IMAGINE a world without the music of Lennon and McCartney. Or try to picture a record collection without the Rolling Stones or Dire Straits.
It's impossible.
Now try to imagine a world without Lonnie Donegan and My Old Man's A Dustman. A lot simpler, isn't it?
But what the fans of Britain's greatest acts probably don't realise is that they owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the 70-year-old, Glasgow-born music man.
Arguably Scotland's greatest talent, he'll slip home to his birthland this month, virtually unnoticed. Don't expect a media scrum at the airport or a vigil of starstruck followers below his hotel window.
In fact, your average teenagers might snigger under their breaths if you offered them free tickets to see him at the Old Fruitmarket a week next Saturday.
But explain how music might be today without the influence of Anthony James Donegan MBE and you'll soon have their attention.
When John Lennon and Paul McCartney first picked up guitars, it was the Glaswegian "King of Skiffle" they wanted to emulate.
As McCartney once said: "When we were kids in Liverpool, the man who really started the craze for guitars was Lonnie Donegan.
"He was the first person we had heard of from Britain to get to the coveted No. 1 in the charts and we studied his records avidly. We all bought guitars to be in a skiffle group. He was the man."
Nowadays, there are entire generations who might just recognise his name - but that's about all. Yet he was Britain's first teenage hero.
Apart from The Beatles, fans of Mark Knopfler, Van Morrison, Bill Wyman, Marc Bolan and Cliff Richard can also thank the Bridgeton-born musician for inspiring their idols.
When he arrived on the scene, British music fans were having to make do with the likes of Max Bygraves and Jimmy Young. Soon, however, the hard-working son of a struggling violinist was giving them something to compare with the new rock 'n' roll sensation which was shaking America to its very foundations.
Across the pond, Bill Haley was rocking around clock and a young upstart called Elvis Presley was preparing to take the world by storm.
But Britain had Lonnie - and before long America wanted him, too.
He gave the world skiffle, which became Britain's first pop movement. It was a simple, if ramshackle, sound with only a guitar, a tea-chest bass and a washboard required.
It was 1954, and over the next eight years he had chalked up a record- breaking cluster of chart hits which make him, to this date, Scotland's most successful pop act of all time.
Sure, he would soon be swept aside by Cliff and Beatlemania, but Donegan had already made his mark.
Songs such as My Old Man's A Dustman and Puttin' On The Style will live forever.
How many other Glaswegians can claim to have had their own songs covered by Elvis Presley?
And even last year Lonnie was still clocking up world firsts.
He went into the Guinness Book Of Records after notching up a new chart hit - 38 years after his previous one.
He teamed up with Irish blues legend Van Morrison, and their single I Wanna Go Home jumped into the Top 40. The duo's album, Skiffle Sessions: Live In Belfast, then shot into the top five, ahead of the likes of Bruce Springsteen.
Now resident in Spain with his third wife and three of his seven children, Lonnie is as enthusiastic about life as ever.
And he's ready to give Glasgow another taste of the old magic on May 26 when he headlines the Big Big Country, Glasgow's international festival of Americana.
But with a series of heart attacks and two open-heart operations behind him, Lonnie is treating every week like it could be his last. Not that he's got much left to do, mind you.
He's about to sign a deal with Martin - the Rolls-Royce of acoustic guitars - to allow them to produce a Lonnie Donegan signature skiffle guitar.
Lonnie believes that's the greatest tribute he can receive.
The star, who also counts Tony Blair among his many fans, said: "It's like a footballer being voted the best by his fellow players.
"It's the ultimate tribute and I wonder what there is left to do."
His MBE last year added another piece of icing to the cake - albeit somewhat belatedly.
And while his Cockney accent is about as Scottish as jellied eels, there was something distinctly Glaswegian in the way he received the gong from Prince Charles.
He said: "I had wondered for many years why I hadn't got an MBE because every other schmuck had one.
"Here was me doing six or seven times as much for the British music business as any of these bloody Cliff Richards, who were only domestic successes. I was world-wide.
"America knew me, but they didn't know bloody Cliff Richard. And Prince Charles agreed. When he presented it, he said 'Not before time, Lonnie, not before time.' And I said 'You're damn right, mate' or words to that effect."
Lonnie was born in Mill Street, Bridgeton, in 1931, the son of a violinist who wasn't making much money.
He explained: "It wasn't a good time for employment anywhere, in Glasgow particularly and among musicians especially.
"No-one's going to pay a classical violinist to give them a bit of Tchaikovsky when they don't have enough bread to eat.
"So he packed up his red-spotted handkerchief and hiked down to London. I was about two and a half at the time.
"I didn't return to Glasgow until I was eight. When the Blitz started in London, I was shipped back north. We lived in Duke Street in Dennistoun and I went to Whitehill School round the corner.
"When things calmed down, I went back down to London where I remained."
For much of his childhood, mother Josephine single-handedly reared Lonnie, while his father Peter was away serving with the Merchant Navy for the entire war.
Lonnie said: "He was one of the guys who played the fiddle - like the blokes on the film Titanic.
"But he was torpedoed in the Pacific about 1000 miles off New Zealand. Then they stuck him in hospital in Wellington for about a year.
"I was in Duke Street at the time and mum was walking the streets collecting for the Provident Association, penny a door. Not a lovely job.
"But she ended up an English teacher. When she got rid of me, she went back to college and ended up teaching advanced English to foreign students in Essex."
His parents divorced after the war, and he spent time being shuttled between his mother and his aunts.
But, by 23, he thought he had found what he had been looking for - a women to settle down with.
Lonnie met first wife Maureen when he was playing banjo in her father's pub in London's Mile End Road. She fell over while jiving, he saw her suspenders and was smitten. After a short courtship, they set up home in the East End.
Two years later, while Lonnie was working on a building site earning pounds 12 a week, he had his first major hit with his recording of an American country and blues song, Rock Island Line. He was paid about pounds 3.50.
Within six months, he was on the Perry Como Show in America - appearing alongside Ronald Reagan in comedy sketches - and earning $800 for an appearance.
Then, when it seemed things couldn't get any better, My Old Man's A Dustman came out in 1960 and went straight to No.1. It stayed there for four weeks.
He recalled: "I was on the crest of a wave. It was perfect for a while.
"Maureen mothered me. I put all my money - pounds 15,000 - into building us a superb home in Epping Forest. She was a very good woman.
"Then fame hit me like a wave and nothing could have withstood it. I was packing theatres all over the world."
He left Maureen and their two daughters, Fiona and Corrina, in 1964 when he became obsessed with actress Jill Westlake.
They had appeared together at the Winter Gardens in Margate, in a Christmas pantomime.
She was Cinderella, he was Buttons. But this time it was a short-lived marriage.
Lonnie said: "Jill wanted a father figure, so it was hopeless. Things didn't go well on our wedding night, but we had two children and I stuck with it for six years.
"I couldn't bear to break up another home and leave my children again."
The end of that marriage coincided with his first major heart attack and the decline of his career. He went on to the cabaret circuit and wrote songs for other performers, including Tom Jones.
These days, He rarely sees his two middle children, Anthony, now 27, and Juanita, 28.
Lonnie once said: "Jill never loved me. Her mother put her up to marrying me because she wanted her to be married to a star. It was _ a horror story."
Then, in 1972, he met Sharon, a plumber's daughter, aged 14. He remains with her to this day.
She went to one of his concerts in Scarborough, where her friend asked him for his autograph.
Sharon didn't know who Lonnie Donegan was, but she soon found out.
Now they live happily near Malaga in Spain with their children Peter, 17, David, 12 and Andrew, 11.
And Lonnie couldn't be happier.
Two years ago, he took Sharon to Lake Tahoe in the shadow of the Nevada Mountains, where his American dream began in the Fifties.
That was where he got his first real job as an entertainer in a casino and he fell in love with the place almost instantly.
He said: "We renewed our marriage vows and it was a fabulous, emotional moment for us all."