Now we take an unexpected turn and move from the U.S. to Great Britain, where Lonnie Donegan’s star rose in 1956. Not only did Donegan popularize many American folk songs, but he also became the “king of skiffle,” a very curios musical style.
Post-war Britain was going through bad times, and most young musicians could not afford to buy expensive instruments. As a result, they began to play on everything they had at hand: acoustic guitar, comb with paper, jug, cardboard box, etc. In fact, that’s how the skiffle style was born.
Listening to Lonnie Donenan, I personally find it hard to believe that such unpretentious songs became very popular in Britain. But the fact remains…
In 1956 Donegan recorded his first big musical hit, “Rock Island Line,” based on an American song recorded in the 1930s by such singers as Clarence Wilson and Ledbelly. The song has been around in many different variations. Donegan based it on the version that told of a machinist smuggling pig iron and deceiving a customs officer by assuring him that only livestock were in the wagons (for which he did not have to pay a penalty at the checkpoint).
He said:
“It’s okay, kid, you don’t have to pay a surcharge,
You can go through.”
And he drove through the checkpoint,
And as he was going through, he started adding a little bit of speed,
Adding a little bit of steam,
He drove through, and he turned around and yelled to the janitor:
“I tricked you!
I tricked you!
I’ve got cast-iron, I’ve got cast-iron, I’ve got old cast-iron…”
Our listener is unlikely to find this song with its long opening recitative appealing. But the single “Rock Island Line” was a great success not only in Britain (No 1), but also in the USA (No 8).
Donegan’s other American folk song, “Cumberland Gap”, which topped the British top in 1957, was much funnier. The singer sings it with such frenzy that it will either make the listener laugh or get him extremely annoyed.
The song dates back to the late 19th century and tells the story of the Cumberland Pass, located in the Appalachian Mountains on the border of Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky. In the eighteenth century settlers marched west through this pass, and during the Civil War there were fierce battles for control of it.
The first recording of “Cumberland Gap” was made back in 1924 by Gid Tanner, and the song has since been recorded by such American folk singers as Woody Guthrie (1944) and Pete Seeger (1954).
There was nothing special about the original lyrics-just a description of the difficult trek through the pass and the formidable beauty of the mountains. Donegan, however, turned “Cumberland Gap” into true English nonsense.