Editing Lonnie Donegan (section)

== Trad jazz ==
As a child growing up in the early 1940s Donegan listened mostly to [[Swing music|swing jazz]] and vocal acts, and became interested in the guitar.<ref name="AMG" /> [[Country music|Country & western]] and [[blues]] records, particularly by [[Frank Crumit]] and [[Josh White]], attracted his interest and he bought his first guitar at 14 in 1945.<ref name="AMG" /> He learned songs such as "[[Frankie and Johnny (song)|Frankie and Johnny]]", "[[Puttin' On the Style]]", and "[[The House of the Rising Sun]]" by listening to [[BBC radio]] broadcasts.<ref name="AMG" /> By the end of the 1940s he was playing guitar around London and visiting small jazz clubs.<ref name="MTV">{{cite web |url=http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/donegan_lonnie/artist.jhtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080727024945/http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/donegan_lonnie/artist.jhtml |url-status=dead |archive-date=27 July 2008 |title=Lonnie Donegan: Music Artist: Videos, News, Photos & Ringtones: MTV |first=Bruce|last=Eder |work=[[AllMusic]] |publisher=MTV |access-date=19 September 2008}}</ref>

Donegan first played in a major band after [[Chris Barber]] heard that he was a good [[banjo]] player and, on a train, asked him to audition. Donegan had never played the banjo but he bought one for the audition and succeeded more on personality than talent.<ref name="AMG" /> His stint with Barber's [[trad jazz]] band was interrupted when he was called up for [[National Service (UK)|National Service]] in 1949, but while in the army at [[Southampton]], he was the drummer in Ken Grinyer's Wolverines Jazz Band at a local pub. <!--ref: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1412195/Lonnie-Donegan.html  https://books.google.com/books?id=mvetAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT39
The band was named after the 1920s Wolverines US jazz band-->A posting to [[Vienna]] brought him into contact with American [[military personnel|troops]], and access to US records and the [[American Forces Network]] radio station.<ref name="MTV" />

In 1952, he formed the Tony Donegan Jazzband, which played around London. On 28 June 1952 at the [[Royal Festival Hall]] they opened for the blues musician [[Lonnie Johnson (musician)|Lonnie Johnson]].<ref name="AMG" /> Donegan adopted his first name as a tribute. He used the name at a concert at the Royal Albert Hall on 2 June 1952.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Restless Generation|year=2007|isbn=978-0-9529540-7-1|pages=57–78|first=Pete|last=Frame|publisher=Rogan House}}</ref>

In 1953 [[cornet]]ist [[Ken Colyer]] was imprisoned in [[New Orleans]] for a visa problem. He returned to Britain and joined Chris Barber's band. They changed the name to Ken Colyer's Jazzmen and made their first public appearance on 11 April 1953 in [[Copenhagen]]. The following day, [[Chris Albertson]] recorded Ken Colyer's Jazzmen and the Monty Sunshine Trio—Sunshine, Barber, and Donegan—for [[Storyville Records]]. These were amongst Donegan's first commercial recordings.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mvetAwAAQBAJ&dq=lonnie+donegan+storyville+records&pg=PT64|title=Chapter 5 (Lonnie Donegan AND THE BIRTH OF BRITISH ROCK & ROLL - PATRICK HUMPHRIES)|isbn=9781849544764|access-date=22 October 2021|last1=Humphries|first1=Patrick|date=22 October 2012|publisher=Biteback }}</ref>