of Lonnie, as do Ringo, Van Morrison and Joe Brown. Chris Barber, 86 just last week, still seems sharp as a tack as he remembers how Lonnie’s entire skiffle act grew from just a short interval in Barber’s trad jazz band set.
Jack White (with his haircut looking stranger by the hour) may seem an odd choice for a programme such as this, but his heart is certainly in the right place and he clearly knows and loves his music and speaks warmly and eloquently of Leadbelly here. In fact Jack is the only one to defend Donegan’s much-derided novelty comedy songs by pointing out that “They all did it back then and in fact Chuck Berry’s only UK hit was a novelty song”. Jack obviously means My Ding A Ling which was Chuck’s only UK number one, although he did have many other chart entries. We got the point, despite that.
Lonnie’s son Peter Donegan, now performing in a tribute band, looks and sings and uncannily like his dad and demonstrates some of the more risqué material Lonnie would perform at home.
Wives, girlfriends and fan club secretaries are also interviewed and while most admit that Lonnie was “a difficult man to live with” none have a bad word to say about him.
Donegan’s star faded quickly when the Beatles arrived and he moved onto the treadmill of nightclubs and cabaret. But he enjoyed a brief renaissance at the turn of the century when Van Morrison invited him to record the excellent Skiffle Sessions album with Chris Barber.
Donegan introduced an entire generation of Brits to American folk and blues artists such as Leadbelly. He had a simply fantastic voice and made some great, timeless records. John Peel was a major fan and cites Lonnie’s version of Frankie and Johnny as one of the best vocal performances of all time. Give it a spin if you don’t believe me.
My thanks go to @minibreakfast for drawing my attention to this documentary
Here’s that version of Frankie and Johnny. The way the vocal intensity builds is quite remarkable
I first saw Lonnie Donegan in the acoustic tent at The Fleadh in Finsbury Park. To be honest I only dropped in on my way to the gents so I could say that i had ‘seen Lonnie Donegan’, but I stayed there with crossed legs till the end of his set. He played again next year (‘Great set earlier fro Lonnie Donegan, the man who started it all’ – Richard Thompson from the same stage a little later) and I made sure I was there for all of it.
Come to think of it, the only act on the main stage that day who really grabbed me was Kirsty MacCall. The acoustic tent had a great afternoon triple bill of Lonnie, Bert Jansch and RT. Now Thommo is the only one left standing. We should treasure our heroes while they are still here.
I was at the Fleadh that year too and also watched Kirsty and Lonnie. Headliners were The Corrs IIRC.
The crowd mobbed the exits for The Corrs. I went with my sister, who bought the tickets as her treat, and when the Corrs came on I wandered back to the acoustic tent for Suzanne Vega, taking careful triangulation points from the food stalls and so on so I could find my way back to her. I needn’t have bothered. SV was deadly dull, so I went back to my sister, and she was sitting in the same place as before by surrounded by yards of space as everyone around her had chosen an early night or a pub rather than watch The Corrs.
Not for one moment decrying the importance of Lonnie but as a kid I just couldn’t get past that voice – that strange mid-Atlantic holler-and-a-whoop was so alien.
Then it was all his novelty stuff like The Battle of New Orleans (which I secretly adored: remind me to tell the story of when me and Willie Mathers sang it on stage at The Beach Ballroom where Aberdeen Harbour Board was having its Childrens’ Christmas party) and then it was The Beatles.
Saying all that I shall seek out the programme and watch it with new eyes….
I love Lonnie’s voice but I still can’t cope with his faux black American spoken intros. “This here’s the story of the Battle of New Orleans” etc
It was the latter-day, fake, cor blimey Guv’nor cockney accent that did it for me. Humiliating, for a Glaswegian.
I looked it up and it seems the family moved from Glasgow to London when Lonnie was only 2, so that would explain the cockney accent.
A 2 year old Glaswegian is a Glaswegian forever JC.
‘See you, pal….I’ll tell you this boy….
Saw him at Cropredy about 15 years ago. Fabulous old fashioned “show”, with the age-old trope of the band coming on and starting before he shuffled on, the same at the end. Much as Dr John still does, and Van does now, especially at the end of the show, usually being back on Cypress Avenue before the band even unplug.
Ironically, when Van played his shows ON Cyprus Avenue last year, they were still there playing at the end while Van had had to shuffle off somewhere else. Presumably to Hyndford Street, a few streets away…
I was also at the Lonnie Cropredy show, in the front row. And I was at a Whitla Hall, Belfast show before it – with Van, Lonnie and Barber, in 1999, and Dr John guested on piano (not on the bill, but in town for a show of his own at the time).
I agree with Johnny C: it was a terrific documentary in many ways, with a brilliant selection of vintage clips – many more, and more various, than one usually sees of Lonnie (it’s usually clips from the BBC show where he’s wearing a black suit and bow tie).
In 1977 Lonnie made an album called Puttin’ On The Style”. Produced by Adam Faith it was one of those “Heavy Friends” LPs featuring Lonnie’s big hits recorded with Elton John, Brian May, Rory Gallagher, Ronnie Wood, Ringo Starr, Peter Banks, Albert Lee, Gary Booker, Brian May, Mick Ralphs, Leo Sayer, Klaus Voorman, Nicky Hopkins, Jim Keltner, Pete Wingfield & Michelle Phillips!
The album didn’t do very well at the time but it was an indication of how highly Lonnie was regarded by the generation of musicians who came after him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGNRbUdMBkk
Great track, but what a terrible LP cover…
“Diggin’ My Potatoes” – not a hit for Heinz “Just Like Eddie” Burt either.
Nor for The Pirates, who put it on an album the year before Lonnie’s retread, I think.
It’s another Leadbelly trad arr. song, also recorded by Big Bill Broonzy in the late 20s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgkBij6v9Fw
Brian May’s bone-crushing solo (beginning at 1:18) is a belter and the last thing you expect to hear on a Lonnie Donegan record.
As is Rory’s work on Rock Island Line.
It is a dreadful cover @colin-h – they should have used the photo from the back.
The Pirates did a version of Diggin’ My Potatoes on their Skull Wars album. According the the record labels on my copies both albums were released in 1978.
Heinz’s version is best known I suspect for featuring Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, part of the Joe Meek connection.
There’s an interesting connection between Lonnie Donegan and the song Nights In White Satin.
In 1965 Lonnie signed an unknown 19 year-old unknown singer named Justin Hayward to a management and publishing contract with his Tyler Music Company. Justin had been in Marty Wilde’s band and after signing with Lonnie he released solo singles on Pye and Parlophone.
In 1966 Hayward joined the Moody Blues and recorded the Days of Future Passed album. The biggest hit from that album was Nights In White Satin which charted in Britain three times and reached #2 on the US Hot 100.
The song is published by Tyler Music, Lonnie’s company, and earned the King Of Skiffle an veritable fortune over the years. And it wasn’t just that song, but also most of Justin’s other songs as featured on the Moody Blues string of million selling albums.
I used to struggle with the whole ‘comedy’ song/faux vocals from the likes of Lonnie Donegan until I read more about those pre-war and post-war years in popular music. I think you have to put yourself back in the context of the day to appreciate what was going on in those songs and performances and why they sound like they do. If you focus too much on the sound rather than the performance then it misses the fact that the popular/working class music of the day was still primarily seen as communal, cross-generational entertainment for performing in public spaces. Most UK artists were trying to emulate/copy the US sound (e.g. the jazz ‘purists’) but Donegan injected some English Music Hall into his repertoire and performance to distinguish it from the US sound. This is a significant part of the reason it appealed so much to working class men in a way that jazz didn’t quite as much and why it succeeded beyond just the coffee bars I don’t think you can underestimate the significance of his taking that Music Hall influence and mixing it with skiffle music to establish a key strand in the proto-English rock ‘n’ roll sound.
Exhibit A: The Small Faces – Lazy Sunday Afternoon
Exhibit B: The Beatles – Hello, Goodbye
Some good points there Bisto.
Off topic but the Hello Goodbye film always amazes me. We see the Beatles in 1968 mocking their 1963 earlier selves by dressing in Beatle suits and waving inanely at the camera.
This was just five years later, yet the Fabs had already gone through several major changes in both music and appearance. Things moved so fast back then, a month in 1967/68 was like a year in the 80s/90s.
Back on topic. I also think you have to look at the business side of music back then. Nobody thought rock ‘n’ roll was going to last beyond a couple of years tops and so most acts (Cliff, Tommy Steele et al.) were being advised to use it as a platform for a few months to help make a more lucrative move into popular light entertainment rather than a long-term career path as a rock ‘n’ roller. A track like Donegan’s self-penned ‘My Old Man’s A Dustman’ is classic Music Hall and evidence of the career path he envisaged skiffle would grant him. Even The Beatles didn’t truly believe that what they were doing would last the way it did. It was probably the success of their first US visit that sealed the idea that rock ‘n’ roll was here to stay. That said, perhaps one of the innate drivers for their constant musical self-reinvention was an ingrained fear that their ‘sound’ would become redundant and they’d be on the scrap heap in less than a year. They must have seen dozens of peers briefly burn bright and then disappear into oblivion.
Off topic been further, it struck me the other night when watching the abysmal ‘Southpaw’ (50 Cent appears in it) that rap stars are now the ones who tread this ‘light entertainment’ path. From Tommy Steele to Ice Cube. What a long, strange trip it’s been.
Nick Cohn covers this late ’50s period brilliantly in ‘Awopbop’
God, I watched Southpaw the other night. I like Jake Gyllenhaal but he basically spent months getting himself physically ripped as a credible light heavyweight boxer to appear in a turd rather than a film.
Tbh, I can’t even work up the energy to castigate it. Plotless, formless, clueless, witless. I’ll leave it at that.
Based on your assessment I’m picturing the TV Spot promoting the film.
“Critics are calling Southpaw…
“Plotless”
“Formless”
“Clueless”
“Witless”
“WTF?”
…in cinemas* now
*and toilet bowls
Really looking forward to seeing this and The Everly Brothers doc when I get back from exile in Russia. (True, dat – I’m gigging in Moscow for the next two weeks).
I’m hoping to see this some time simply because I love the sound of Jim Carter’s voice.
The documentary starts in the Carter home and we are introduced to his wife Imelda Staunton, another great actor. I had no idea they were married.
I thought you said you knew nothing about thesps?
I’m a Mike Leigh fan Colin, so I know Imelda from the movie “Vera Drake”. But generally I’m not a film buff, unless they are music related.
I’m not a film buff either – hardly ever go to a cinema and much prefer TV series. I’ve known one or two people who only ever watch ‘movies’ (I don’t even care for the term). I never understand this. It must be a kind of snobbery or inability to accept that things can be absorving in increments of more or less than 90 minutes and without a colossal screen.
I agree. Sometimes I feel a little ashamed at how little I know about films, especially the golden era of Hollywood. It’s just never interested me on the same level as music
It may be the old memory playing tricks but I’m sure I read somewhere that Elvis’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and Lonnie’s ‘Rock Island Line’ were recorded within about 4 days of each other, although actually released at different times. Arguably two of the most significant moments in 20th century popular culture, here and in the US, linked by time.
It’s the other way around, I think
Rock Island Line – Recorded July 1954, charted (UK) Jan 1956
Heartbreak Hotel – Recorded January 10, 1956, charted (UK) May 1956
And at the time (Jan 1956) US charts and airplay were being dominated by Dean Martin’s ‘Memories Are Made Of This’ – one of the seismic releases of the rock era.
I stand corrected. I may have been thinking about Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around The Clock’, an equally seismic record in the history of 20th century popular culture.