Lonnie Donegan MBE (29 April 1931 – 3 November 2002) was a British "skiffle… Read Full Bio ↴Lonnie Donegan MBE (29 April 1931 – 3 November 2002) was a British "skiffle" musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is referred to as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s.

Donegan was born as Anthony James Donegan in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of a professional violinist. His ethnic mix was Scottish/Irish. He moved with his mother to London at an early age, after his parents divorced. Inspired by blues music and New Orleans jazz bands he heard on the radio, he resolved to learn the guitar, and bought his first at the age of fourteen.

The first band he ever played in was the trad jazz band led by Chris Barber, who approached him on a train asking him if he wanted to audition for his group. Barber had heard that Donegan was a good banjo player; in fact, Donegan had never played the banjo at this point, but he bought one and managed to bluff his way through the audition. His stint in this group was interrupted, however, when he was called up for National Service in 1949. He also played in Ken Colyer's group

In 1952, he formed his first own group, the Tony Donegan Jazzband, which found some work around London. On one occasion they opened for the blues musician Lonnie Johnson at the Royal Festival Hall. Donegan was a big fan of Johnson, and took his first name as a tribute to him. The story goes that the host at the concert got the musicians' names confused, calling them "Tony Johnson" and "Lonnie Donegan", and Donegan was happy to keep the name.

With a washboard, a tea-chest bass and a cheap Spanish guitar, Donegan entertained audiences with folk and blues songs by artists such as Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. This proved so popular that in July 1954 he recorded a fast-tempoed version of Leadbelly's "Rock Island Line", featuring a washboard but not a tea-chest bass, with "John Henry" on the B-side. It was an enormous hit in 1956 (which also later inspired the creation of a full album, An Englishman Sings American Folk Songs, released in America on the Mercury label in the early 1960s) but ironically, because it was a band recording, Donegan made no money from this recording beyond his original session fee. (Nevertheless, Donegan received considerable music publishing royalties from "Rock Island" simply by claiming the British copyright on an unregistered song which was considered to be in the Public Domain. This led to the peculiar situation that any "cover" version of "Rock Island Line" which was released on record in Britain from 1956 showed the song composition credited to Lonnie Donegan.) It was the first debut record to go gold in the UK, and reached the Top Ten in the United States. His next single for Decca, "Diggin' My Potatoes", was recorded at a concert at the Royal Festival Hall on 30 October 1954.[4] Decca dropped Donegan thereafter, but within a month he was at the Abbey Road Studios in London recording for EMI's Columbia label. He had left the Barber band by then, and by the spring of 1955, Donegan signed a recording contract with Pye. His next single "Lost John" reached #2 in the UK Singles Chart.

His success at the time saw Donegan sent to the United States, where he appeared on television on both Perry Como Show and Paul Winchell Show. Returning to the UK, Donegan recorded his debut album, Lonnie Donegan Showcase, in the summer of 1956, which featured songs by Lead Belly and Leroy Carr, plus "I'm a Ramblin' Man" and "Wabash Cannonball". The LP was a hit, securing sales in the hundreds of thousands.[4] The popular skiffle style encouraged amateurs to get started, and one of the many skiffle groups that followed was The Quarrymen formed in March 1957 by John Lennon. Donegan's "Gamblin' Man" / "Puttin' On the Style" single was number one on the UK chart in July 1957, when Lennon first met Paul McCartney.

Donegan went on to make a series of popular records with successes including "Cumberland Gap" and, particularly "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose It's Flavour (On The Bedpost Over Night)", his only hit song in the U.S., released on Dot. He turned to a music hall style with "My Old Man's a Dustman" which was not well received by skiffle fans, or in an attempted but ultimately unsuccessful American release by Atlantic in 1960, but it reached number one in the UK Singles Chart. Donegan's group had a flexible line-up, but was generally formed by Denny Wright or Les Bennetts (of Les Hobeaux and Chas McDevitt's skiffle groups) playing lead guitar and singing harmony vocals, Micky Ashman or Pete Huggett - later Steve Jones - on upright bass, Nick Nichols - later Pete Appleby and Mark Goodwin - on drums or percussion and Donegan playing acoustic guitar or banjo and singing the lead.

He continued to appear regularly in the UK charts until 1962, before succumbing to the arrival of The Beatles and beat music.

Add 1: In the early fifties after Donegan was demobbed from National Service he joined Chris Barber and Ken Colyer and others called Ken Colyer's Jazzmen which consisted of Ken Colyer (trumpet), Chris Barber (trombone), Monty Sunshine (clarinet), Lonnie Donegan (banjo), Jim Bray (bass) Dickie Bishop (Guitar) and Ron Bowden (drums). This group recorded two excellent blues numbers with Lonnie Donegan as vocal called "In the evening when de sun go down" and "The Midnight Special" After a year, Ken colyer stormed out of the group and Chris Barber took over.

http://www.p.griggsy.btinternet.co.uk/Untitled/Lonnie.html (Memories of Lonnie Donegan by Paul Griggs)

Lorelei
Lonnie Donegan Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

I kissed a girl in Burma, in a town they called Rangoon
Her lips were hot as curry in the heat of the afternoon
Her kisses were so spicy I thought my lips would fry
But I never knew what kissing was till I kissed Lorelei
Loerelei, Lorelei, Lorelei.

I kissed a girl in Africa, I only had a hope (?)
And every time I kissed her my ears would turn to soap

She kissed me oceans deeply and she kissed me mountains high
But I never knew what kissing was till I kissed Lorelei
Loerelei, Lorelei, Lorelei.

I kissed a girl in London town, right underneath Big Ben
And as our lips were touching the clock was striking ten
She kissed me there in April and it lasted till July
But I never knew what kissing was till I kissed Lorelei
Loerelei, Lorelei, Lorelei.

I kissed a girl in the Holy Land in the Sea of Galilee
She fed me dates and olives underneath a lemon tree
She kissed me till my sunburnt lips were parched and dry
But I never knew what kissing was till I kissed Lorelei
Loerelei, Lorelei, Lorelei.

You think that I'm just lying and you think she don't exist
But if she kissed you boy you'd know that you'd been kissed
For kissing is her speciality, her one and only dish

For Lorelei's a mermaid, half a woman, half a fish
Lorelei, Lorelei, Lorelei.

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Lonnie Donegan's song "Lorelei" depict the story of the singer's romantic experiences with girls from different parts of the world before meeting Lorelei. He begins by talking about a girl he kissed in Burma whose lips were as hot as curry, and then he talks about an African girl whose kisses were so intense that they felt like washing his ears with soap. He also describes a girl he kissed in London right under Big Ben, and another girl in the Holy Land who kissed him until his sunburnt lips were parched and dry. However, despite all these experiences, the singer claims that he never really knew what kissing was until he kissed Lorelei.

The chorus of the song repeats the name "Lorelei," who the singer describes as a mermaid who is half a woman and half a fish. He explains that kissing is her speciality and is her one and only dish. The song's lyrics suggest that Lorelei is the ultimate kiss, and nothing else compares to it.

Overall, the song's lyrics paint a picture of the singer's search for the perfect kiss, which ends with him finding it in Lorelei, who is depicted as an otherworldly creature with an unparalleled ability to kiss.

Line by Line Meaning

I kissed a girl in Burma, in a town they called Rangoon
I kissed a girl in Burma, in a town called Rangoon where her lips were so hot as a curry in the heat of the afternoon.

Her kisses were so spicy I thought my lips would fry
The kisses she gave me were so spicy that I thought my lips would fry.

But I never knew what kissing was till I kissed Lorelei
Despite the spicy kisses she gave me, I never really understood what a real kiss was until I kissed Lorelei.

I kissed a girl in Africa, I only had a hope (?)
I kissed a girl in Africa with only the hope of feeling loved and cherished by her.

And every time I kissed her my ears would turn to soap
Every time we kissed, my ears would feel an unusual sensation like they were turning into soap.

But I never knew what kissing was till I kissed Lorelei
But I never fully comprehended what passionate kissing meant until I kissed Lorelei.

I kissed a girl in London town, right underneath Big Ben
I shared a romantic kiss with a girl in London town underneath the famous Big Ben landmark.

And as our lips were touching the clock was striking ten
Our lips were touching in a passionate embrace at the exact moment when Big Ben was striking ten.

But I never knew what kissing was till I kissed Lorelei
However, I was yet to experience real kissing until I met Lorelei.

I kissed a girl in the Holy Land in the Sea of Galilee
While visiting the Holy Land, I kissed a girl in the Sea of Galilee and enjoyed eating dates and olives under a lemon tree with her.

But I never knew what kissing was till I kissed Lorelei
But my experience of kissing didn't completely transform until Lorelei kissed me.

You think that I'm just lying and you think she don't exist
People don't believe that Lorelei exists and think I'm a liar.

But if she kissed you boy you'd know that you'd been kissed
If only they could experience the feeling of Lorelei's kiss, they too would understand its significance.

For kissing is her speciality, her one and only dish
Kissing is Lorelei's specialty; it's what she does best.

For Lorelei's a mermaid, half a woman, half a fish
Her unique ability to kiss exquisitely is not surprising since she's part mermaid, part woman.

Contributed by Ian P. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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