Anna Ottilie Patterson (31 January 1932 – 20 June 2011) was a Northern Irish blues singer best known for her performances and recordings with the

Chris Barber Donald Christopher "Chris" Barber OBE (17 April 1930 – 2 March 2021) was an English jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist. He helped many musicians with their careers and had a UK top twenty trad jazz hit with " Petite Fl ...

Jazz Band in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Biography

Anna Ottilie Patterson was born in

Comber Comber ( , , locally ) is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies south of Newtownards, at the northern end of Strangford Lough. It is situated in the townland of Town Parks, the civil parish of Comber and the historic barony of Cast ...

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...

, Northern Ireland on 31 January 1932. She was the youngest child of four. Her father, Joseph Patterson, was from Northern Ireland, and her mother, Jūlija Jēgers, was from Latvia. They had met in southern Russia. Ottilie's name is an Anglicised form of the Latvian name "'". Both sides of the family were musical, and Ottilie trained as a classical pianist from the age of eleven, but never received any formal training as a singer. In 1949, Patterson went to study art at Belfast College of Technology where a fellow student introduced her to the music of

Bessie Smith Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the " Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and ...

Jelly Roll Morton Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (later Morton; c. September 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a gen ...

and

Meade Lux Lewis Anderson Meade Lewis (September 4, 1905 – June 7, 1964), known as Meade Lux Lewis, was an American pianist and composer, remembered for his playing in the boogie-woogie style. His best-known work, "Honky Tonk Train Blues", has been recorded by ...

. In 1951 she began singing with Jimmy Compton's Jazz Band, and in August 1952 she formed the Muskrat Ramblers with Al Watt and Derek Martin. In the summer of 1954, while holidaying in London, Patterson met

Beryl Bryden Beryl Audley Bryden (11 May 1920 – 14 July 1998) was an English jazz singer, who played with Chris Barber and Lonnie Donegan. Ella Fitzgerald once said of Bryden that she was "Britain's queen of the blues". Life and career Bryden was bor ...

, who introduced her to the

Jazz Band. She joined the Barber band full-time on 28 December 1954, and her first public appearance was at the

Royal Festival Hall The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a Grade I l ...

on 9 January 1955. Between 1955-62, she toured extensively with the Chris Barber Jazz Band and issued many recordings: those featuring her on every track include the EPs ''Blues'' (1955), ''That Patterson Girl'' (1955), ''That Patterson Girl Volume 2'' (1956), ''Ottilie'' (1959), and the LP ''Chris Barber's Blues Book'' (1961); she also appeared on numerous Chris Barber records. She and Barber were married in 1959. They divorced in 1983. From approximately 1963 she began to suffer throat problems and ceased to appear and record regularly with Chris Barber, officially retiring from the band in 1973. During this period she recorded some non-jazz/blues material such as settings of

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

(with Chris Barber) and in 1969 issued a solo LP ''3000 years with Ottilie'' which is now much sought after by collectors. In 1964, she sang the theme tune for the British horror film, ''Where has Poor Mickey Gone'', starring

Warren Mitchell Warren Mitchell (born Warren Misell; 14 January 1926 – 14 November 2015) was a British actor. He was a BAFTA TV Award winner and twice a Laurence Olivier Award winner. In the 1950s, Mitchell appeared on the radio programmes ''Educatin ...

. In early 1983, she and Barber gave a series of concerts around London, which were recorded for the LP, ''Madame Blues and Doctor Jazz'' (1984). This is her most recently issued recording.

Death

Patterson died on 20 June 2011, aged 79. She is buried in Movilla Abbey Cemetery,

Newtownards Newtownards is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies at the most northern tip of Strangford Lough, 10 miles (16 km) east of Belfast, on the Ards Peninsula. It is in the Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish of Newtownard ...

, Northern Ireland, in the Patterson family grave. Her gravestone, marked Ottilia Anna Barber, is immediately by the left hand wall adjacent to the car park. In February 2012, a plaque marking her birthplace in a terraced house in Comber was unveiled, and the same evening a sell-out musical tribute was performed at the La Mon Hotel in Comber.

Discography

Solo albums

* ''That Patterson Girl'' (Jazz Today, 1955) * ''That Patterson Girl Volume 2'' (Pye, 1956) * ''Blues'' (Decca, 1956) * ''Ottilie's Irish Night'' (Pye, 1959) * ''Ottilie'' (Columbia, 1960) * ''3000 Years with Ottilie'' (Marmalade, 1969) * ''Spring Song '' (Polydor, 1971) * ''Madame Blues and Doctor Jazz'' (Black Lion, 1984) * ''Ottilie Swings the Irish'' (Columbia, 1960) With

* ''Chris Barber Plays'' (Jazz Today, 1955) * ''Echoes of Harlem'' (Pye Nixa, 1955) * ''Chris Barber in Concert'' (Pye Nixa, 1957) * ''Chris Barber Plays Volume Four'' (Pye Nixa, 1957) * ''Chris Barber in Concert Volume Two'' (Pye Nixa, 1958) * ''Chris Barber in Concert Volume Three'' (Pye Nixa, 1958) * ''Chris Barber Band Box Volume One'' (Columbia, 1959) * ''Barber in Berlin'' (Columbia, 1960) * ''Chris Barber's Blues Book Volume One'' (Columbia, 1961) * ''Chris Barber at the London Palladium'' (Columbia, 1961) * ''Best Yet! Chris Barber Band Box – Volume Three'' (Columbia, 1962) * ''Chris Barber Jazz Band'' (Qualiton, 1962) * ''Chris Barber's Jazz Band in Prague'' (Supraphon, 1963) * ''Folk Barber Style'' (Decca, 1965) * ''Good Mornin' Blues'' (Columbia, 1965) * ''Chris Barber V Praze'' (Panton, 1971) * ''The Chris Barber Jubilee Album 1'' (Black Lion, 1975) * ''The Chris Barber Jubilee Album 2'' (Black Lion, 1975) * ''The Chris Barber Jubilee Album 3'' (Black Lion, 1975) * ''Ottilie Patterson with Chris Barber's Jazzband 1955–1958'' (1993) * ''Madame Blues & Doctor Jazz'' (1994) * ''40 Years Jubilee'' (Timeless, 1994) * ''The Chris Barber Concerts'' (1995) * ''Chris Barber's Blues Book Volume One/Good Mornin' Blues'' (BGO, 1997) * ''Echoes of Harlem/Sonny, Brownie and Chris'' (1997) * ''Back in the Old Days'' (1999) * ''Ottilie Patterson with Chris Barber'' (Jazz Colours, 2000) * ''Chris Barber at the BBC'' (Upbeat, 2000) * ''Chris Barber's Jazz Band With Special Guest Sister Rosetta Tharpe'' (Lake, 2000) * ''Irish Favourites'' (Pulse, 2001) * ''The Best of Chris Barber's Jazz Band'' (EMI, 2002) * ''In Barber's Chair'' (Lake, 2003) * ''Bandbox No. 1'' (Lake, 2004) * ''The Nixa Jazz Today Albums'' (Sanctuary, 2004) * ''International Concerts: Berlin, Copenhagen, London'' (Lake, 2005) * ''Best Yet!'' (Lake, 2005) * ''The Complete Decca Sessions 1954/55'' (Lake, 2006) * ''Chris Barber 1955'' (Lake, 2006) * ''Folk Barber Style'' (Vocalion, 2006) * ''That Patterson Girl'' (Lake, 2007) * ''Chris Barber 1956'' (Lake, 2007)

Singles

* " St Louis Blues"/"The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise" (Decca, 1955) * "I Hate a Man Like You"/"Reckless Blues" (Decca, 1955) * "Weeping Willow Blues"/"

Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" is a blues standard written by pianist Jimmie Cox in 1923 and originally performed in a Vaudeville-blues style. The lyrics in the popular 1929 recording by Bessie Smith are told from the point of vie ...

" (Decca, 1955) * "Kay-Cee Rider"/"I Love My Baby" (Pye, 1957) * "Jailhouse Blues"/"

Beale Street Blues "Beale Street Blues" is a song by American composer and lyricist W.C. Handy. It was named after Beale Street, a center of African-American music in Memphis, Tennessee, and was published in 1917. Background The title refers to Beale Street in Memp ...

" (Pye, 1958) * "Trombone Cholly"/"Lawdy, Lawdy Blues" (Pye, 1958) * "

There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight "A Hot Time in the Old Town", also titled as "There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight", is an American popular song, copyrighted and perhaps composed in 1896 by Theodore August Metz with lyrics by Joe Hayden. Metz was the band leader of t ...

"/"Lonesome (Si Tu Vois Ma Mère)" (Columbia, 1959) * "

The Mountains of Mourne The lyrics to the song ''The Mountains of Mourne'' (originally spelt ''The Mountains o' Mourne'') were written by Irish musician Percy French (1854–1920). The music was adapted by Houston Collisson (1865–1920) from the traditional Irish folk t ...

"/"Real Old Mountain Dew" (Columbia, 1960) * "

Blueberry Hill "Blueberry Hill" is a popular American song published in 1940, best remembered for its 1950s rock and roll version by Fats Domino. The music was written by Vincent Rose, the lyrics by Larry Stock and Al Lewis. It was recorded six times in 1940 ...

"/"I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby" (Columbia, 1961) * "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean"/"Swipsy Cakewalk" (Columbia, 1962) * "

Down by the Riverside "Down by the Riverside" (also known as "Ain't Gonna Study War No More" and "Gonna lay down my burden") is an African-American spiritual. Its roots date back to before the American Civil War, though it was first published in 1918 in ''Plantation ...

"/"

When the Saints Go Marching In "When the Saints Go Marching In", often referred to as simply "The Saints", is a traditional black spiritual. It originated as a Christian hymn and is often played by jazz bands. This song was famously recorded on May 13, 1938, by Louis Armstron ...

" (Columbia, 1962) * "I Hate Myself"/"Come On Baby" (Columbia, 1962) * "

Jealous Heart "Jealous Heart" is a classic C&W song written by American country music singer-songwriter Jenny Lou Carson. In the mid 1940s it spent nearly six months on the Country & Western charts. It was subsequently recorded by several pop singers. E ...

"/"Won't Be Long" (Columbia, 1963) * "

Baby Please Don't Go An infant or baby is the very young offspring of human beings. ''Infant'' (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'unable to speak' or 'speechless') is a formal or specialised synonym for the common term ''baby''. The terms may also be used to ...

"/"I Feel So Good" (Columbia, 1964) * " Hello Dolly"/"

I Shall Not Be Moved "I Shall Not Be Moved", also known as "We Shall Not Be Moved", is an African-American slave spiritual, hymn, and protest song dating to the early 19th century American south. It was likely originally sung at revivalist camp-meetings as a slav ...

" (Columbia, 1964) * "Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred"/"Oh Me What Eyes Hath Love Put in My Head" (Columbia, 1964) * "Spring Song"/"Sound of the Door As It Closes" (Marmalade, 1969) * "Bitterness of Death"/"Spring Song" (Marmalade, 1969) * "Careless Love"/"

Georgia Grind "Georgia Grind" is a jazz and dirty blues tune, written by Spencer Williams and copyrighted by him in 1926. The lyrics were added by Bud Allen. A recording was released by Louis Armstrong with his Hot Five by Okeh Records on a 78 rpm, mono 10" ...

" (Fat Hen, 1982) The principal source for this discography is Bielderman and Purser's Chris Barber discography.''A Life in Music: Chris Barber discography 1949–2001'', Gerard Bielderman & Julian Purser, published by Gerard Bielderman, December 2001

References

External links

Obituary in ''The Guardian''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Patterson, Ottilie 1932 births 2011 deaths Jazz singers from Northern Ireland Blues singers from Northern Ireland 20th-century women singers from Northern Ireland People from Comber British women jazz singers Chris Barber Musicians from County Down Black Lion Records artists Women trombonists