Winifred Atwell
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Winifred Atwell (February 27, 1914 - February 28, 1983) was a pianist who enjoyed great popularity in Britain in the 1950s with a series of boogie woogie and ragtime hits.
Atwell was born in Trinidad and Tobago. Her family owned a pharmacy, and she trained as a druggist, though she had played the piano since a young age, and achieved considerable popularity locally.
She moved to London in 1946, where she had gained a place at the Royal Academy of Music. To support her studies, she played rags at London clubs and theatres.
She signed a record contract with Decca in 1951, and went on to record her best-known "hits", such as Let's Have a Ding-Dong, Poor People of Paris (which reached number one in the charts), Britannia Rag and Black and White Rag. This last piece became famous again in the 1970s as the signature tune of the Pot Black snooker programme on BBC television.
Atwell also performed numerous concerts, including Royal Variety Performances and television appearances. A typical concert would start with classical music played on a grand piano, followed by popular music on a honky tonk piano, which she lovingly referred to as 'my other piano'. It had been bought for £2 10s. at a Battersea junk shop in the late 1940s.
Her popularity started to wane at the end of the decade, and attempts to combine more contemporary music, such as Rock 'n' Roll hits, with her own honky tonk style were unsuccessful. She migrated with her husband and manager Lew Levisohn to Australia in the late 1960s, where she continued to play until her retirement in 1978. She died in 1983.