Written by: Traditional, arranged by Richard Starkey
Recorded: 2011
Producers: Ringo Starr, Bruce Sugar
Released: 30 January 2012, 31 January 2012 (US)
Available on:
Ringo 2012
Personnel
Ringo Starr: vocals, drums, guitar
Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Steve Dudas: guitar
Don Was: bass guitar
Benmont Tench: piano
Edgar Winter: saxophone
‘Rock Island Line’ is the fifth song on Ringo Starr’s 17th solo studio album, Ringo 2012.
The traditional song was originally sung by slaves in the southern USA, and was first transcribed as a folk song in 1929. It was recorded by Lead Belly in 1937, which became the model for numerous subsequent versions. Other recordings included versions by Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie, Little Richard, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.
‘Rock Island Line’ was popularised by Lonnie Donegan in 1955. Donegan recorded the song with Chris Barber’s Jazz Band, and it became the first debut record to be certified gold in the UK. Donegan’s version kick started the skiffle craze, and is likely to have been where the members of The Beatles first heard it. They jammed a version of it during the Get Back sessions on 24 January 1969.
When we were kids in Liverpool in the late ’50s we loved rock ‘n’ roll, and we loved American artists, but the man who really started the craze for the guitars as far as I am concerned was Lonnie Donegan. Me and my mates followed his gigs with interest.Lonnie was the first person we heard of from England to get the coveted number one in the charts with ‘Rock Island Line’ and we studied his records avidly and even did a few of his numbers. We all bought guitars in order to be in a skiffle group and it was this craze which swept the country.
Lonnie’s great vocal style was, and still is, highly original, and his love of the blues and early folk music is something we all could relate to very easily.
John Lennon recorded a home demo of ‘Rock Island Line’, which was included in The Lost Lennon Tapes. George Harrison and Paul Simon also rehearsed the song on 20 November 1976, prior to their Saturday Night Live appearance.