'Complete Conway: Live 1957'
What The Critics Say
On January 25, 1957, Lonnie Donegan performed what might have been his most important concert yet, at London's prestigious Conway Hall. It is certainly one of the most legendary, as Pye set the tapes rolling and captured the sound of the future unfolding before its audience's very eyes. Make no mistake, even allowing for the largely unamplified and decidedly folk-tinged sound, this is a live rock & roll album -- the first ever to be recorded in Britain, and still one of the most exciting. The Conway show amounted to just eight complete songs; this set adds on further recordings from the London Palladium and the Royal Albert Hall, all from that same year, and the ensuing production is so seamless that there could be no better representation of the Donegan group in full flood, at the very peak of its commercial and creative powers. The excitement explodes out of the opening number, "On a Monday," and doesn't let up all show long. No less than 15 songs hurtle out of the speakers. "Old Hannah," "Mule Skinner Blues," and "Ella Speed" are early highlights, while a rush of hits in the latter part of the show ("Cumberland Gap," "Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O," "Gamblin' Man," "Putting on the Style") is simply sensational, a blur of energy and excitement that leaves the listener drained, even after all these years. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
'Puttin' on the Style'
What The Critics Say
After an absence of 15 years or more as a major name in British rock, Donegan re-emerged with this '70s version of his old skiffle sound (why nobody tried this with Donegan seven years earlier, when Mungo Jerry hit with their updated skiffle number "In the Summertime," is anyone's guess). Chances are that UA in America was lured into distributing this album by the presence on the record of such rock star skiffle fans Ringo Starr, Elton John, Nicky Hopkins, Mick Ralphs, Albert Lee, Rory Gallagher, Brian May, Ron Wood, Peter Banks, Michelle Phillips, and (like, unreal) Rev. James Cleveland. Unfortunately, audiences, at least in America, were rather oblivious to it all and it was ignored, rapidly becoming a collector's item. The record isn't bad, as Donegan does his stuff with this big name support, but overall it seems overproduced, a sort of skiffle supersession, a treatment to which the music doesn't lend itself. It was more fun to listen to than almost any other recording that Ringo and his ilk participated in during the late '70s; however, it was a real labor of love for all concerned. [Castle's 2007 reissue included bonus tracks.] ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
'Lonnie Donegan Live, 1957'
What The Critics Say
This is an extraordinary live document, showing what can go both very right and very wrong in concert, and also capturing the excitement that attended the height of the skiffle boom of the mid-'50s in England. The first nine cuts, five of which weren't released until the 1990s, are from a January 25, 1957, show at Conway Hall in London, where everything came off almost perfectly. Donegan was in great voice on the virtuoso band numbers ("On a Monday," "Mule-Skinner Blues," "Ella Speed") and his one solo blues ("Black Girl"), and lead guitarist Denny Wright plays some extraordinary solos, loud, rousing, and some running more than a minute (extremely long by the standards of the time). The next four tracks that follow come from a Royal Albert Hall show three weeks later, when Wright was partly incapacitated by drunkeness, and nothing came off -- Donegan even takes one solo on acoustic guitar intended for Wright's electric guitar, and a Wright solo on "Cumberland Gap" (a number that he could play magnificently, as anyone who's ever seen the movie The 6.5 Special can tell you) collapses in confusion. Similarly, "Don't You Rock Me, Daddy-O" falls apart due to the lead guitarist's problems. The live cuts are rounded out by the two studio hits that followed these shows and helped change Donegan's sound from pure blues and folk into more of a popular mode, "Gamblin' Man" and the softer, sing-songy "Puttin' on the Style," both of which featured Wright's replacement, Jimmy Currie (formerly of Tony Crombie & His Rockets). The nine Conway Hall tracks (really eight -- one is just a false start on the wrong song) are some of the best live blues-based music you're likely to hear from this period, every bit as bracing and important as Muddy Waters' live recordings from England from a year later. Three of the cuts weren't released at the time because they heavily featured Dick Bishop on rhythm guitar and backing vocals, and a few weeks after these shows he signed with a rival record company as a competitor to Donegan. The Albert Hall cuts are a mess, but they are fun, and the crowd's enthusiasm, even for these obviously troubled performances, is an indication of just how popular the artist was at the time. Ironically, Donegan had begun to change his sound and image by mid-1957, so the Conway Hall tracks, recorded to help fill the gap of no new studio records, became impossible to release, except as artifacts of his earlier sound. Now, many years later, they're priceless documents of a great moment in England's formative rock & roll years. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
