Skiffle

British skiffle (the term was originally used of the juicy blues parties of the American Depression years) was not closely comparable to rockabilly; among many other differences it was more a deliberately amateurish recreation of a folk idiom than a rush of blood to the vitals. Nor were most of the vaguely academic revivalists remotely similar to the newly emerging American rockers: they would probably have been disdainfully amused had anyone suggested they were.

It was the loose, rhythmic vitality of skiffle that was distantly equivalent to rockabilly - that, and the fact that anyone who could find three strummable chords on a cheap guitar could have a go for himself. Before Rock & Roll crossed the Atlantic the skiffle craze was already spreading out from the jazz club circle of its instigators. As the first shock-waves of rock arrived, Lonnie Donegan was bounced into national prominence and seemingly every street in Britain suddenly boasted an amateur skiffle group.