Friday night is music documentary night on BBC Channel 4 television. I always check the schedule and click to record any programme that promises to show people playing fretted instruments. The BBC has access to a load of old material and I’m rarely disappointed. It’s made me realise how elemental is the sound created by picking strings pressed down on a fretboard. And the instrument itself doesn’t have to be sophisticated or expensive. Watching again the first episode of Ken Burns’ ‘Country Music’ I was struck by how guitars, banjos and mandolins found their way into poor remote communities where there was probably little money to spare for the Gibsons and Martins and so on that are so greatly sought after today. Many music stars of the future would have started on an instrument that had been in the family for years, or a basic model purchased from a mail order firm. Not until Jimmie Rodgers had risen to fame and fortune did he mark his celebrity status by ordering a custom Martin 000-45 with his name in pearl inlay on the neck. It also had the word “Thanks” marked upside down on the back so he could turn the guitar over while on stage and show his gratitude to the audience. But such instruments were undoubtedly beyond the means of back porch pickers.
Fast forward to the UK in the mid-1950s. I was a kid at the time and I well remember the advent of rock ‘n’ roll. There was even a famous visit in 1957 by Bill Haley and the Comets, who arrived by liner at Southampton to a tumultuous welcome and travelled to London by train. But at the same time another kind of music was growing in popularity. This was skiffle, which had developed on the British traditional jazz scene as interval entertainment while the rest of the band took their break. Typically the band’s banjo or guitar player would be joined by the bass player and someone playing rhythm on a washboard, and they would sing American blues and folk songs. While the music was derivative it had its own particular flavour and style. Skiffle hit the national music charts in 1956, when a recording of the old Huddie Ledbetter song ‘Rock Island Line’ by the Lonnie Donegan Skiffle group reached the top ten.
The skiffle era in the UK lasted for less than a decade, but it is still remembered today because so many top British musicians cut their musical teeth on skiffle. This was do-it-yourself music. It was given popular appeal by its use of instruments sourced or made at home, like the washboard and the tea-chest bass. The guitar was well-nigh essential but you didn’t need an expensive instrument. As long as you had an acoustic guitar on which you could strum a few basic chords you were in. A television interviewer once said to Lonnie Donegan, “And you play the guitar…” at which Lonnie interjected, “That is a debatable point. I strum the guitar.” It has been estimated that by the late 1950s there were tens of thousands of skiffle groups in Britain. The vast majority of these were amateur and most of the musicians were young. Perhaps the most famous skiffle guitar player and singer was John Lennon. His group, the Quarrymen, played wherever they could in Liverpool, and Lennon was soon joined by Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Like many skiffle players they in due course plugged in and started to play rock ‘n’ roll. By 1960 they had become the Beatles, who, according to Wikipedia, “went on to have a historically successful musical career.”
Many of the skiffle songs will be familiar to bluegrass and old time music fans. The B side of Lonnie Donegan’s ‘Rock Island Line’ disc was ‘John Henry’. ‘Freight Train’ (the Elizabeth Cotton song), ‘The Wabash Cannonball’, ‘The Battle of New Orleans’ (aka ‘Eighth of January’) and ‘Sail Away Ladies’ (sung as ‘Don’t You Rock Me, Daddy-O’) were big hits along with many other songs and tunes garnered from the American tradition. There are plenty of online videos of skiffle performances from the period. Just search on YouTube for ‘skiffle’. Lonnie Donegan is doing a live performance of ‘Rock Island Line’ at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI4nRD-DRpk And you can see a typical skiffle group of British schoolkids at https://www.facebook.com/seismicaudio/videos/10152950210146793/ where they are being introduced by a typical British TV presenter of the time. (You may need to click on the picture to get the sound.) This has actually become a notable historical performance by a group which included a 13-year-old boy called James, now better known as Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin.
As I write this, an email from a discussion forum has popped up on my computer with the heading ‘Why is acoustic guitar so hard to play?’ The answer given begins “It’s about the same as any other musical instrument. But that makes it a much harder thing to do than most people ever attempt. Musical instruments are hard. They take training and discipline. And you have to get fit enough in very particular ways to be able to do some of the movements involved reliably and quickly……” Skiffle was probably one of the easiest and cheapest ways to get started on guitar. It gave quick results. The music was popular at the time and did not involve the additional complication and expense of going electric. After you had mastered a few chords you were ready to perform! And for me and many people of my generation this exposure to American traditional music through the back door has led to a lifetime journey of discovery down the Rock Island Line.
John Baldry
May 2020
