While American GI's came home to a world of industry pumped up by the war effort, the GI Bill, the Great Migration, rising wages, women in the work place and a country undamaged by the war, the United Kingdom had been deeply damaged by the war: bombed out cities, crippled industry and agriculture, shortages, and far-reaching economic hardship. England's post war Skiffle movement arose in that context: at it height in the late '50s over 30,000 Skiffle bands had popped up throughout the country, teenaged boys with washboards, improvised one string tea chest basses, penny whistles and whatever guitars they could get their hands on teaching themselves their own special take on American music based in folk, country and blues and the jug bands of the 1920s gleaned from hard-to-get 78 imports. The kids in this movement are the ones who went to the American Folk Blues concerts that brought Muddy Waters, Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Boy Williamson and many others to England, and went on to create the British Invasion, as the Beatles, the Kinks, The Who, Led Zeppelin, and more. Chico Schwall's American Roots pays tribute to one of most important and least understood (and known) chapters in 20th century popular music.