Lonnie Donegan

Donegan was born in Bridgeton, Glasgow, Scotland, on 29 April 1931.[4] He was the son of an Irish mother (Mary Josephine Deighan) and a Scots father (Peter John Donegan), a professional violinist who had played with the Scottish National Orchestra. In 1933, when Donegan was aged 2, the family moved to East Ham in Essex.[5] Donegan was evacuated to Cheshire to escape the Blitz in the Second World War and attended St Ambrose College in Hale Barns.[6] He lived for a while on Chiswick Mall in Middlesex.[7]

Donegan married three times. He had two daughters (Fiona and Corrina) with his first wife, Maureen Tyler (divorced 1962), a son and a daughter (Anthony and Juanita) with his second wife, Jill Westlake (divorced 1971), and three sons (Peter, David and Andrew)[8] with his third wife, Sharon whom he married in 1977.[9]

Lonnie Donegan died on 3 November 2002, aged 71, after having a heart attack in Market Deeping, Lincolnshire mid-way through a UK tour,[10] and before he was due to perform at a memorial concert for George Harrison with the Rolling Stones.[11] He had cardiac problems since the 1970s and several heart attacks.[12]

As a child growing up in the early 1940s Donegan listened mostly to swing jazz and vocal acts, and became interested in the guitar.[5] Country & western and blues records, particularly by Frank Crumit and Josh White, attracted his interest and he bought his first guitar at 14 in 1945.[5] He learned songs such as "Frankie and Johnny", "Puttin' On the Style", and "The House of the Rising Sun" by listening to BBC radio broadcasts.[5] By the end of the 1940s he was playing guitar around London and visiting small jazz clubs.[13]

Donegan first played in a major band after Chris Barber heard that he was a good banjo player and, on a train, asked him to audition. Donegan had never played the banjo but he bought one for the audition and succeeded more on personality than talent.[5] His stint with Barber's trad jazz band was interrupted when he was called up for National Service in 1949, but while in the army at Southampton, he was the drummer in Ken Grinyer's Wolverines Jazz Band at a local pub. A posting to Vienna brought him into contact with American troops, and access to US records and the American Forces Network radio station.[13]

In 1952, he formed the Tony Donegan Jazzband, which played around London. On 28 June 1952 at the Royal Festival Hall they opened for the blues musician Lonnie Johnson.[5] Donegan adopted his first name as a tribute. He used the name at a concert at the Royal Albert Hall on 2 June 1952.[14]

In 1953 cornetist Ken Colyer was imprisoned in New Orleans for a visa problem. He returned to Britain and joined Chris Barber's band. They changed the name to Ken Colyer's Jazzmen and made their first public appearance on 11 April 1953 in Copenhagen. The following day, Chris Albertson recorded Ken Colyer's Jazzmen and the Monty Sunshine Trio—Sunshine, Barber, and Donegan—for Storyville Records. These were amongst Donegan's first commercial recordings.[15]

While in Ken Colyer's Jazzmen with Chris Barber, Donegan sang and played guitar and banjo in their Dixieland set. He began playing with two other band members during the intervals, to provide what posters called a "skiffle" break, a name suggested by Ken Colyer's brother, Bill, after the Dan Burley Skiffle Group of the 1930s.[5] In 1954 Colyer left and the band became Chris Barber's Jazz Band.[13]

With a washboard, tea-chest bass, and a cheap Spanish guitar, Donegan played folk and blues songs by artists such as Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie.[5] This proved popular and in July 1954 he recorded a fast version of Lead Belly's "Rock Island Line",[4] featuring a washboard but not a tea-chest bass, with "John Henry" on the B-side.[5] It was a hit in 1956[16] (which also later inspired the creation of a full album, An Englishman Sings American Folk Songs, released in America on the Mercury label in the early 1960s), but because it was a band recording, Donegan made no money beyond his session fee. It was the first debut record to go gold in the UK, and it reached the Top Ten in the United States.[5] This recording has proved greatly influential on musicians who heard it in their younger days and for whom it seems to have been a catalyst in their musical motivation and careers.

The Acoustic Music organisation made this comment about Donegan's "Rock Island Line": "It flew up the English charts. Donegan had synthesized American southern blues with simple acoustic instruments: acoustic guitar, washtub bass, and washboard rhythm. The new style was called 'Skiffle'.... and referred to music from people with little money for instruments. The new style captivated an entire generation of post-war youth in England."[17]

His next single for Decca, "Diggin' My Potatoes", was recorded at a concert at the Royal Festival Hall on 30 October 1954.[5] Decca dropped Donegan thereafter, but within a month he was at the Abbey Road Studios in London recording for EMI's Columbia label. He had left the Barber band, and by spring 1955, signed a recording contract with Pye. His next single "Lost John" reached No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart.[5]

He appeared on television in the United States on the Perry Como Show and the Paul Winchell Show.[5] Returning to the UK, he recorded his debut album, Lonnie Donegan Showcase, in summer 1956, with songs by Lead Belly and Leroy Carr, plus "Ramblin' Man" and "Wabash Cannonball". The LP sold hundreds of thousands.[5] The skiffle style encouraged amateurs and one of many groups that followed was the Quarrymen, formed in March 1957 by John Lennon. Donegan's "Gamblin' Man"/"Puttin' On the Style" single was number one in the UK in July 1957, when Lennon first met Paul McCartney.[1] His Skiffle rendition of Hank Snow's Country song "Nobody's Child" was also the inspiration for Tony Sheridan's Bluesy version which he recorded with the Beatles as his backing band.

Donegan went on to successes such as "Cumberland Gap" and "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight?)",[4] his biggest hit in the US, on Dot.[5] He turned to music hall style with "My Old Man's a Dustman" which was not well received by skiffle fans and unsuccessful in America on Atlantic in 1960,[4] but it reached number one in the UK.[4] Donegan's group had a flexible line-up, but was generally Denny Wright or Les Bennetts (of Les Hobeaux and Days of Skiffle, led by singer Dave George), playing lead guitar and singing harmony, Micky Ashman or Pete Huggett—later Steve Jones—on upright bass, Nick Nichols—later Pete Appleby, Mark Goodwin, and Ken Rodway (now a Christian author and minister) on drums or percussion, and Donegan playing acoustic guitar or banjo and singing the lead.[5]

His last hit single on the UK chart was his cover version of "Pick a Bale of Cotton." Ironically, or perhaps appropriately, his fall from the chart coincided with the rise of The Beatles and the other beat music performers whom he inspired.[5]

Donegan recorded sporadically during the 1960s, including sessions at Hickory Records in Nashville with Charlie McCoy, Floyd Cramer, and the Jordanaires. After 1964 he was a record producer for most of the decade at Pye Records. Justin Hayward was one of the artists with whom he worked.[5]

Donegan was not popular through the late 1960s and 1970s (although his "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" was recorded by Tom Jones in 1967 and Elvis Presley in 1976), and he began to play the American cabaret circuit. A departure from his normal style was an a cappella recording of "The Party's Over".

Donegan reunited with the original Chris Barber band for a concert in Croydon in June 1975. A bomb scare meant that the recording had to be finished in the studio, after an impromptu concert in the car park. The release was titled The Great Re-Union Album.[5] He collaborated with Rory Gallagher on several songs, notably Rock Island Line with Gallagher performing most of the elaborate guitar work.

He had his first heart attack in 1976 while in the United States and had quadruple bypass surgery. He returned to attention in 1978 when he recorded his early songs with Rory Gallagher, Ringo Starr, Elton John, and Brian May.[4] The album was called Putting on the Style.[5] A follow-up featuring Albert Lee saw Donegan in less familiar country and western vein. By 1980 he was making regular concert appearances again, and another album with Barber followed. In 1983, Donegan toured with Billie Jo Spears, and in 1984 he made his theatrical debut in a revival of the 1920 musical Mr Cinders. More concert tours followed, with a move from Florida to Spain. In 1992 he had further bypass surgery following another heart attack.[5]

In 1994, the Chris Barber band celebrated 40 years with a tour with both bands. Pat Halcox was still on trumpet (a position he retained until July 2008). The reunion concert and the tour were on CD and DVD.

Donegan had a late renaissance when in 2000 he appeared on Van Morrison's album The Skiffle Sessions – Live in Belfast 1998, an acclaimed album featuring him singing with Morrison and Chris Barber, with a guest appearance by Dr John. Donegan also played at the Glastonbury Festival in 1999, and was made an MBE in 2000.

Donegan also appeared at Fairport Convention's annual music festival on 9 August 2001. His final CD was This Yere de Story.

Peter Donegan started touring as his father's pianist when he was aged 18. In 2019, Peter appeared on the show The Voice as a contestant, and dueted with Tom Jones with a song Lonnie had written for Tom, "I'll Never Fall in Love Again".[18] Anthony Donegan also performs under the name, Lonnie Donegan Jr.

Mark Knopfler released a tribute to Lonnie Donegan titled "Donegan's Gone" on his 2004 album, Shangri-La, and said he was one of his greatest influences.[2] Donegan's music formed a musical starring his two sons. Lonnie D – The Musical took its name from the Chas & Dave tribute song which started the show. Subsequently, Peter Donegan formed a band to perform his father's material and has since linked with his father's band from the last 30 years with newcomer Eddie Masters on bass. They made an album together in 2009 titled "Here We Go Again". Lonnie Donegan's eldest son, Anthony, also formed his own band, as Lonnie Donegan Junior, who also performed "World Cup Willie" for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

On his album A Beach Full of Shells, Al Stewart paid tribute to Donegan in the song "Katherine of Oregon". In "Class of '58" he describes a British entertainer who is either Donegan or a composite including him. In a 2023 video interview with Steve Houk, Stewart described 'Rock Island Line' as a record "that completely changed the complexion of English society, and changed my life and everybody else's."

Peter Sellers recorded Puttin' on the Smile featuring "Lenny Goonagain", who travels to the "Deep South" of Brighton and finds an "obscure folk song hidden at the top of the American hit parade", re-records it and reaches number one in the UK.

David Letterman pretended to try to remember Jimmy Fallon's name during the Tonight Show conflict between Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien, calling Fallon "Lonnie Donegan."[19]

In the 2019 movie Judy, the actor John Dagleish portrays Lonnie Donegan, who replaces an ill Judy Garland. He is shown in the (entirely fictional) final scene generously allowing her to make one last appearance on stage.

• List of honorific titles in popular music

Jeremy Price, "Lonnie Donegan, Rock Island Line » et la corne d’abondance", Volume!, n° 7–2, Nantes, Éditions Mélanie Seteun, 2010. (in French)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lonnie Donegan.

• Lonnie Donegan Discussion Forum
• Go Lonnie go – article by Billy Bragg for The Guardian
• My Memories of Lonnie Donegan by Paul Griggs
• Lonnie Donegan biography and discography
• Lonnie Donegan and his Skiffle Group
• His Old Man’s the Guv’nor – article by Alan Franks
• My twenty-year love affair with the joy of skiffle, article by Mark Kermode The Observer, 1 June 2008