. ♪ ♪ ...when a pop star named lonnie donegan and others took britain by storm in the mid-50s with akiffle music. >> what donegan does, he's the first british artist to get in the charts playing a guitar, and he begins the process of turning british pop into a guitar-led music for teenagers. and the guitar becomes a kind of way that youngsters express the fact that they're different from their parents. as the guitar becomes that way they start to try and make the future happen. ♪ ♪ >> brown: they did it, though, by listening to the past, to skiffle's roots in african- american culture, including traditional new orleans jazz and the great american folk and blues musician huddie ledbetter, known as lead belly. ♪ ♪ lonnie donegan had a hit in 1956 with lead belly's "rock island line," and british kids picked up cheap acoustic guitars, homemade tea chest basses, and washboards to play something akin to american jug band or rockabilly music. bragg says it was a turning point for british culture, still coming out of its post-war depths. >> just a month before lonnie donegan records "rock i