Ottilie Patterson is a blues singer best known for her performances and recordings with the Chris Barber Jazz Band in the late-1950s and early-1960s. The vocalist Patterson joined in 1954 the Chris ...

Giles Oakley writes: I saw Ottilie Patterson perform many times with the Chris Barber Band in the 1960s, often when they were backing visiting American bluesmen at the Marquee club in London. It never ...

Most music biopics tell a linear story, chapter by chapter, and then close the book. History as entertainment. The best documentaries, however, act as catalysts, creating a revival of interest in the ...

Before Ottilie Patterson joined the Chris Barber Band in 1955, it was accepted that British performers could not sing the blues effectively. Ottilie Patterson changed all that: she began with what ...

POWERFUL storytelling has always gripped Dana Masters who switches seamlessly from performer to presenter for a new television programme lifting the lid on the extraordinary life of Northern Ireland's ...

Ottilie Patterson was one of the most famous ever white female blues singers of her day She was one of the most famous ever white female blues singers of her day. In the 1950s, Comber-born Ottilie ...

A musical play about a forgotten Northern Irish jazz and blues singer has been attracting rave reviews in England. Jolene O’Hara, a backing singer for Van Morrison, plays the titular role in Ottilie, ...

Soul singer Dana Masters asks whatever happened to Ottilie Patterson, once the rising star of popular music in late 1950s Britain - and, some say, the godmother of British blues. Show more Soul singer ...

Ottilie Patterson, who has died aged 79 in a South Ayrshire care home, was the Northern Ireland girl who could sing the blues, helping popularise the form in the UK during the late 1950s and early ...

Wide-eyed and diminutive, the singer Ottilie Patterson, who has died aged 79, challenged critical perceptions every time she sang the blues. Before her first appearance on the London traditional jazz ...

On a couple of occasions, I've sat down with jazz legend Jackie Flavelle and listened to his stories about Ottilie Patterson. She was the singer from Comber with a Latvian mother who found herself in ...

She had modelled herself originally on Bessie Smith, the magisterial "Empress of the Blues", and the contrast between her rich, soulful voice and slender, demure appearance never failed to astonish ...