Born: January 28, 1929, Pensford, Somerset, England
Active: '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s
Genres: Jazz
Instrument: Clarinet
Representative Albums: "Best of Acker Bilk," "The Best of Acker Bilk, Vol. 2," "It Looks Like a Big Time Tonight"
Representative Songs: "Stranger on the Shore," "Aria," "Windmills of Your Mind"
Biography
Acker Bilk -- or Mr. Acker Bilk, as he was billed -- has won immortality on rock oldies radio for his surprise 1962 hit "Stranger on the Shore," an evocative ballad featuring his heavily quavering low-register clarinet over a bank of strings. To the jazz world, though, he has a longer-running track record as one of the biggest stars of Britain's trad jazz boom, playing in a distinctive early New Orleans manner. After learning his instrument in the British Army, Bilk joined Ken Colyer's trad band in 1954 before stepping out on his own in 1956. By 1960, a record of his, "Summer Set" -- a pun on the name of his home county -- landed on the British pop charts, and Bilk was on his way, clad in the Edwardian clothing and bowler hats that his publicist told his Paramount Jazz Band to wear. Several other British hits followed, but none bigger than "Stranger," which Bilk wrote for his daughter Jenny. The single stayed 55 weeks on the British charts and crossed the sea to America, where it hit number one in an era when radio was open to oddball records of all idioms (Bilk gratefully called "Stranger" "my old-age pension"). Released on English Columbia in Britain, several Bilk albums came out in America on the Atco label, and he continued to have hits until the British rock invasion of 1964 made trad seem quaint. With that, Bilk moved into cabaret and continued to have some success in Europe, leading jazz bands, recording with lush string ensembles, and even scoring another hit, "Aria" (number five in Britain), in 1976. Continuing to perform through the 2000s, Bilk slackened his pace so that he could pursue, like Miles Davis, a hobby of painting. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
Acker BilkMBE (born 28 January 1929), born Bernard Stanley Bilk (known more familiarly as Mr. Acker Bilk), is a clarinetist. He is known for his trademark goatee, bowler hat, striped waistcoat and his breathy, vibrato-rich, lower-register clarinet style. He was born in Pensford, Somerset, England.
Bilk earned the nickname Acker from the Somerset slang for 'friend' or 'mate'. His parents tried to have him learn the piano, but Bilk as a boy found it restricting upon his love of outdoor activities including football. He also lost two front teeth in a school fight and half a finger in a sledging accident, both of which Bilk has claimed to have affected his eventual clarinet style. He learned the clarinet while serving in the Royal Engineers in the Suez Canal Zone,[1] and by the mid-1950s he was playing professionally.[2]
Bilk was part of the boom in traditional jazz that swept the United Kingdom in the late 1950s. He first joined Ken Colyer's band in 1954, and then formed his own ensemble, The Paramount Jazz Band, in 1956.[2] Four years later, his single "Summer Set" (a pun on his home county) hit the British charts and it began a run of eleven top 50 hit singles.
Bilk was not an international star until an experiment with a string ensemble and a composition of his own as its keynote piece made him one in 1962. He wrote "Stranger on the Shore" for a British television serial series, and recorded it as the title track of a new album in which his signature deep, quivering clarinet was backed by the Leon Young String Chorale. The single was not only a big hit in the United Kingdom (where it stayed on the charts for a remarkable 55 weeks, gaining a second wind after Bilk was the subject of the TV show This Is Your Life) but shot to the top of the American charts as well – at a time when the American pop charts and radio playlists were open to just about anything, in just about any style[3]; making Bilk the first male Briton ever to have a single in the number one position on the Billboard singles chart.[4] (Vera Lynn was the first British artist to top the U.S. Billboard charts with "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart" in 1952). The album was also highlighted by a striking interpretation of Bunny Berigan's legendary hit "I Can't Get Started." At one point, at the height of his career, Bilk's public relations workers were known as the "Bilk Marketing Board", a play on the then Milk Marketing Board.
Bilk recorded a series of albums in England that were also released successfully in the United States (on the Atlantic Records subsidiary Atco), including a memorable collaboration (Together) with Danish jazz pianist-composer Bent Fabric ("The Alley Cat"). But his success tapered off when British rock and roll made its big international explosion beginning in 1964, and Bilk shifted direction to the cabaret circuit. He finally had another chart success in 1976, with "Aria," which went to number five in the United Kingdom. In the early 1980s, Bilk and his signature hit were newly familiar, thanks to "Stranger on the Shore" being used in the soundtrack to Sweet Dreams, the film biography of country music legend Patsy Cline. Most of his classic albums with the Paramount Jazz Band have been reissued and are available on the UK based Lake Records label.
Bilk has been described as "Great Master of the Clarinet"[5] and is often said to be the originator of 'Hyung-Tiger' playing, often copied by such artists as Johnny Range and Ted Morton. His clarinet sound and style was at least as singular as had been those of American jazzmen such as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Russell Procope, and "Stranger on the Shore" – which he was once quoted as calling "my old-age pension" – remains a beloved standard of jazz and popular music alike.
By 2000, Bilk was reportedly semi-retired and taking up painting as a hobby,[2] but still appears with contemporaries, Chris Barber and Kenny Ball (both of whom were born in 1930) as the 3B's.
