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Skiffle Music
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 8:02 am
by admin
There is an interesting description of Skiffle Music at
this link.
"Skiffle music is a type of folk music with a jazz and blues influence, usually using homemade or improvised instruments such as the washboard, tea-chest bass, kazoo, cigar-box fiddle, or a comb and paper, and so forth. Skiffle and jug band music are closely related.
Skiffle first became popular in the early 1900s in the US, starting in New Orleans. The Oxford English Dictionary states that skiffle was a term used for rent party.
Originally, skiffle groups were referred to as spasm bands. By the 1920s and 1930s, a form of skiffle was being played in Louisville and Memphis. 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. In 1948 Dan Burley & His Skiffle Boys, led by barrelhouse piano player and journalist Burley, brought together New Orleans bassist Pops Foster, and guitar-playing brothers Brownie and Sticks McGhee.
Skiffle became extremely popular in the UK in the late 1950s. Skiffler Lonnie Donegan had major international success with the Leadbelly song, "Rock Island Line" and the novelty song "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose It's [sic] Flavour on the Bedpost Over Night?" Other well-known British skiffle groups include The Gin Mill Skiffle Group, and The Quarry Men, who later became the rock band The Beatles.
Mick Jagger was a member of the Barber-Colyer Skiffle Band but claims he didn't really like skiffle. 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. The result, several years later, was the musical explosion called the British Invasion."
Who would have thought that from homemade instruments late 1950s and 1960s Rock music would spring?
Also, would jugband and skiffle fall in the same category or would you characterized them somewhat differently.
I had a comb and a kazoo in the 1960s but did not manage to put them to good use.
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 8:25 am
by royclough
I actually think it was grossly overrated, whilst I acknowledge Peter you are quoting the writer of the article to state " Other well-known British skiffle groups include The Gin Mill Skiffle Group, and The Quarry Men” is in my view a gross exaggeration.
No one except those close to them would have heard of The Quarryman had it not been for the fact that Lennon was a member. The other band mentioned I have never heard of. Though I accept my musical awareness did not really start till 58/59.
Lonnie Donegan I concede was clearly influential but in my opinion only in the context of giving teenagers the concept that with basic skills and basic instruments you could form a group.
Chas McDevitt was basically a one hit wonder with Freight Train though made the top 30 with Greenback Dollar (was that originally The Kingston Trio). Johnny Duncan could be classed as Skiffle but essentially only remembered for one hit
For me skiffle began and ended with Lonnie Donegan
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 1:02 pm
by jingle_jangle
Powerful lyrics, as you document on another thread, was part and parcel of the legendary skiffle symphonic ouevre...
If your mother says, "don't chew it!"
Do you swallow it in spite?
Can you catch it on your tonsils...
...and you heave it left
And right?
Does your chewing-gum, etc.
Imagine Orson Wells lending his stentorian tones to these immensely influential, evocative couplets...
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 1:08 pm
by royclough
And don't forget Lonnie's other c;assic numbner one in UK "My Old Man's A Dustman" more vaudeville than skiffle
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 1:47 pm
by jingle_jangle
My old man's a dustman
He's got a dustman's hat
He wears "Cor Blimey" trousers
And lives in a council flat...
Me ol' nanny usedta rock me to sleep wiv 'at one, she did...
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:32 pm
by rictified
I remember "Does your Chewing gum lose it's flavor on the bedpost Overnight"
Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2005 12:31 pm
by ozover50
"You missed me - am I too late?"..... "Nah - jump up on the cart!!"
"Oy, where's me tiger's head?".... "Four foot from 'is tail!!"
Gotta love it!
Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2005 1:43 pm
by rictified
Good Morning Howard, still doesn't beat "Tie me Kangaroo Down Sport", haha! Digeroo doo.
Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2005 3:01 pm
by ozover50
'Digeroo doo'?? Thats excrement left by my mate's dog Digger!! 'Didgeridoo', Bob! (Nice try, but!!)
Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2005 4:02 pm
by rictified
Was that big in Australia and (how do I put this delicately? hmmm? I'm not used to that aspect of human interaction at least so says my wife) was that an exaggerated accent on that song and if not, what the hell does it mean? Some of it (like Didgeridoo for example) doesn't sound like English to me Howard, and I hate to say it, sounds like Gibberish ahah!
Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2005 3:47 am
by ozover50
Not exaggerated at all, Bob. Rolf Harris was the man and he was about as 'Ocker' as they come. He left here for London a long ways back and had a hugely successful TV show for many years. He used to get out the 'wobble board' and do the rhythm to his own singing. A wobble board, by the way was a piece of masonite about 3-1/2' by 2-1/2' which you held lengthways and vibrated back and forth (the board, not you!). Very hard to explain the sound - sort of a 'whoipa whoipa' - you really had to be there! He also did impromptu paintings (about 6' x 6') with house paint and a 6" brush - magic stuff!
A Didgeridoo is an indigenous wooden instrument that you blow through - think of a 4 or 5 foot length of 2" PVC pipe. The real trick with that one is being able to breathe through your nose while you blow and suck through the didgeridoo.
Explaining the lyrics? Well, where do I start?......... Suffice it to say that the song was a very tongue-in-cheek dig at the Aussie version of the King's English!!!
Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2005 8:35 am
by rictified
Didn't he use the Wobble Board in Tie me Kangaroo Down Sport? I here something wobbling along there during the song and wondered what it was actually. I think it's time for world wide exposure of the Didgeridoo. BTW I thought that was a really clever little song and it was a huge smash here.
Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2005 9:10 am
by jingle_jangle
Do either of you remember his followup in later '63, a really serious attempt called "Sunrise", which he pronounced with three syllables--"Sun-a-rise"?
I have a friend from South Africa--a real Boer Boy--who's lived all over the world, who learned to play the digeridoo while in Oz. He made one last winter, impromptu-like, out of a length of 4" PVC pipe, about 7' long, that was lying around my shop. I have a film somewhere of him playing it...he said it took him several weeks of practicing to get the circular breathing thing down pat, but he can go on for a very, very long time. It's an unearthly sound.
About ten or twelve years ago, an Oz band that Aitch may have heard of, burst onto the scene and two albums of theirs were released here in the USA. They were called "Yothu Yindi", and were about 10 strong, with several Yolngu members who gave their music a very primitive sound.
They have released 12 albums, six of original music and six of instructional nature. Their first album here(second there), "Tribal Voice", never hit really huge, but was a pretty unusual and spectacular sound. It still gets a lot of play on my system!
Here's a concert shot, with one band member playing the 'doo:
Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2005 9:32 am
by royclough
Actually Paul it is called Sun Arise made number 3 in 62 in the UK
Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2005 9:34 am
by rictified
I remember Sun a rise by Alice Cooper, that's it, don't know if it's the same song. Sun a rise, come every mornin' etc.
Are Digeridoos heavy? Look at the shoulders on that guy.