I'm 64, and haven't thought about Lonnie Donegan for ages ... was looking for Chewing Gum lose it's flavour when I found this. Don't know why; I'm sitting here on a work day, tears running down my face. And the room full of people and the dog dancing was the cream on the cake. Such joy!
It is little appreciated what an incredible contribution Lonnie Donegan made to the British music scene and consequently to the world of music. He pioneered American music in the UK and turned young people on to a host of new sounds from across the pond. Without Lonnie, I am not sure that we would, as a nation, have had the impact on the World Stage that we have. A remarkable legacy!
Don't you believe it. There was an immese amount of serious stuff going on. A photograph or film of smiling people does not mean the back ground is not loaded with serious issues on many levels.
Most of Lonnies skiffle songs were actually old western songs which he dug up from the archives and jazzed up a bit. The Cumberland Gap is a narrow pass through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains, near the junction of the U.S. states of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee.
If you own a Woody Guthrie anthology you would see where Lonny got his inspiration and many songs from including this song. I would add that Woody may not have written all these songs but he collected what we would nowadays call Americana songs .
Fantastic!!!! Great to see olde Lonnie looking fresh as a daisy never mind them daisy roots This looks as good as the day it was made Great Pioneering stuff! Great Lonnie Donegan Hand on heart We’ll never forget you….,…
At 0:49, Robert Plant borrows this line for one of Led Zeppelin's classic blues tunes, "Two old ladies sitting in the sand, each one wishes the other was a man." BRILLIANT!
I love how "Middlesboro" was rhymed with "no where"! lol I live about 50 miles from the Cumberland Gap, so I change the words, slightly...one interesting fact...Cumberland Gap was formed by a crater from a meteor strike!
Great stuff. I used to collect early rock records, including skiffle. Lonnie was such an inspiration to British rock. The Beatles played skiffle, and if you search RU-vid there's a clip of a young Jimmy Page in a skiffle band too.
Damn, sometimes i wish i could have lived in every era in which a 'new' direction of music was created. I would give a lot to attend to a concert of these guys, it will never happen... Therefore, lots of Kudos for sharing these clips with the world!
Fortunately for me I was born at the start of real pop music including skiffle, rockabilly Doo Wop and Rock and. Roll. I was born in 1953 so I'm lucky! I remember skiffle very well as my dad used to play it on our lift up lid record player!
Lonnie, of Scotch-Irish parents, sounding for all the world like parts of Kentucky today...his speech/accent sounds like tons of singers and musicians from the part of the U.S. my ancestry calls home. What a wonderful bridge....
This is a classic , my Bro , Bruce , used to fire up at a party , with his old gat , & yodel this tune , amongst many others,until the cows came home ... Ha ha , good stuff !!
Cumberland gap; the way my ancestors made their way into Kentucky. The Cumberland river carved a gap through the mountains that the settlers could follow.
On this date in 1957 {Apr. 12th} "Cumberland Gap" peaked at #1 {for 5 weeks} on the United Kingdom Singles chart; never charted on any U.S. charts... Composer is unknown; was 1st recorded in 1924 by fiddler Uncle Am Stuart and in 1954 Peter Seeger recorded it for an album...
Cumberland when I was there but called Cumbria nowadays. 15 miles and $15 minimum wage in the USA. Happy International Women's Day. Monday is it? No idea where I am; and what was my life's motto again? Eh! Je suis leur chef, il fallait bien les suivre.
Jimmy Page mentioned him as one of his greatest influences as a young up and coming guitarist. Cant be bad having one of the worlds greatest guitarist reference him.
