Before rock & roll took hold, the UK held sway to an unprecedented rise in popularity of skiffle, a less polished offshoot of trad jazz that could be (and frequently was) played on 'found' instruments. In terms of it's 'anyone can do it' attitude, skiffle had a lot in common with seventies punk. In fact, it went one further - punk stressed you didn't need to be Eric Clapton to pick up a guitar but skiffle pointed out that you didn't even need a guitar in the first place. Just stick a broom in a tea chest and you were away.In keeping with its trad jazz origins, 'Cumberland Gap' is a re-working of an Appalachian folk tune from the American civil war. With no 'author' or set lyrics, it's a song that's grown and mutated over the years as many folk ballads are wont to do (check out that 'New words and new music' credit on the label). Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger had both already recorded their own versions and the Viper Skiffle Group had taken the song to number 10 the previous month. And 'same' is an apt description of their static version, a die straight run through that's respectful of its source to the point of ennui. By comparison, Lonnie adds to the mix by greasing the music with vigour and re-drafting some of the lines so they're sifted through a country via a music hall comedy filter ("I got a girl six feet tall, sleeps in the kitchen with her feet in the hall") that's as British as roast beef on Sunday*.
At under two minutes long, there's a rough and unruly wildness to Donegan's performance, a rush to make a song that says very little for itself say as much as possible to its audience, if not in words then in its inherent kinetic energy; Donegan and his band start off at a lick then spur on ever and ever faster until the cart threatens to derail. Even by changing the core lyrics to drop a syllable (Donegan shortens Guthrie's 'seventeen miles to Cumberland Gap' and the Vipers' 'nineteen' to the more onomatopoeically pleasing and quicker to say 'fifteen'), he still overruns the bars with his breathless gallop, straying into keys the band couldn't possibly follow and in so doing creates something unlike anything seen at number one so far. Frankly, it makes 'Rock Around The Clock' sound pensionable.
As a craze, skiffle wasn't to last. It would soon lie buried under the coming tsunami of Buddy's, Chuck's and Eddie's and abandoned by the home-grown stars who sought to emulate them. Many of the turncoats faded into obscurity, but a significant number of performers like Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood, Richie Blackmore, Roger Daltrey and John Lennon used skiffle as a springboard to forge a uniquely British take on r&b/rock&roll that transcended mere copycat status and beat those Americans hands down at their own game. For a while anyway, but that's a story that will unfold in the next decade. As far as 1957 goes, Lonnie Donegan drew from a past found on both sides of the Atlantic to unleash a howl of ferocity that for a little while sounded like the future come early. Fine stuff.
* For years I thought his "Cumberland gap ain't nowhere, fifteen miles from Middlesbrough" was a sly re-working to give the song a British base that pre-dated Billy Bragg's similarly (and more obvious) Anglo make-over of the 'Route 66' standard as 'A13, Trunk Road To The Sea'. But in writing this piece I have discovered that the actual Cumberland Gap is partly located in Middlesboro, Kentucky. Which makes Donegan's song either incredibly lucky or a lot cleverer than I gave it credit for. It only adds to the charm.
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