Lonnie Donegan.....2

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 20 Feb 2008 3:24 am

Pity the earlier thread was closed.
Still, I got to thinking about the relevance of Denny Wright to Lonnies hits..

From the 15th November 1958 Les Bennetts did by far the majority of the lead guitar work, most of the hits in fact were Les.
Tom Dooley, Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour, Fort Worth Jail, Battle Of New Orleans, San Miguel, My Old Man's A Dustman, Have A Drink On Me.. and more
I think Les is the unsung hero of that era..
Donegan Discography

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 20 Feb 2008 8:25 am

Hi, Basil

i asked for the thread to be closed as I thought it had degenerated somewhat with some vaguely 'earthy' humour.

The question of Lonnie's guitarists is an interesting one. In my view, Denny Wright was the first - and the very best. He brought his own problems, however, and there's a blatant display of ineptitude at a BBC recording of a concert at the Albert Hall in 1957 when Denny is so inebriated that Donegan has to assign the solo in 'Cumberland Gap' to bass-player Mickey Ashaman!!!

Despite this, Denny was nothing short of wonderful in the studio. His work on Lonnie's hits from 'Bring A Little Water, Sylvie', 'Don't You Rock Me, Daddy-O', 'Dead or Alive' and 'Cumberland Gap' is inspiring, bringing a distinctly jazzy flavour to the tracks. Shortly after that he rose again and provided the calypso-styled solo to Johnny Duncan's one big hit, 'Last Train To San Fernando'. Denny also worked out all the arrangements to these sides, and he was an incredible asset to both artists. (In later years, he played permanently with violinist Stephan Grappelli.)

Lonnie replaced Denny Wright with Jimmy Currie, formerly of Tony Crombie & His Rockets (a feeble attempt - they were jazzers at heart - at some British home-grown rock and roll in the mid-1950s). Jimmy had his moments, but always sounded (to me, at any rate) as though he suffered from 'red light syndrome'; all would be going swimmingly until it was time for his solo, then he'd lose direction, somehow. He was very good on 'Nobody Loves Like an Irishman', however, and the 'Gamblin' Man' solo has merit. I think it helped that the latter track was recorded live on stage.

Then came Les Bennetts.

I hated his brash tone (he sounded like he played too close to the bridge to me), and the slightly gimmicky nature of his licks (a bit like a a dance-band guitarist trying to play country!) His reign lasted for the remainder of Donegan's chart years, from 'Tom Dooley', 'Battle Of New Orleans', 'My Old Man's a Dustman' and 'Have a Drink on Me'.

BUT: I believe Lonnie thought he'd found his ideal sideman in Bennetts. Les threw himself into the entertainment side of his duties with gusto, and I actually think, while I have my own reservations about his musical choices, he played with more conviction than Jimmy Currie.

Neither would I agree that Les is 'unsung', either; virtually all of the surviving footage of Lonnie in his heyday is that taken from the four series of his TV show, 'Putting On The Donegan', and they were all made during Les' tenure in the group.

Denny remains the virtuoso player of the bunch, though. Check out the intro on 'Dead or Alive' and 'Wreck Of The Old '97', and the solos on 'Cumberland Gap', 'Muleskinner Blues' and many more. There's seasoned musicianship at work, and a deft touch that still amazes me even fifty years later.

All my opinion, of course, and maybe a subject for discussion?

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 20 Feb 2008 8:37 am

Basil

One or two mistakes in that 'discography'. First, they assign 'Rock Island Line' to LD, Denny, Mickey Ashman and Nick Nichols when it was actually Chris Barber (bass) and Beryl Bryden (washboard).

Another inconsistency that's prevalent in discographies in general is the personnel on the B-side of 'Fort Worth Jail', the excellent 'Whoa Buck'. This wasn't Les Bennetts (he was on the A-side), but Jimmy Currie; the track had been 'in reserve' for a year. Jimmy's muted and warm tone from his Gibson ES-175 is distinctly different from the echo-laded obligato on 'Fort Worth...'

RR

nick allen · Post by **nick allen** » 22 Feb 2008 8:12 am

Not sure, but I don't think anyone in the previous thread mentioned Knopfler's great song "Donegan's Gone" on his most recent solo album - a nice bluesy tribute.
While it's probably correct to argue that Lonnie D. was not the most significant influence on the music of the Beatles/Stones generation, it is equally almost certainly true that he was the primary influence in their starting to play music.
By the way, Roger, I never quite realised the range of your CV. Eden Kane actually took over as singer in a long-forgotten band from my oldest (in both senses of the word!) friend in England. He and I both ended up working in a bank for a few years!
I'd be interested as well in any recollections of Billy Fury - I always thought he could have been one of the greats, and wonder whether it was his ill-health or lack of ambition that held him back (after all, Bobby Darin had similar ill-health, but no lack of ambition!) According to Andrew Loog Oldham, in a very interesting autobiography, the reliability of which I have no idea of, Fury was always, even in the very early 60s, a very heavy smoker of "wacky baccy"...
Nick

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 22 Feb 2008 11:04 am

Hi, Nick

Of course you're right. I doubt that Lonnie is directly influencing how I play, never mind someone important like the names you mention; but he fired me up with the desire to play music, as well as waking me up to the possibility that I might actually achieve something. As Joe Brown so colourfully put it to me one day: "If it wasn't for Lonnie Donegan, we'd all be playing f****** accordions!"

Billy Fury:

I think that his manager, Larry Parnes ('Mr Parnes, Shillings and Pence', as he was once dubbed) was wrong for him. Billy was just a part of Larry's 'stable' of singers, and might have got further if he'd had a dedicated one-artiste manager; Cliff Richard didn't have half Billy's appeal or talent, but he was handled expertly.

I can tell you, though, that on those old package shows (Larry's on-the-road circuses with about fifteen acts) Billy Fury stood head-and-shoulders above the others. He had something different.

Just some bad choices, perhaps, but it could have been different.

Eden Kane (Richard Sarstedt in fact) is alive and well and living in Beverly Hills. I was touring in LA two years ago and we played golf together for a whole week! He's an actor these days, and was doing 'Star Trek' for it's final 18 years. He's still a good pal....

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 22 Feb 2008 11:10 am

I'd like to hear more about... oh, never mind... $:\$

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 22 Feb 2008 11:30 am

I suppose Jim is serving some sort of purpose here - he does 'bump' the thread to the top, but I can't help wondering if there's some way to stop any 'Lonnie Donegan' topics actually reaching his computer.....

RR

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 22 Feb 2008 12:07 pm

Roger Rettig wrote:...Eden Kane (Richard Sarstedt in fact) is alive and well and living in Beverly Hills. I was touring in LA two years ago and we played golf together for a whole week! He's an actor these days, and was doing 'Star Trek' for it's final 18 years. He's still a good pal....

I'm an ardent Trekkie (or Trekker as some fans like to go by) and I didn't realise Eden Kane was in it. Which series was he in, and which character ? The most recent series was Enterprise, which I think was a flop. I didn't even watch half of them. It was a bad mistake to backwards chronologically. If they had gone forward they could have introduced some of the Next Generation cast as old men, as they did with the original series cast when they put them into the Next Generation.

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 22 Feb 2008 1:38 pm

I've no idea, Alan - I have no liking for that sort of stuff; when I next speak to Rick, I will ask him.

I did once see him playing a real-estate agent in an episode of 'Columbo'....

RR

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 22 Feb 2008 1:47 pm

Can't miss him:

MORE HERE

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 22 Feb 2008 2:01 pm

Well.... I don't think I'd have known him even if I had watched it!

Here we are (I'm in the dark glasses playing my Gibson Super 400) doing a TV show in 1963

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 22 Feb 2008 2:22 pm

Man! You guys look like The Searchers! 'Don't throw your love away, no, no, no, no...'

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 22 Feb 2008 8:08 pm

Jon Light wrote:Can't miss him...

No wonder I didn't recognise him. I wouldn't recognise my own mother made up like that...

nick allen · Post by **nick allen** » 23 Feb 2008 8:20 am

Since the thread has become something of a UK nostalgia trip, I'm sure you guys will appreciate this... Remember Pathé News?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mls08C1ukHM

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 6 Sep 2009 5:16 pm

I hadn't seen that advert before, but I have a Burns guitar. I'd like to think that mine was the one being built there. After all, there's about a 10,000 to 1 chance.

Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 6 Sep 2009 6:22 pm

"No wonder, the guitar's so expensive the guitar boys have no money left for a haircut."

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 6 Sep 2009 11:58 pm

So what about Eden Kane's brother ?

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 7 Sep 2009 7:36 am

Which brother, Baz?

Peter Sarstedt is alive and well and living in Coulsden - I'm still in occasional contact with him. Peter, as you may recall, had that enormous #1 hit record (yours truly can just be heard scraping away on a 12-string guitar on that) in 1969 ("Where Do You Go To, My Lovely?").

Clive S. (formerly known as 'Robin' Sarstedt)also had a sizable hit with 'My Resistance Is Low' in the '70s; unusual for three brothers to have had big hits independant of each other. Maybe even unique!

Here goes another of my Lonnie Donegan threads - subverted!!!!

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 7 Sep 2009 8:13 am

Not Subverted, just a temporary DIVERSION, Where Do You Go To, My Lovely? had a nice 'B' Side..
Did you know that Pete Willsher, B.J. Cole, Gordon Huntley and Gerry Hogan all played steel on his various recordings ?

http://www.petersarstedt.com/
Shows you in some very illustrious company, Albert Lee, Vic Flick, Martin Taylor, Big Jim Sullivan Et Al..

I see you played on both the albums "Peter Sarstedt" and "As though it were a movie"

Nice one Our Kid !!

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 7 Sep 2009 9:50 am

basilh wrote:Not Subverted, just a temporary DIVERSION...

These temporary diversions bring up all sorts of interesting trivia. But I will always consider Lonnie Donegan to be my greatest influence. My Uncle Alan (yes there are more than one Alan Brookeses

) had all his records, and he was living at home with my Grandmother, so every Sunday he would play me any new acquisitions. One of my favourites of Lonnie was the 10" LP, which contained Rocks in My Bed, and a whole lot of great material. I learned to play the blues picking away to that number. I spent years trying to find a copy. Eventually it was released on CD and I ordered a copy via email. It was so committed to my memory that the first time I played the CD it was as though I'd just played it the previous day, not 40 years before.

I used to look forward to Lonnie's TV show each week.

I might have mentioned this before, but while Lonnie was doing a season at the Great Yarmouth Pier, he had an affair with my 2nd cousin's wife. My second cousin was a jazz pianist also on the same bill. After he and his wife split up he moved to South Africa, where he remarried, had three children, and never returned to England.

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 8 Sep 2009 3:57 am

OH, NO!!!!!

I hope Cohen's not lurking still - he'll be back on this thread demanding the murky details!!!!

I can't reply more fully - I'm somewhere in the depths of South Dakota and I have a long way left to drive....

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 8 Sep 2009 10:33 pm

Hi, Baz

Where are you finding all that trivia?

The Sarstedt song I'm most connected with is a later one called 'Mulberry Dawn'. I didn't play on that one but it's a tale of 'swinging London' and recounts an adventure we had one warm Summer night. Peter, John Lennon and myself set off on a night of 'excess'

, and this is referred to with a lyric that mentions us three 'driving 'round London in Roger's old Jag...'

John, not being a driver himself and in total ignorance of how plentiful (and cheap!) these big old Jaguar sedans were, was amazed at the plush appointments of my 1956 Mark VII, and took full advantage - he spent most of our journey bellowing from out of the car's sun-roof, eventually resulting in a 'tug' from Old Bill (that's the police, to you American readers); it was 2.00 am, after all.

Constable Plod, though, was mightily impressed with the pop 'royalty in our midst (this was 1964) and let us go without even a warning!

Alan: Yes - I loved both those first two Lonnie albums ('Showcase', 1956 and 'Lonnie' - the one you're referring to - 1958) - I, too, could have sung every nuance of every one of his tracks decades after first hearing them. I don't know if I wouldn't have taken up guitar without Donegan, but he was my primary influence. I love his work to this day.

PS: Here's hoping that JC will be sufficiently engrossed in the tale of Donegan's illicit affair, and won't enquire too closely into the denouement of the 'Mulberry Dawn'.....

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 19 Sep 2009 8:48 am

Roger: since you knew Lonnie and you played pedal steel how come you never talked him into adding a pedal steel to his band ?

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 19 Sep 2009 11:03 am

Hi, Alan

It's simple, really. Lon didn't care for the sound of pedal-steel. It was all politics with him. At the point Lonnie was calling me to do odd gigs with him, I was also involved with the West End show, 'Pump Boys & Dinettes' as Musical Associate, and he wanted desperately to be considered for a role in the musical.

He thought that he'd curry favour with me by giving me a gig here and there, little knowing that I'd have sold a family-member

for the chance to work on a long-term project with my boyhood idol! It wasn't to be, however - the show's producers thought him a little too old (a curious distinction when you realise that they ultimately settled for Joe Brown in that lead role!) and they 'passed' on Lonnie, despite my impassioned support for him.

Also around this period I was hospitalised with a suspected heart problem (which turned out to be nothing but a torn muscle in my chest) and kept for a day or so in the ICU. Uncharacteristically solicitous, Donegan was on the 'phone checking on my progress.....

So: Pedal-steel was a non-starter for him; he disliked its musical associations, I believe. I do think that, had Paul Henry ever quit his band (Paul was his guitar-player for the last twenty-two years of Lon's life), I'd have stood a good chance of getting the 'guitar chair' in his group.

Now THAT would have been a dream come true, and it's a job I remain convinced that I could have done well. Not to be, sadly, but I'm proud to have shared a stage with him.

As a footnote, I still have the set-list that Lonnie hand-wrote for me in which he specified where he wanted guitar or steel; it's a treasured possession, as you might imagine.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 19 Sep 2009 5:40 pm

Roger: You seem to have lived the life I would like to have lived if I'd had the courage to give up my day job.

I looked at your profile on Facebook and we seem to have an amazing amount in common.