Into umbrous, ill-ventilated underground caverns, seemingly as necessary to life as the air-raid shelters where some of the visitors were born, thousands of bemused young Londoners squeeze nightly to stomp and holler their approval of Britain's latest musical mania: U.S. rock 'n' roll, commercial hillbilly and folk music, warmed over and juiced up in a mishmash called skiffle.
The beat is hard and jumping, the yodels are nasal, and the clipped British consonants that bristle occasionally among the carefully slurred ham-hock vowels are hilarious. The songs are chain-gang, camp-meeting U.S. imports: Wabash Cannonball,...
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