The phenomenon known as 'Skiffle' started out by accident, when Chris Barber & His Jazz Orchestra left a place in his performances to let his guitar player, Lonnie Donegan, play a blues number with just guitar, bass and drums. The version of Leadbelly's Rock Island Line was a track on Barber's 'New Orleans Joys' album of 1953 and proved so popular that it was released as a single in 1955. Soon every music minded kid in Britian was buying a cheap guitar, and together with a friend or two on washboard and tea-chest bass were bashing out crude versions of 'John Henry' and 'Rock Island Line in the newly formed Skiffle clubs and youth clubs throughout Great Britain.
Donegan was to inspire everyone from John Lennon to Jimmy Page and made some great blues based records for a time, until he reverted to vaudeville with records like 'My Old Man's A Dustman' and 'Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour On The Bed Post Overnight'.
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