Billy Bragg on how one song - Rock Island Line - kickstarted the skiffle craze in 50s Britain and gave birth to the great British bands of the 60s. Show more In January 1956, a new pop phenomenon ...

The song Rock Island Line, is about a railroad. The tune moves like a train. Though the lyrics are more of an expression of rhythm and energy than anything poetic, it is, says Billy Bragg ...

NPR Music's Bob Boilen talks with Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin about a song that changed his life, "Rock Island Line," by Lonnie Donegan. CORNISH: Page is one of the founding members of the rock ...

The show is called “Rock Island Line” after Lonnie Donegan’s rumbling 1955 rendition of the classic American folk tune; it’s the song commonly considered to have launched the skiffle craze in the U.K.

Scottish musician Lonnie Donegan, who spearheaded the “skiffle” music craze of the 1950s that inspired John Lennon, Paul McCartney and scores of other teens to take up the guitar and start ...

In January 1956 a new pop phenomenon appeared in the UK charts a British artist playing a guitar His name was Lonnie Donegan and the song he sang was Rock Island Line Donegans roughandready style ...