Skiffle

Skiffle first appeared as an African-American term in Chicago in the 1920s. It was used to describe various Country Blues and early Jazz-influenced music, mainly the southern Jug Bands of the time, who utilised instrumental line-ups of jugs, washboards, washtub bass, cigar-box fiddle, banjo, acoustic guitar, musical saw and comb-and-paper kazoos. Records by artists such as Jimmy O'Bryant, Ma Rainey and Cannon's Jug Stompers were sometimes known by the label. However, skiffle arguably only developed into a specific, stand-alone musical style in the mid-1950s with the British 'skiffle revival' emulating the original jug bands. This popularized post-WWII skiffle was born out of British Trad Jazz and spearheaded by Lonnie Donegan.