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Artist News Obituaries
Acker Bilk 1929-2014
By Aly Barchi | Published on Tuesday 4 November 2014
As previously reported, ‘Stranger On The Shore’ clarinettist Acker Bilk died this past Sunday, aged 85, following an illness.
Born Bernard Stanley Bilk in Somerset in 1929 (later acquiring the nickname ‘Acker’ from the West Country slang word for ‘friend’ or ‘mate’), the musician lost two teeth and half a finger as a child, which, he claimed, went on to shape his distinctive playing style. He learnt the clarinet whilst doing National Service with the Royal Engineers in Egypt, and, upon coming back from the army and qualifing as a blacksmith, formed his first band in 1950.
Bilk also ran his own jazz club, The Paramount, in Bristol; later founding and touring Europe and the UK with its in-house group, the Paramount Jazz Band, on the back of the ‘trad jazz’ craze of the day. He released his first top ten single as band-leader in 1960 theme ‘Summer Set’, a co-write with pianist Dave Collett.
His best-known song, ‘Stranger On The Shore’, started life as a composition for, and named after, his baby daughter Jenny. Having changed its title to that of the BBC TV drama it was chosen as the main theme for, Bilk set his clarinet arrangement to backing by the Leon Young String Chorale, and released the track via Columbia Records in 1961, scoring a number one single. It stayed in the UK charts for 55 weeks, and also made Bilk only the second ever British artist (after Vera Lynn in 1952) to top the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in America.
Bilk played on the cabaret circuit over latter years, collaborating prolifically the whole time with other jazz greats, string orchestras, and his long-time Paramount band; releasing another hit in 1976 with the top-five-charting ‘Aria’. Having later slim-lined his recording and gigging schedule to spend time painting, Bilk was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2000, though recovered in time to receive his MBE in 2001.
He released an LP with clarinet-playing peer Wally Fawkes the following year, worked with Van Morrison on his albums ‘Down the Road’, ‘What’s Wrong With This Picture?’ and ‘Born to Sing: No Plan B’, and continued to play live, if not quite so regularly. Speaking on the 50th anniversary of the initial release of ‘Stranger On The Shore’ back in 2012, a then 87 year old Bilk said: “I’m fed up with playing it. It’s alright but you do get fed up with it after 50 years”.
Bilk is survived by his wife Jean, and their children, Peter and Jenny.
