• Track Listing

Very nearly seventy years after the event, it's impossible to convey just how big an impact SKIFFLE had upon the teenaged youth of an austere, sepia-tinted, post-WW2 UK. It was an almost exclusively British phenomenon, propelled by home-made, DIY simplicity; a cheap, bottom-of-the-range banjo or acoustic guitar; a stand-up tea chest bass; a washboard; a handful of thimbles; and a kazoo, from Woolworths (optional). It's no exaggeration to say that Lonnie Donegan's frantic 'Rock Island Line', which made the charts in January 1956, changed everything; it threw the "rule book" out of the window. Following Lonnie's breakthrough, along came The Vipers, Chas McDevitt & Nancy Whiskey, Johnny Duncan, Dickie Bishop, Alexis Korner & Cyril Davies, and dozens more. This compilation features all the singers, strummers, strokers and scratchers at the forefront of the UK Skiffle Boom - more than 40 different groups/artists are featured - and includes many of the genre's biggest hits