Winifred Atwell was an accomplished and versatile pianist who was idolised by the British public throughout the 1950s. She had studied the piano since she had been a small child although she later became trained as a dispenser in the expectation that she would be employed in her father's pharmacist shop. By the age of 30 she became aware that other local musicians had gained further musical training abroad and, encouraged by this, in 1945 she left for the USA.
By the late 1940s she had gained a place at London's Royal Academy of Music with ambitions of becoming a concert pianist. However, in order to finance this initiative she worked during the evenings at London's clubs playing piano rags. By 1950 her popularity had spread nationally and she began recording with Decca during 1951- before the advent of any record sales 'chart'.
Her music also worked well on TV where she made regular appearances. She would normally start her act by playing a classical piece on a grand before transferring herself to what she called 'my other piano' which was an old 'honky tonk' upright. It was on this that she recorded many of her most successful numbers including her two #1's and the now legendary 'Black And White Rag' which has been used as the signature tune of BBC's 'Pot Black' snooker programme for several decades.
Artist: E. Power Biggs
Album: Scott Joplin on the Pedal Harpsichord
Released: 1973
Label: Columbia
Quality: mp3 CBR 320
Size: 78 MB
“This LP should come as a surprise not only to those familiar with E. Power Biggs as an organist, but also to ragtime aficionados who associate this repertoire exclusively with the piano. For Biggs is performing a set of Scott Joplin compositions on a pedal harpsichord, specially made for him and incorporating three sets of bass strings which are played with the feet—just as they are on the organ. This enables the performer to sustain bass notes, while the left hand plays the off-beat chords, in a way which is impossible on the conventional harpsichord. It scarcely needs saying that Biggs demonstrates remarkable technical facility. What is more arguable is whether his approach always fits the material. Certainly he gives Joplin's melodic lines a suitably light and dancing quality in Elite Syncopations, Sunflower Slow Drag (actually a collaboration between Joplin and Scott Hayden) and Pine Apple Rag, but Maple Leaf Rag comes across as heavy and melodramatic, with the rhythms much too laboured. Similarly, Peacherine Rag, another early but attractive composition, sounds a little as though it were being played on a calliope. And the second strain of The Easy Winners is made to resemble The Ham) Lime Theme (or is it the Cafe, Mozart Waltz?) even more than usual. Most of the time, though, these are fascinating and agreeable interpretations with Biggs changing the textures cunningly in the repeats of various strains, using, in fact, the kind of discretion that seems called for. And it is pleasant to find a selection that does not consist entirely of the best-known Joplin compositions. I was especially delighted to discover Cleopha, a march and two-step which was a firm favourite with the Sousa Band, and The Strenuous Life. My only quibble concerns the inclusion of Binks' Waltz, not syncopated at all (unlike the delightful Bethena, which was published the same year—in 1905) but just a straightforward and really rather commonplace waltz.” C.F.
