Uploaded October 2017 | Updated September 2026, 17 hours ago
From Paul McCartney: "He was the first person we had heard of from Britain to get to the coveted No. 1 in the charts, and we studied his records avidly. We all bought guitars to be in a skiffle group. He was the man." Lonnie Donegan performed Battle of New Orleans (#2 in UK), Rock Island Line, Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (both top 10 in US & UK) and I'll Never Fall in Love Again (top 10 for Tom Jones) in a CBC Vancouver 1971 TV series . The King of Skiffle took Britain by storm in 1955 with Rock Island Line, followed by Cumberland Gap and Gamblin' Man (both #1s). His last #1 was My Old Man's a Dustman in 1960. He's listed as "Britain's most successful and influential recording artist before the Beatles". He had 31 UK Top 30 single hits, 24 being successive and three at number one. He was the first British male singer with two US Top 10 hits. His influence on '60s British groups was huge: every kid wanted to play skiffle with a washboard, tea-chest bass and a cheap guitar. The skiffle style encouraged amateurs and one of many groups that followed was the Quarrymen, formed in March 1957 by John Lennon. The rest as they say is history.
From Paul McCartney: "He was the first person we had heard of from Britain to get to the coveted No. 1 in the charts, and we studied his records avidly. We all bought guitars to be in a skiffle group. He was the man." Lonnie Donegan performed Battle of New Orleans (#2 in UK), Rock Island Line, Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (both top 10 in US & UK) and I'll Never Fall in Love Again (top 10 for Tom Jones) in a CBC Vancouver 1971 TV series . The King of Skiffle took Britain by storm in 1955 with Rock Island Line, followed by Cumberland Gap and Gamblin' Man (both #1s). His last #1 was My Old Man's a Dustman in 1960. He's listed as "Britain's most successful and influential recording artist before the Beatles". He had 31 UK Top 30 single hits, 24 being successive and three at number one. He was the first British male singer with two US Top 10 hits. His influence on '60s British groups was huge: every kid wanted to play skiffle with a washboard, tea-chest bass and a cheap guitar. The skiffle style encouraged amateurs and one of many groups that followed was the Quarrymen, formed in March 1957 by John Lennon. The rest as they say is history.
