Music is often cyclical but not always chronological, which was certainly the case when the man who helped put skiffle on the map (and was a fundamental influence on the future Beatles) died in 2002, long after watching the musicians he inspired come and go. Lonnie Donegan suffered a heart attack on November 3 of that year, just weeks before he was to perform with The Rolling Stones at “Concert for George,” a memorial fundraiser show for the late George Harrison at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
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Performances by Eric Clapton, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and the surviving members of The Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, raised funds for Harrison’s charitable organization, the Material World Charitable Foundation. Donegan performing with The Rolling Stones at the show would have been a touching way to call back to the 1950s skiffle and blues that laid the way for both The Beatles and The Stones in the 60s.
Sadly, Donegan was already in poor health while he embarked on a U.K. tour that year, and his pre-existing cardiovascular problems and strenuous schedule proved too much.
Nevertheless, Donegan’s legacy in the U.K. rock ‘n’ roll scene remains. Dubbed the “King of Skiffle,” the Scottish singer-songwriter helped popularize this musical movement in post-war England. Skiffle took elements of traditional American music and incorporated them into acoustic arrangements, which skiffle players performed on acoustic guitars, washboards, washtub basses, saws, and banjos. Countless musicians, including the future members of The Beatles, got their start playing skiffle in clubs around town.
Without Lonnie Donegan, the British Invasion Might’ve Looked Very Different
Long before fans started calling it skiffle in the U.K., this particular style of music is believed to have originated in the American South. Black musicians performed blues and folk music on homemade instruments, such as washboards and comb-and-paper kazoos, out of necessity, not by choice. Still, the distinct sound of these unusual instruments was an integral part of the skiffle revival that took the U.K. by storm following WWII. It became the kind of music most young musicians were likely to start playing, including a young John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Skiffle helped bridge the gap between postwar jazz and rock ‘n’ roll, more akin to what we know and recognize today. The Beatles are, of course, one of the most notable examples. Lennon, McCartney, George Harrison, and a rotating lineup of other musicians began performing skiffle music as The Quarrymen in the late 1950s, before transforming into the Fab Four with the addition of Ringo Starr. As is so often the case with evolving musical styles, the kind of music skiffle-inspired groups like The Beatles began releasing slowly pushed the former genre out of popularity. Donegan failed to match his chart success from the mid-50s. Paired with his worsening cardiovascular health, Donegan’s career slowed significantly.
The “King of Skiffle” continued to work when he could in the decades that followed. He watched Lennon and Harrison, two musicians who likely never would have been the same without his early influence, rise to stardom, scale to new creative heights, and tragically die at young ages. When Lonnie Donegan left this world, he left behind a legacy revered by musicians who would become even more ubiquitous than he was, from The Beatles to Brian May of Queen to Roger Daltrey of The Who.
Photo by Beverly Lebarrow/Redferns
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