JOHN Lennon once recalled: “About the time of rock’n’roll in Britain – I think I was 15, so it would be about 1955 –there was a big thing called ‘skiffle’, which was a kind of folk music; American folk music, with washboards, and all the kids from fifteen onwards had these groups”.
Lonnie Donegan, the ‘Skiffle King’, had a huge influence on countless future musicians, including Lennon – who, together with some schoolfriends, formed a skiffle group, The Quarry Men.
On July 6, 1957, they played a church garden fete in Woolton, Liverpool. It was there that Lennon first met Paul McCartney; the group would eventually give rise to the Beatles.