Paul McCartney on Lonnie Donegan:

"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.

So for those of us there, in those early days, he was the man In later years I grew to know him as a friend and was not in any way let down. He is a great guy with a true love of good music and many of us owe him a huge debt of gratitude".

"Long live Lonnie!"