Ottilie Patterson

Anna Ottilie Patterson was born in Comber, County Down, 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 Georgia while Joseph was serving in the British army in the Caucasus mountains. They were married in 1919.[4][5] Ottilie's name is an Anglicised form of the Latvian name "Ottilja".[4] Both sides of the family were musical, and Patterson trained as a classical pianist from the age of eleven. She never received any formal training as a singer[6] but was captivated by the blues from the age of ten.[7]

In 1949, Patterson went to study art at Belfast College of Technology where a fellow student introduced her to the music of Bessie Smith, Jelly Roll Morton and Meade Lux Lewis.[8] 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. After graduating, she worked as an art teacher but found it unexciting.[5] In the summer of 1954, while holidaying in London, Patterson met Beryl Bryden, who introduced her to the Chris Barber Jazz Band.[9]

Patterson joined the Barber band full-time on 28 December 1954,[4] and her first public appearance was at the Royal Festival Hall on 9 January 1955.[10]

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 was a key figure in the success of the band.[7] Patterson and Barber were married in 1959.[1]

When famous American blues artists toured the UK in this period, it was often the Chris Barber band that would accompany them. Patterson would thus sing with, for example, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Bill Broonzy, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.[5] When on tour with the band in the USA, Patterson said that the night she sang, to great acclaim, with Muddy Waters’ band at Smitty’s Corner, was her proudest moment.[11] In 1962, she performed with Barber's band at President Kennedy's Washington Jazz Festival.[12] Touring and performing hundreds of gigs per year however, eventually took its toll on Patterson's health and marriage. From approximately 1963 she began to suffer throat problems and mental health difficulties and ceased to appear or record regularly with Chris Barber, officially retiring from the band in 1973.[1] During this period she recorded some non-jazz/blues material such as settings of Shakespeare (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.[13] Patterson and Barber divorced in 1983.[4]

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).[13] The Chris Barber Band back catalogue includes hundreds of songs of many different genres, recorded with Patterson.[14]

In 1988, Patterson moved to Ayr, Scotland [5] where she died on 20 June 2011, aged 79, in the Rozelle Holm Farm Care Home.[15] She is buried in Movilla Abbey Cemetery, Newtownards, Northern Ireland, in the Patterson family grave. Her gravestone, which is marked Ottilia Anna Barber, is immediately by the left hand wall adjacent to the car park.

In February 2012, a blue plaque marking her birthplace in a terraced house in Comber, County Down was unveiled, and the same evening a sell-out musical tribute was performed at the La Mon Hotel in Comber.[13]

In a BBC documentary entitled 'My name is Ottilie' and which includes audio recordings of interviews given by Patterson, Dana Masters, a black musician from America living in Northern Ireland, pieces together the story of Patterson's professional and personal life.[16]

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• Obituary in The Guardian
• Obituary in The Independent