PUTTIN’ ON THE STYLE
The Lonnie Donegan Story
by Spencer Leigh

Sample text from Chapter 4, Going for Gold - 1956, the year of Rock Island Line.

Rock’n’roll was coming and popular music would never be the same again. ‘It Came From Outer Space’ was a scary 50s sci-fi film but the title could have referred to Elvis Presley and Little Richard, both of whom were having UK chart success by the middle of 1956.

Decca would not undertake much promotion on jazz singles as fans were more likely to buy albums. The singles were unlikely to be hits, but radioplay could encourage album sales. The promotion team realised that ‘Rock Island Line’ was different. Although attributed to Chris Barber’s Jazz Band on the album, it now had the strange billing of the Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group and the very title, ‘Rock Island Line’ sounded like a novelty.

The first disc-jockey to play the record was Eamonn Andrews on his ‘Pied Piper’ programme. He had just recorded a narration, ‘The Shifting, Whispering Sands’, so he warmed to Lonnie’s spoken introduction. Helping this record into the charts might increase his own chances and, indeed, he made the Top 20. The bandleader, Jack Payne, who became a staunch opponent of rock’n’roll, promoted Lonnie’s single on the BBC programmes. Complementing the Americana in Lonnie’s song was Tennessee Ernie Ford’s ‘Sixteen Tons’, a deep voiced novelty that told of the injustices of company stores in the south of America, and a song which would have been ideal for Lonnie.

When ‘Rock Island Line’ made the charts in January 1956, Lonnie told the ‘New Musical Express’ that he had no plans to go solo: “We work sometimes as much as seven engagements a week, and as we are a cooperative band, we’re all quite well off financially. In any case, I don’t want to be swept along on the tide of the latest gimmick and then left high and dry when it wears off.” Lonnie’s comments on his earnings are so uncharacteristic that I wonder if he said it. Lonnie knew little about the charts at the time and the jazz musicians were snobbish about it. “I would have a sly look at the charts and sometimes chuckle to myself,” said Lonnie.

At the time though, Lonnie was still committed to Chris Barber’s band. He did occasional promotions on his own: “My first solo broadcast was doing ‘Rock Island Line’ with Cyril Stapleton and his Orchestra. I was very embarrassed because I couldn't read music and I didn't have any parts for the musicians. However, Bert Weedon was playing for Cyril and he came up and congratulated me. He said, ‘You’re the first man to have made any money out of the guitar. Bloody well done!’.”
The freight train on the ‘Rock Island Line’ sped its way to Number 8. It was regarded as a humorous record because most listeners would not know the song’s background and, in any event, half the records on the charts were either adult novelties - including rock’n’roll dance songs, ‘Pickin’ A Chicken’ with Eve Boswell, and the craze for crew cuts with Frankie Vaughan’s ‘My Boy Flat Top’ - or children’s novelties - ‘The Ballad Of Davy Crockett’ and ‘Robin Hood’. ‘Rock Island Line’ apart, the only song on the Top 20 to have endured as a standard is ‘Only You’. Another peculiar statistic is that, in April 2003, there are hardly any survivors from that chart. Don’t become a pop singer if you want a long life.

John Lennon bought the 78rpm of ‘Rock Island Line’ and played it incessantly. A year or two later he had moved to rock’n’roll and he sold his copy to another Quarry Man, Rod Davis. Rod, who still has the single and loaned it for display in The Beatles Experience at the Albert Dock in Liverpool, says that the centre was chipped because John had been taking it on and off the spindle. “My copy was the same,” says Gerry Rafferty, “It was a great record and I used to play it to death. Skiffle was a very primitive form of music, and it gave working class kids with no musical education the opportunity to perform simple songs with simple instruments.”

Chris Barber’s Jazz Band was now signed to Pye’s Nixa label, and Decca realised that Lonnie would be following up his hit with a rival company. “It wasn’t entirely Decca’s fault because the whole British recording scene was a cottage industry. There were three big companies and their prime function was to make American records available over here. No one knew what to do when a British artist started selling.”

Decca looked at the tracks that they had featuring Donegan and came to the extraordinary conclusion that his live performance of Washboard Sam’s ribald ‘Diggin’ My Potatoes’ would be suitable. There was no way a song about marital infidelity could be played on the BBC in 1956, especially the way it was expressed:

“I crept up to the window, thought I heard a moan,
I heard somebody say, ‘Oh, you’re suckin’ my sweet bone’,
You’re diggin’ my potatoes, trampling on my vine,
I had a worried feeling resting on my mind.”

When I heard ‘Diggin’ My Potatoes’ as an 11-year-old in 1956, the imagery was totally lost on me and I had no idea why the BBC had banned it. Probably because of the ban, the record failed to make the charts. In 1965 the song was a Top 50 entry for Heinz and the Wild Boys.

As usual, the band recorded prolifically. Over the next few weeks, the Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group recorded six tracks at their sessions. Four of them made the EP, ‘Skiffle Session’. Lonnie tells the story of ‘Railroad Bill’, whom he plans to assassinate for stealing his wife. ‘Ol’ Riley’ is about a fugitive prisoner from a chain gang: the song is sometimes known with different verses but the same holler, ‘Here Rattler’, as recorded by Grandpa Jones. The fugitive has immersed himself in the river so that the bloodhounds would lose his trail. Dickie Bishop is subdued on ‘Stackalee’, later recorded by Lloyd Price as a raucous rock’n’roll record, and ‘The Ballad Of Jesse James’, a glorification of the American outlaw. When Jesse went legit, he used the pseudonym Mr. Howard, hence the reference in the song’s chorus.

A significant session was on 20 February 1956 when Donegan, Dick Bishop, Chris Barber and Ron Bowden recorded ‘Lost John’ (“Now this here’s a story about an escaped convict called Long Gone Lost John) and ‘Stewball’ (“Now this here is a story about a racehorse called Stewball”). These are two of Donegan’s best sides, although Lonnie is hoarse towards the end of ‘Lost John’. It is told with much good humour:

“If anybody asks you who sung the song,
Tell ’em Lonnie Donegan’s been here and gone.”

Lonnie said, “Folk singers personalise the songs all the time, so why not?” The song also brought a new word to England: Lost John’s shoes look the same front and back and “You couldn’t tell which-a-way Lost John gwine.”

The interplay with the backing vocalists (Barber and Bishop) is particularly good on ‘Stewball’ and the speed generated by the song gives an example of the control exerted by Donegan’s voice. Maybe that explains the hoarseness. Ron Bowden played drums: “Lonnie loved ‘Stewball’, he thought it was a great song, and it was terrific being on those records. I can’t remember any hassle about the sessions at all. My part certainly was very straightforward, but Lonnie gave his all, all the time. He worked bloody hard when he was on stage and he was always pushing the tempos.”

Several American artists covered ‘Rock Island Line’, notably the veteran New York balladeer Don Cornell (‘Hold My Hand’, 1954), Grandpa Jones and a young Bobby Darin, but despite what some sources say, not Johnny Cash. Darin’s cover included an annoying train whistle and he ruined his chances by forgetting the words on a TV show hosted by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. Lonnie made Number 8, Don Cornell 59, and Stan Freberg 79, although it is Freberg’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ side that is listed.

Johnny Cash somehow believed that Lonnie had deprived him of a hit: listen to how he acknowledges Lonnie’s presence in the audience on his 1976 album, ‘Strawberry Cake’: “I heard Lonnie Donegan is in the audience tonight, so will you take a bow, Lonnie, wherever you are out there. In 1958 Lonnie Donegan was all we heard and so too was this ‘Rock Island Line’ song. We recorded it on Sun Records before it came out by Lonnie Donegan, probably nobody heard it because it didn’t get played on the right stations, so we’ll do it for you tonight.” Johnny is mistaken: he recorded ‘Rock Island Line’ after Lonnie Donegan and it was the B-side of his March 1957 single, ‘Next In Line’. Good version but judging by Cash’s narration, he had been listening to Donegan, although he has different verses. The Sun version of ‘Rock Island Line’ by Johnny Cash did make Number 35 on the US Country Charts in 1970.

Lonnie says, “You get the same story from Frankie Laine. He’d been bashing the earholes of his record company trying to get them to let him record ‘Rock Island Line’. No one would listen to him and when he discovered that my version had come out, he was very annoyed.”

Don Cornell had come to the UK to tour the Moss Empires. His manager, Manny Greenfield, thought it would be a good press story to put the two recorders of ‘Rock Island Line’ together and they met at the Finsbury Park Empire. Greenfield was surprised to discover that Lonnie didn’t have a manager. Sign here, kid…

Don Cornell had hoped for the US hit with ‘Rock Island Line’, but Lonnie won through and Manny Greenfield arranged for Lonnie to appear on ‘The Perry Como Show’, which had colossal viewing figures. The show’s producer did not want Chris Barber’s band as the record was essentially Lonnie with Chris and Beryl. Lonnie discussed it with the band, who said his job would be there when he returned and he took a fortnight’s holiday: Chris Barber said, “Lonnie, this is the jam, but the band is your bread and butter.” It was a traumatic time to go away. Lonnie had married Maureen Tyler on 31 March 1955, and their first child, Fiona, was born on 13 March 1956.

When Lonnie arrived at rehearsals, the Musicians’ Union would only allow him to perform as a singer. He had never performed without something in his hands before, but Perry Como gave him some helpful advice. Donegan, still looking uncomfortable, was backed by the studio orchestra, many of whom were jazzman. The single climbed to Number 8, the same position as in the UK, and this was at a time when British records rarely made the US charts. Jerry Allison of the Crickets recalls that Buddy Holly loved the record and they would perform their own version in small clubs around Lubbock, Texas. “We thought it was a rock’n’roll record,” said Jerry.

Indeed. In the 1950s Lonnie had been amazed when some journalists had described him as a rock’n’roll singer. “But you sing ‘Rock Island Line’, don’t you?” said one reporter. “Yes, but if it was ‘Rock Of Ages’,” responded Lonnie, “would you still call me a rock’n’roll singer?”

Whatever, Lonnie Donegan knew he was lucky to have a hit in America: “It was a freak hit as British performers didn’t have hits in America. To be asked to go to America and sing American songs to the Americans in American was a weird experience. I appeared on ‘The Perry Como Show’ with guest star, Ronald Reagan. Being a film star, he was a distinguished guest and he had to take part in a little sketch that involved us together. Ronald Reagan said, ‘Well, what is a Lonnie Donegan?’, and silly gags like that. He was a romantic actor so you couldn’t expect him to be hilariously funny or do dances or sing songs. I was asked to do all sorts of television and rock’n’roll shows. ‘Time’ magazine came for an interview. I was also extremely flattered when Stan Freberg did ‘Rock Island Line’. He did a parody of Elvis on the other side and they were both very funny. He did others afterwards, some of which were funny and others that were not. Nobody is without sin, some work, some don’t work, but ‘Rock Island Line’ was particularly good.”

After the Como show, Lonnie returned to his hotel in Times Square with just £5 in his pocket “and they said they would call me.” The next night, Lonnie was booked to perform at a large night club, the Town And Country, in New York. Again he could not play guitar and he gave an expressive performance, basing his presentation on Harry Belafonte’s. Lonnie recalled, “The next job was in a rock’n’roll show in Detroit. It was ridiculous and I felt like a human sacrifice. All the coloured acts were backed by an orchestra but I had no parts as I’d come from a jazz band. I was alone with a little Martin guitar and I had to sing ‘Rock Island Line’. We would do five shows a day, the audience would sit down with a bunch of sandwiches, put their feet on their stage and sit there for 12 hours. In between the performances, they screened a terrible English thriller to get people to leave. When it got to the third show of the day, one girl shouted out to me, ‘Cut out all that shit, man, just get on with the song.’

The rock’n’roll show opened at the Fox Theatre in Detroit on 21 June 1956 and featured LaVern Baker, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, the Cleftones, Johnny ’Guitar’ Watson, Lonnie Donegan and several other acts. Lonnie Donegan: “The Johnny Burnette Rock’n’Roll Trio was on the show and on the second day, Johnny said, ‘We love what you’re doing, man, can we come out and play out with you?’ I said, ‘Thank you very much, but my money won’t run to that.’ He said, ‘Who said anything about money? Man, we just want to play with you.’ I said, ‘Great’, and from then on they were my backing group. Dorsey Burnette played slap-bass and the guitarist, Paul Burlison, played like the guy who played with Elvis, Scotty Moore. Johnny slashed the guitar like me and sang like a cross between me and Elvis. We enjoyed ourselves after that.”

A succession of dates followed on rock’n’roll package shows with Chuck Berry and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, night clubs, dance halls and television variety. Usually, it was not hard work - if he was on a rock’n’roll show, he would only perform ‘Rock Island Line’ and ‘Lost John’, although he might have to do it five times a day. When he played in one casino, he had to compete with the noise of one-armed bandits. He said, “Aren’t you Americans ashamed of yourselves?” Everyone turned and looked and he said, “All this beautiful American folk music that you don’t want to listen to belongs to you.” He went down well after that.

Lonnie soon tired of the bookings and felt lost and alone. He asked Maureen to come over, so she left their baby with her parents and flew to America. They took a holiday in Memphis and New Orleans. Manny Greenfield wanted him to join a ten week tour, but he had no inclination to do this and besides, “I had a telegram from Pye saying, ‘Come home. You’re Number 2 in the charts with ‘Lost John’.’”

Lonnie didn’t mind leaving America, telling Alan Clayson in ‘Record Collector’: “I didn’t see success over there as long term. The main incentive for me going over was to see all the jazz musicians I admired live in Birdland and New Orleans, all expenses paid. I had every intention of coming back and rejoining Chris Barber, but the agent booked me for all sorts of rock’n’roll shows.” Reading between the lines, Lonnie was looking for songs he could record.

It became difficult for Lonnie to remain with Chris Barber’s Jazz Band. Chris Barber: “When Lonnie got a hit, he got offers to go solo and earn enormous amounts of money. Our band was a cooperative and he had the cheek to ask for more money if he was to stay in the band. He said, ‘Look, I’m bringing so much more to the band so I should be paid more.’ I said, ‘Lonnie, skiffle is bringing in more money now, but next time it might be clarinet solos - ha, ha.’ Next thing I know, ‘Petite Fleur’. The point I was making was that if you’re going to have all for one, then it’s one for all. If you then say that somebody’s more equal than somebody else, then it’s ‘Animal Farm’. We were happy when he decided to go. He was getting £400 a week at the Glasgow Empire just to play ‘Rock Island Line’ and ‘Midnight Special’, which is what he liked doing anyway.”