Lonnie Donegan

[Tramp The Dirt Down]

Can it be claimed that he was the first UK artist to have the biggest influence on British pop music?

[Andy C]

Lonnie Donegan

Only if you think British pop music began in the mid-fifties. Which is tenable, I suppose, if you differentiate between "pop" and "popular".

[G-Man]

Lonnie Donegan

Bert Weedon might have an at least equally valid claim.

[WOM]

Lonnie Donegan

George Formby?

[Jah Womble]

Lonnie Donegan

Bert Weedon might have an at least equally valid claim.

I reckon Lonnie Donegan edges it, since he was both musician and all-round performer. As influential as he undoubtedly was, Bert Weedon has been cited mainly by guitarists. (Lonnie made more commercial impact, as well.)

[G-Man]

Lonnie Donegan

Yeah, but without the primacy of guitars, and Weedon's instruction on how to use the damn thing, British music (and therefore all pop and rock music) might have developed along a much different path. Imagine all those guitar players picking up the washboard or banjo instead.

I suppose, though, that Donegan played a pivotal part in bringing blues players to the attention of your Keefs and Claptons and Led Zep people.

Anyway, the notion of rigid hierarchies of influences doesn't make sense most of the time. It's safe to say that without either Donegan or Weedon, British pop/rock music might have been a bit different.

Besides, Lonnie Donegan apparently was a bit of an asshole (which has no bearing on the extent of his influence on British music, of course).

[Amor de Cosmos]

Lonnie Donegan

George Melly reckoned skiffle could, and should, have been the UK's indigenous equivalent/response to Rock 'n' Roll. But, sadly, Lonnie Donegan turned out to be its Elvis. Not his fault, he just happened to be the wrong person in the right place.

[Jah Womble]

Lonnie Donegan

Yeah, the poor schmuck only managed sixteen Top 10 singles and about 15 million record sales. What were people thinking?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Lonnie Donegan

Sure, but his success killed Skiffle as a DYI form, that was Melly's point.

[Jah Womble]

Lonnie Donegan

I think that's very hard to prove. More probable is that imported (and indigenous, to a lesser extent) rock 'n' roll was what sounded its death knell as a commercial form. There were still skiffle bands playing the circuit (The Vipers being the best-known name), but it was no longer as exciting to young people as rock 'n' roll.

Donegan's last major hit was Pick a Bale of Cotton in 1962 - pretty much exactly the time that the UK pop scene was taking off.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Lonnie Donegan

Yes, and it's pretty clear that skiffle did enable the beat boom ten years later. The Quarrymen were, more or less, a skiffle group after all.

I think — and it's my analogy not Melly's — that Lonnie Donegan's success was as if Billy Idol had been selected to represent Punk in 1977, and everyone else ignored. His success was a commercially driven distortion of what was actually happening.

I also believe Melly wished it had happened sooner, when he was young enough to enjoy the ride, and I can sympathise with that.

[Satchmo Distel]

Lonnie Donegan

British artists did have cultural impact in the war years. Vera Lynn was a factor in Britain's war morale. However, I think before Elvis people were generally interested in songs rather than artists. Lonnie was great because the songs came before the pop image. I think that changed with, say, Adam Faith circa 1960.

The Beatles were the first act that really had songs and image. Writing your own songs was the biggest game changer in British popular music that I can think of, and there weren't many bands doing so in the US at the time: the great writing work of Smokey Robinson for the Miracles and Brian Wilson for The Beach Boys were probably atypical of the era. Chuck Berry had legal issues, Buddy Holly was deceased.

[Edie St Pierre]

Lonnie Donegan

Lonnie Donegan was the banjo player in Chris Barber's jazz band wasn't he? And he used to play the skiffle stuff when Chris Barber was having a fag break.

So there you go, maybe Chris Barber having a fag break started British pop.

[Edie St Pierre]

Lonnie Donegan

What year was it that Joe Meek did his idiosyncratic, genuis production thing to Humphrey Littletons 'Bad Penny Blues'?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Lonnie Donegan

1956

[adams house cat]

Lonnie Donegan

I think British pop would have taken a lot longer to rise without him. As for killing skiffle, I saw skiffle groups as late as the late 80s.