skiffle - Revival in the United Kingdom, Skiffle bands
A type of popular music of the 1950s in which the washboard provided a distinctive timbre. It emanated from the USA, but the best-known singer was the Scot, Lonnie Donegan.
Skiffle first became popular in the early 1900s in the United States, starting in New Orleans.
Originally, skiffle groups were referred to as spasm bands. Skiffle's roots are also found in the jazz bands of the 1940s and 1950s.
The first use of the name on records was in 1925 by the otherwise unknown Jimmy O'Bryant and his Chicago Skifflers.
Revival in the United Kingdom
Skiffle was a novelty or happenstance musical form in the United States in the 1920s through the 40s. It had largely faded from view when in the late 1950s, skiffle was reborn as a major musical movement in the United Kingdom. Skiffle was the British equivalent of rockabilly, a new form of music, loud and fast, with a direct communication between the band and the audience. Like American rockabilly, British skiffle is one of the direct ancestors of rock and roll.
Lonnie Donegan, the father of British skiffle, had become a professional musician in 1953, joined the trad jazz band of Ken Colyer. With the skiffle getting airplay, Decca put out Rock Island Line as a single in 1956.
While skiffle is often credited only as a simple forerunner to British rock and roll, a lot of the early skiffle was played by skilled jazz musicians. The Vipers Skiffle Band and Chas MacDevitt
& The Vipers came to prominence around the same time as Lonnie Donegan left the Chris Barber Jazz Band to start his lifetime of skiffle. By the end of 1957 however, the Vipers were in
decline, while Donegan would go on to be acknowledged as "The King of Skiffle". In July 1957 six years before The Beatles (who had evolved from the unknown skiffle group The Quarrymen),
MacDevitt appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show the same day as the Everly Brothers first performed Bye Bye Love.
As the British rock and roll scene was starting to take off, firstly with Tommy Steele then Marty Wilde and Cliff Richard and The Drifters (later renamed The Shadows), Donegan was still strumming on, oblivious to the fact that the Skiffle craze had long since gone.
In the 1984 mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, the fictitious rock group Spinal Tap had its beginnings in skiffle, as The Lovely Lads.
Mick Jagger was a member of the Barber-Colyer Skiffle Band but claims he did not really enjoy skiffle music. Nonetheless, it was the popularity of simple skiffle music that opened young Britons' eyes to the idea that they could play music and have hit records. Graham Nash and Alan Clarke of The Hollies began their musical careers in a skiffle band called the Two Teens. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page first appeared on British television as a young teen in the late 1950's in a skiffle band. Van Morrison started in a skiffle band as well, known as the Sputniks and released a live-recording in 2000 of a two-night skiffle "session" from 1998.
Skiffle had little impact in the United States beyond Donegan's hits, but some bands have imitated British accents. Only some would go as far as the Strapping Fieldhands and actually exhibit their skiffle roots (even going so far as to have a song named "Lonnie Donegan's Mum's Tea Chest").
Skiffle bands
At present, a number of skiffle bands are active, with most groups being based in various European nations. These groups include:
User Comments Add a comment…