New US Embassy, London; Blues and Skiffle Records as Soft Power (1950s)

About the new U.S. Embassy in London

I think the only occasion that I visited the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, was to see an exhibition on The Story of the Blues:

Lonnie Donegan was apparently a frequent visit to the US Embassy Record Library in the early 1950's, In those days it was very hard to find US folk-blues records on sale in Britain, but the American Embassy had available, on loan, a good collection of Library of Congress recordings.

It seems that Lonnie borrowed these records, and was one of the first performers in the UK to add to his repertoire the songs of singers like Leadbelly, Josh White, Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters, Lonnie Johnson, Washboard Sam, Leroy Carr and other old blues and country singers, as well as The Carter Family and Woody Guthrie. It has been reported that Lonnie failed to return some of the rare records; that is one way that knowledge of the blues was spread in Britain - all thanks to the American Embassy and the Library of the United States Information Service. Soft Power at its best!

"One source of loan for such recordings was the American Library of the United States Information Service at Grosvenor Square in London, and both Lonnie Donegan and Wally Whyton have testified to the importance of the availability of such loans. Donegan has even confessed to "losing" and paying for a recording by Muddy Waters in order to hang on to it" - The Skiffle Craze, Mike Dewe, 1998.

"Donegan had always been fascinated by country music. In his younger days this was manifested by listening to Hank Williams on AFN in Vienna and by his 'liberating' country discs from the American embassy" - Lonnie Donegan and the Birth of British Rock and Roll, Patrick Humphries, 2012.

"A young Tony Donegan sneaking into the American embassy to 'liberate' rare jazz and blues recordings, because it was the only place to get them". Patrick Humphries, ibid.

Let's hope the new Embassy Building will offer such essential cultural services and facilities, with both a warm welcome and stricter librarians!