From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Sat Apr 27, 2002  2:18 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Winifred Atwell
 
WINIFRED ATWELL

Born 27 April 1914, Tunapuna, Trinidad
Died 27 February 1983, Sydney, Australia

Pianist. Atwell began playing piano at the age of four, gave classical
recitals when six and studied classical piano in New York and London.
Supplementing her income from classical music by playing boogie
woogie gained her a contract with UK Decca and throughout the Fifties
she had great success with a series of "knees up", sing along medleys
and "rags", mostly on her old honky-tonk piano. The first of these,
"Black And White Rag" (1951), was later selected as the signature tune
for "Pot Black", BBC Television's first regular snooker programme.
Her long list of hits includes two chart toppers, "Let's Have Another
Party" (1954) and "The Poor People Of Paris" (1956). In the middle of
all the pop there was the "back to her roots" single, "Rachmaninoff's
18th Variation On A Theme By Paganini", which went to # 9 on the
UK charts. Thereafter, she continued to combine the two musical
forms. At her peak she was a huge UK star, but in the 60s her career
declined and in the 70s she went to live in Australia, where she died
in 1983.

CD: The Best of Winifred Atwell (Spectrum, 2000). 20 tracks.