Musings on genre writing, waterfall wandering, and peak bagging in the South's wilderness areas.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
#1 Song the Day I was Born
The #1 song on the day I was born. A Brit group about seven years before The Beatles invaded. Interesting. Also the first UK pop act to consistently crack the top 40 here in the USA.
John Lennon's band The Quarrymen -- which 16-year-old Paul first saw at a Sunday church fair -- was a skiffle group. As American guitar sales went through the roof after The Beatles' first appearance on *Ed Sullivan* on 7 February 1964, sales of stringed instruments -- banjos, upright basses and guitars -- were hot with the popularity of Lonnie Doneghan. Lennon's mother Julia played a banjo, and would sometimes join in with John and his teenage friends when they got together to jam at his Aunt Mimi's house.
I'd never actually heard Doneghan before so I'm grateful for this link. I'd read that skiffle was country-influenced, but the song you had here reminded me a lot of Texas Swing, as popularized by Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys. Funny how the British were wide open to all kinds of music while in the U.S. Elvis couldn't get played on most radio stations because his was "race music" or, more pointedly, "that nigger noise." But this is why England produced The Beatles and we, the good ol' USA, didn't.
When I looked up Lonnie Donnegan, I was surprised by two things:
The number of hits he had here, and the fact that I knew some of the song (although I hadn't know who did them).
There is definitely something very gosh-darn countryfied about Donnegan and his group in that song. I can see the comparison to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, whose work I really enjoy.
2 comments:
John Lennon's band The Quarrymen -- which 16-year-old Paul first saw at a Sunday church fair -- was a skiffle group. As American guitar sales went through the roof after The Beatles' first appearance on *Ed Sullivan* on 7 February 1964, sales of stringed instruments -- banjos, upright basses and guitars -- were hot with the popularity of Lonnie Doneghan. Lennon's mother Julia played a banjo, and would sometimes join in with John and his teenage friends when they got together to jam at his Aunt Mimi's house.
I'd never actually heard Doneghan before so I'm grateful for this link. I'd read that skiffle was country-influenced, but the song you had here reminded me a lot of Texas Swing, as popularized by Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys. Funny how the British were wide open to all kinds of music while in the U.S. Elvis couldn't get played on most radio stations because his was "race music" or, more pointedly, "that nigger noise." But this is why England produced The Beatles and we, the good ol' USA, didn't.
When I looked up Lonnie Donnegan, I was surprised by two things:
The number of hits he had here, and the fact that I knew some of the song (although I hadn't know who did them).
There is definitely something very gosh-darn countryfied about Donnegan and his group in that song. I can see the comparison to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, whose work I really enjoy.
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