Ottilie Patterson obituary

Northern Irish blues singer who performed alongside some of the American jazz greatsWide-eyed and diminutive, the singer Ottilie Patterson, who has died aged 79, challenged critical perceptions every time she sang the blues. Before her first appearance on the London traditional jazz scene in 1955, the idea of a demure white woman from Northern Ireland replicating the classic African-American blues style would have seemed ludicrous. But Patterson sang with a lusty clarity and innate grasp of the ...

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