Winifred Atwell
Encyclopedia
Una Winifred Atwell was a Trinidad-born British pianist who enjoyed great popularity in Britain and other countries (including Australia) from the 1950s with a series of boogie woogie and ragtime
hits. She was the first black person to have a number one hit in the UK Singles Chart
, and still the only female instrumentalist to do so.
in Trinidad and Tobago. She and her parents lived in Jubilee Street. Her family owned a pharmacy, and she trained as a pharmacist, and was expected to join the family business, Winifred, however, had played the piano since a young age, and achieved considerable popularity locally. She used to play for American servicemen at the air force base (which is now the main airport). It was whilst playing at the Servicemen's Club at Piarco that someone bet her she could not play something in the boogie-woogie
style, that was popular back home in the United States. She went away and wrote "Piarco Boogie" which was later renamed "Five Finger Boogie".
, where she had gained a place at the Royal Academy of Music
. She became the first female pianist to be awarded the Academy's highest grading for musicianship. To support her studies, she played rags at London clubs and theatres. These modest beginnings in variety would one day see her topping the bill at the London Palladium
. She said later, "I starved in a garret to get onto concert stages".
, who put her on a long-term contract. She released three discs which were well received. The third, "Jezebel," scurried to the top of the best seller lists. It was her fourth disc that catapulted her to huge popularity in the UK. A fiendishly complex arrangement called "Cross Hands Boogie" was released to show her virtuoso rhythmic technique, but it was the B-side
, a 1900s tune written by George Botsford called "Black and White Rag
," that was to become a radio standard. Atwell was championed by popular disc jockey Jack Jackson, who introduced her to Decca promotions manager Hugh Mendl
, who launched his career as a staff producer at Decca producing Atwell's recordings.
"Black And White Rag" started a craze for her honky-tonk style of playing. The rag was recorded in an unusual fashion, with technicians having "de-tuned" a concert grand for the occasion. Contrary to popular legend, it was not recorded on a "honky tonk
" piano at all.
A classic Decca recording by Atwell is George Gershwin
's Rhapsody in Blue
with Ted Heath
's band which contains an arrangement in the slow section in the Glenn Miller
style.
Atwell's husband, former stage comedian, Lew Levisohn, was vital in shaping her career as a variety star. The two had met in 1946, and married soon after. They were inseparable up to Levisohn's death in Hong Kong in December 1977; they had no children. He had cannily made the choice, for stage purposes, of her playing first a concert grand, then a beaten up old upright piano. The latter was purchased from a Battersea
junk shop for fifty shillings. This became famous as Winifred Atwell's "other piano". It would later feature all over the world, from Las Vegas
to the Sydney Opera House
, travelling over half a million miles by air throughout Winifred Atwell's concert career. While contributing to a posthumous BBC
radio appreciation of Atwell's career, Richard Stilgoe
revealed that he was now the owner of the famous "other piano".
When Atwell first came to Britain, she initially earned only a few pounds a week. By the mid 1950s, this had shot up to over $10,000. By 1952, her popularity had spread internationally. Her hands were insured with Lloyds of London for a quarter of a million dollars (the policy stipulating that she was never to wash dishes). She signed a record contract with Decca Records
, and her sales were soon 30,000 discs a week. She was by far the biggest selling pianist of her time. Her 1954 hit, "Let's Have Another Party
", was the first piano instrumental
to reach number one in the UK Singles Chart. She is the only holder of two gold and two silver discs for piano music in Britain, and was the first black artist in the UK to sell a million records. Millions of copies of her sheet music were sold, and she went on to record her best-known hits, such as "Let's Have a Party", "Flirtation Waltz", "Poor People of Paris" (which reached number one in the UK Singles Chart
in 1956), "Britannia Rag" and "Jubilee Rag". Her signature "Black and White Rag" became famous again in the 1970s as the theme of the BBC
snooker programme Pot Black
, which also enjoyed great popularity in Australia
when screened on the ABC
network. It was during this period that she discovered Matt Monro
and persuaded Decca to sign him.
Winifred Atwell's peak was the second half of the 1950s, during which her concerts drew standing room only crowds in Europe and Australasia. She played three Royal Variety Performance
s, appeared in every capital city in Europe, and played for over twenty million people. At a private party for Queen Elizabeth II, she was called back for an encore by the monarch herself, who requested "Roll Out the Barrel". She became a firm television favourite. She had her own series in Britain. The first of these was Bernard Delfont Presents The Winifred Atwell Show. It ran for ten episodes on the new ITV network from 21 April to 23 June 1956, and the BBC picked up the series the following year. On a third triumphal tour of Australia, she recorded her own Australian television series, screened in 1960-1961. Her brilliant career earned her a fortune, and would have extended further to the U.S. but for issues of race. Her breakthrough appearance was to have been on The Ed Sullivan Show
in 1956, but on arrival in America she was confronted with problems of selling the show in the south with a British-sounding black woman. The appearance was never recorded.
In 1955, Atwell arrived in Australia and was greeted as an international celebrity. Her tour broke box office records on the Tivoli circuit, bringing in £600,000 in box office receipts. She was paid $5,000 a week (the equivalent of around $50,000 today), making her the highest paid star from a Commonwealth country to visit Australia up to that time.
She toured Australia many times and took on Australian guitarist Jimmy Doyle as her musical director in the 1960s. Her popularity in Australia led to her settling in Sydney
in the 1970s. She became an Australian citizen two years before her death.
in Sydney, as jumping-off bases for her worldwide performance commitments. Enjoying the affection of the public, she was nevertheless keenly aware of prejudice and injustice, and was outspoken about racism in Australia. She always donated her services in a charity concert on Sundays, the proceeds going to orphanages and needy children. She spoke out against the third world conditions endured by Australian Aborigines, which made headlines during an outback tour of the country in 1962. Dismissing racism as a factor in her own life, she said she felt she was "spoiled very much by the public." She left her estate to the Australian Guide Dogs for the Blind
and a small amount to her goddaughter. However a cousin of Lew Levisohn contested Atwell's will and is reported to have been granted $30,000 from her estate.
Atwell also created headlines in the 1960s with her dieting (slimming from sixteen to twelve stone on what would today be called a protein diet).
In 1978, she appeared on Australian TV's This Is Your Life and was much admired by the younger generation in Australia in the 1970s. She played her "other" piano at the end of the show with a few bars from "Black and White Rag" after the piano being in retirement for many years.
Though a dynamic stage personality, Atwell was, in person, a shy, retiring and soft-spoken woman of modesty. Eloquent and intellectual, she was well read and, unlike many in the world of professional showbusiness, keenly interested in and informed about issues and current events. Voracious in her reading habits and a devotee of crosswords, she confessed to an inordinate love of mangos, a dislike of new shoes, and a keen interest in televised cricket (she backed England). She was also a devout Catholic, who unpretentiously played the organ for her parish church.
Atwell often returned to her native Trinidad, and on one occasion she bought a house in Saint Augustine, a home she adored and later renamed Winvilla and which was later turned into the Pan Pipers Music School
by one of her students, Louise McIntosh. In 1968 she had recorded Ivory and Steel, an album of standards and classics, with the Pan Am Jet North Stars Steel Orchestra (director/arranger Anthony Williams), and supported musical scholarships in the West Indies. She was awarded the Gold Hummingbird, Caribbean music's highest award for achievement. In the early 1980s, Atwell's sense of loss following her husband's death made her consider returning to Trinidad to live, but she found the weather too hot.
Atwell suffered a stroke in 1980. She officially retired on The Mike Walsh Show
, then Australia's highest rating television variety program, in 1981. Her only public performances from this point were as an organist in her parish church at Narrabeen
. She categorically stated on the Mike Walsh show that she would retire and not return as a public performer, but that she had had an excellent career. Her last TV performance was "Choo Choo Samba" followed with a medley of "Black and White Rag" and "Twelfth Street Rag", before being given a standing ovation and awarded a bouquet. In 1983, following an electrical fire that destroyed her Narrabeen home, she suffered a heart attack and died while staying with friends in Seaforth. She is buried beside husband Lew Levisohn in South Gundurimba Private Cemetery in northern New South Wales, just outside Lismore
.
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
hits. She was the first black person to have a number one hit in the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
, and still the only female instrumentalist to do so.
Childhood
Atwell was born in TunapunaTunapuna
-Town:It is located between St. Augustine, Tacarigua and Trincity. Tunapuna is the largest town between San Juan and Arima. It is an important market and commercial centre, and is the seat of the Tunapuna-Piarco Regional Corporation...
in Trinidad and Tobago. She and her parents lived in Jubilee Street. Her family owned a pharmacy, and she trained as a pharmacist, and was expected to join the family business, Winifred, however, had played the piano since a young age, and achieved considerable popularity locally. She used to play for American servicemen at the air force base (which is now the main airport). It was whilst playing at the Servicemen's Club at Piarco that someone bet her she could not play something in the boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...
style, that was popular back home in the United States. She went away and wrote "Piarco Boogie" which was later renamed "Five Finger Boogie".
Leaving Trinidad
She left Trinidad in the early 1940s and travelled to the United States to study with Alexander Borovsky and, in 1946, moved to LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where she had gained a place at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
. She became the first female pianist to be awarded the Academy's highest grading for musicianship. To support her studies, she played rags at London clubs and theatres. These modest beginnings in variety would one day see her topping the bill at the London Palladium
London Palladium
The London Palladium is a 2,286 seat West End theatre located off Oxford Street in the City of Westminster. From the roster of stars who have played there and many televised performances, it is arguably the most famous theatre in London and the United Kingdom, especially for musical variety...
. She said later, "I starved in a garret to get onto concert stages".
Life in the UK
She attracted attention with an unscheduled appearance at the Casino Theatre, where she substituted for an ill star. She caught the eye of entrepreneur Bernard DelfontBernard Delfont
Bernard Delfont, Baron Delfont , born Boris Winogradsky, was a leading Russian-born British theatrical impresario....
, who put her on a long-term contract. She released three discs which were well received. The third, "Jezebel," scurried to the top of the best seller lists. It was her fourth disc that catapulted her to huge popularity in the UK. A fiendishly complex arrangement called "Cross Hands Boogie" was released to show her virtuoso rhythmic technique, but it was the B-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
, a 1900s tune written by George Botsford called "Black and White Rag
Black and White Rag
Black and White Rag is a 1908 ragtime composition by George Botsford.The first known recording of this piece was by Albert Benzler, recorded on Lakeside/U.S.Everlasting Cylinder #380 in June of 1911. This recording is somewhat rare , and significant...
," that was to become a radio standard. Atwell was championed by popular disc jockey Jack Jackson, who introduced her to Decca promotions manager Hugh Mendl
Hugh Mendl
Hugh Rees Christopher Mendl was a British record producer, A&R representative, and manager who worked for Decca Records for over 40 years....
, who launched his career as a staff producer at Decca producing Atwell's recordings.
"Black And White Rag" started a craze for her honky-tonk style of playing. The rag was recorded in an unusual fashion, with technicians having "de-tuned" a concert grand for the occasion. Contrary to popular legend, it was not recorded on a "honky tonk
Tack piano
In music, the tack piano is a permanently altered version of an ordinary piano, in which tacks or nails are placed on the hammers of the instrument at the point where the hammers hit the strings, giving the instrument a tinny, more percussive sound...
" piano at all.
A classic Decca recording by Atwell is George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
's Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects....
with Ted Heath
Ted Heath (bandleader)
Ted Heath, musician and big band leader, led Britain's greatest post-war big band recording more than 100 albums and selling over 20 million records...
's band which contains an arrangement in the slow section in the Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
style.
Atwell's husband, former stage comedian, Lew Levisohn, was vital in shaping her career as a variety star. The two had met in 1946, and married soon after. They were inseparable up to Levisohn's death in Hong Kong in December 1977; they had no children. He had cannily made the choice, for stage purposes, of her playing first a concert grand, then a beaten up old upright piano. The latter was purchased from a Battersea
Battersea
Battersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is an inner-city district of South London, situated on the south side of the River Thames, 2.9 miles south-west of Charing Cross. Battersea spans from Fairfield in the west to Queenstown in the east...
junk shop for fifty shillings. This became famous as Winifred Atwell's "other piano". It would later feature all over the world, from Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
to the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
, travelling over half a million miles by air throughout Winifred Atwell's concert career. While contributing to a posthumous BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
radio appreciation of Atwell's career, Richard Stilgoe
Richard Stilgoe
Richard Henry Simpson Stilgoe OBE is a British songwriter, lyricist and musician. He is noted for clever wordplay as much as for his music....
revealed that he was now the owner of the famous "other piano".
When Atwell first came to Britain, she initially earned only a few pounds a week. By the mid 1950s, this had shot up to over $10,000. By 1952, her popularity had spread internationally. Her hands were insured with Lloyds of London for a quarter of a million dollars (the policy stipulating that she was never to wash dishes). She signed a record contract with Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
, and her sales were soon 30,000 discs a week. She was by far the biggest selling pianist of her time. Her 1954 hit, "Let's Have Another Party
Let's Have Another Party
"Let's Have Another Party" was a 1954 ragtime composition, which became a number one hit in the UK Singles Chart for the pianist Winifred Atwell. It is a composite of several pieces of music, and was a follow up to Atwell's successful hit "Let's Have a Party" of the previous year.The music was...
", was the first piano instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
to reach number one in the UK Singles Chart. She is the only holder of two gold and two silver discs for piano music in Britain, and was the first black artist in the UK to sell a million records. Millions of copies of her sheet music were sold, and she went on to record her best-known hits, such as "Let's Have a Party", "Flirtation Waltz", "Poor People of Paris" (which reached number one in the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
in 1956), "Britannia Rag" and "Jubilee Rag". Her signature "Black and White Rag" became famous again in the 1970s as the theme of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
snooker programme Pot Black
Pot Black
Pot Black was a British series of snooker tournaments televised by BBC, that played a large part in the popularisation of the modern game, from 1969 to 1986. The event was revived in the form of several one-off tournaments throughout the 1990s and up to 2007...
, which also enjoyed great popularity in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
when screened on the ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
network. It was during this period that she discovered Matt Monro
Matt Monro
Matt Monro was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s...
and persuaded Decca to sign him.
Winifred Atwell's peak was the second half of the 1950s, during which her concerts drew standing room only crowds in Europe and Australasia. She played three Royal Variety Performance
Royal Variety Performance
The Royal Variety Performance is a gala evening held annually in the United Kingdom, which is attended by senior members of the British Royal Family, usually the reigning monarch. In more recent years Queen Elizabeth II and The Prince of Wales have alternately attended the performance...
s, appeared in every capital city in Europe, and played for over twenty million people. At a private party for Queen Elizabeth II, she was called back for an encore by the monarch herself, who requested "Roll Out the Barrel". She became a firm television favourite. She had her own series in Britain. The first of these was Bernard Delfont Presents The Winifred Atwell Show. It ran for ten episodes on the new ITV network from 21 April to 23 June 1956, and the BBC picked up the series the following year. On a third triumphal tour of Australia, she recorded her own Australian television series, screened in 1960-1961. Her brilliant career earned her a fortune, and would have extended further to the U.S. but for issues of race. Her breakthrough appearance was to have been on The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan....
in 1956, but on arrival in America she was confronted with problems of selling the show in the south with a British-sounding black woman. The appearance was never recorded.
In 1955, Atwell arrived in Australia and was greeted as an international celebrity. Her tour broke box office records on the Tivoli circuit, bringing in £600,000 in box office receipts. She was paid $5,000 a week (the equivalent of around $50,000 today), making her the highest paid star from a Commonwealth country to visit Australia up to that time.
She toured Australia many times and took on Australian guitarist Jimmy Doyle as her musical director in the 1960s. Her popularity in Australia led to her settling in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
in the 1970s. She became an Australian citizen two years before her death.
Later life
Atwell purchased waterside properties in Bilgola and SeaforthSeaforth
-Places:* Loch Seaforth, Scotland, Great Britain, United Kingdom* Seaforth Island, Scotland, Great Britain, United Kingdom* Seaforth, Jamaica* Seaforth, Merseyside, England, Great Britain, United Kingdom* Seaforth, Minnesota, United States...
in Sydney, as jumping-off bases for her worldwide performance commitments. Enjoying the affection of the public, she was nevertheless keenly aware of prejudice and injustice, and was outspoken about racism in Australia. She always donated her services in a charity concert on Sundays, the proceeds going to orphanages and needy children. She spoke out against the third world conditions endured by Australian Aborigines, which made headlines during an outback tour of the country in 1962. Dismissing racism as a factor in her own life, she said she felt she was "spoiled very much by the public." She left her estate to the Australian Guide Dogs for the Blind
Guide Dogs for the Blind
Guide Dogs for the Blind is a guide dog school located in the United States, with campuses in San Rafael, California, and Boring, Oregon. It was founded in 1942 to help veterans who had been blinded in World War II.- History :...
and a small amount to her goddaughter. However a cousin of Lew Levisohn contested Atwell's will and is reported to have been granted $30,000 from her estate.
Atwell also created headlines in the 1960s with her dieting (slimming from sixteen to twelve stone on what would today be called a protein diet).
In 1978, she appeared on Australian TV's This Is Your Life and was much admired by the younger generation in Australia in the 1970s. She played her "other" piano at the end of the show with a few bars from "Black and White Rag" after the piano being in retirement for many years.
Though a dynamic stage personality, Atwell was, in person, a shy, retiring and soft-spoken woman of modesty. Eloquent and intellectual, she was well read and, unlike many in the world of professional showbusiness, keenly interested in and informed about issues and current events. Voracious in her reading habits and a devotee of crosswords, she confessed to an inordinate love of mangos, a dislike of new shoes, and a keen interest in televised cricket (she backed England). She was also a devout Catholic, who unpretentiously played the organ for her parish church.
Atwell often returned to her native Trinidad, and on one occasion she bought a house in Saint Augustine, a home she adored and later renamed Winvilla and which was later turned into the Pan Pipers Music School
Pan Pipers Music School
The Pan Pipers Music School is a music school in St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago. It was founded by Miss Louise McIntosh who was a student of the Trinidadian musician Winifred Atwell....
by one of her students, Louise McIntosh. In 1968 she had recorded Ivory and Steel, an album of standards and classics, with the Pan Am Jet North Stars Steel Orchestra (director/arranger Anthony Williams), and supported musical scholarships in the West Indies. She was awarded the Gold Hummingbird, Caribbean music's highest award for achievement. In the early 1980s, Atwell's sense of loss following her husband's death made her consider returning to Trinidad to live, but she found the weather too hot.
Atwell suffered a stroke in 1980. She officially retired on The Mike Walsh Show
The Mike Walsh Show
The Mike Walsh Show is an Australian daytime television series. Hosted by Mike Walsh, the show ran from 1973 to 1984 for 90 minutes each weekday afternoon. The program was launched on the 0-10 Network and moved to the Nine Network in 1977...
, then Australia's highest rating television variety program, in 1981. Her only public performances from this point were as an organist in her parish church at Narrabeen
Narrabeen, New South Wales
Narrabeen is a beachside suburb in northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Narrabeen is located 23 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Warringah Council and is part of the Northern Beaches region.-History:There are a...
. She categorically stated on the Mike Walsh show that she would retire and not return as a public performer, but that she had had an excellent career. Her last TV performance was "Choo Choo Samba" followed with a medley of "Black and White Rag" and "Twelfth Street Rag", before being given a standing ovation and awarded a bouquet. In 1983, following an electrical fire that destroyed her Narrabeen home, she suffered a heart attack and died while staying with friends in Seaforth. She is buried beside husband Lew Levisohn in South Gundurimba Private Cemetery in northern New South Wales, just outside Lismore
Lismore, New South Wales
Lismore is a subtropical town in northeastern New South Wales, Australia. Lismore is the main population centre in the City of Lismore local government area. Lismore is a regional centre in the Northern Rivers region of the State.-History:...
.
Singles
- "Britannia Rag" (1952) - UKUK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
#5 - "Coronation Rag" (1953) - UK #5
- "Flirtation Waltz" (1953) - UK #10
- "Let's Have a PartyLet's Have a Party (rag)"Let's Have a Party" is a 1953 ragtime medley by pianist Winifred Atwell. It entered the UK charts on 4 December 1953, spending nine weeks there and peaking at #2. It entered the charts again the following year, appearing on 26 November 1954 at the same time as a follow up Let's Have Another Party....
" (1953) - UK #2 - "Rachmaninoff's 18th Variation On A Theme By Paganini" (1954) - UK #9
- "Let's Have Another PartyLet's Have Another Party"Let's Have Another Party" was a 1954 ragtime composition, which became a number one hit in the UK Singles Chart for the pianist Winifred Atwell. It is a composite of several pieces of music, and was a follow up to Atwell's successful hit "Let's Have a Party" of the previous year.The music was...
" (1954) - UK #1 - "Let's Have A Ding Dong" (1955) - UK #3
- "The Poor People Of ParisThe Poor People of Paris"The Poor People of Paris" is a popular song, with "Paris" being pronounced as "pa-REE".It was adapted by Jack Lawrence in 1954 from the French language song "La goualante du pauvre Jean"...
" (1956) - UK #1 - "Port-Au-Prince" (1956) - UK #18
- "Left Bank (C'Est A Hamburg)" (1956) - UK #14
- "Make It A Party" (1956) - UK #7
- "Let's Rock 'N' Roll" (1957) - UK #24
- "Let's Have A Ball" (1957) - UK #4
- "The Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll" (1959) - UK #24
- "Piano Party" (1959) - UK #10
External links
- Winifred Atwell at the National Film and Sound Archive
- Winifred Atwell Discography at Discoogle 1953 Australian TV 1981
- Beyond the Rock - The continuing saga of Behind the Rock (Part 3), 2005 Memoirs of Leon Isackson, backing drummer from 1971 onwards