- Music
- 01 May 01
He's been languishing in the undergrowth for way too long. But Lonnie Donegan has emerged from the shadows with a mighty fine album, a calling card to be proud of, especially when he comes knocking on the doors of an entire generation who missed out on the delights of 'My Old Man's A Dustman'.
He's been languishing in the undergrowth for way too long. But Lonnie Donegan has emerged from the shadows with a mighty fine album, a calling card to be proud of, especially when he comes knocking on the doors of an entire generation who missed out on the delights of 'My Old Man's A Dustman'.
This is the man who claims parentage to skiffle, a heady mix of blues, country and folk styles, with the genetic scaffolding of washboard, tea chest bass and spanish guitar. Donegan himself claims Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie as huge influences, and everyone from The Beatles and Rory Gallagher to Queen claimed kinship to Donegan and his skiffle groups when they began to emerge from his shadow in the '60s.
Muleskinner Blues is Donegan's comeback album, a wondrous amalgam of skiffle, straightforward down home blues and some of the funkiest storytelling techniques you'll encounter outside of a Gil Scott Heron album.