Winifred Atwell (27 February 1910 *– 28 February 1983) was a Trinidadian pianist who enjoyed great popularity in Britain and Australia from the 1950s with a series of boogie-woogie and ragtime hits, selling over 20 million records. She was the first black artist to have a number-one hit in the UK Singles Chart and as of 2023, remains the only female instrumentalist to do so.
Una Winifred Atwell was born in Tunapuna in Trinidad and Tobago. She and her parents lived in Jubilee Street. Her family owned a pharmacy, and she trained as a druggist, and was expected to join the family business, Winifred, however, had played the piano since a young age, and achieved considerable popularity locally.
She left Trinidad in the early 1940s and travelled to the United States to study with Alexander Borovsky and in 1946 moved to London, where she had gained a place at the Royal Academy of Music. She became the first female pianist to be awarded the Academy's highest grading for musicianship. To support her studies, she played rags at London clubs and theatres. These modest beginnings in variety would one day see her topping the bill at the London Palladium.
She attracted attention with an unscheduled appearance at the Casino Theatre, where she substituted for an ill star. She caught the eye of entrepreneur Bernard Delfont, who put her on a long-term contract. She released three discs which were well received. The third, "Jezebel," scurried to the top of the best seller lists. It was her fourth disc that catapulted her to huge popularity in the UK. A fiendishly complex arrangement called "Cross Hands Boogie" was released to show her virtuoso rhythmic technique, but it was the "B" side, a 1900s tune written by George Botsford called "Black and White Rag," that was to become a radio standard.
Winifred Atwell's husband, former stage comedian Lew Levisohn, was vital in shaping her career as a variety star. The two had met in 1946, and married soon after. They were inseparable up to Levisohn's death in Hong Kong in December 1977; they had no children. He had cannily made the choice, for stage purposes, of her playing first a concert grand, then a beaten up old upright piano. This became famous as Winifred Atwell's "other piano".
When Winifred Atwell first came to Britain, she initially earned only a few pounds a week. By the mid-fifties, this had shot up to over $10,000. By 1952, her popularity had spread internationally. Her hands were insured with Lloyds of London for a quarter of a million dollars (the policy stipulating that she was never to wash dishes). She signed a record contract with Decca Records, and her sales were soon 30,000 discs a week. She was by far the biggest selling pianist of her time. She is the only holder of two gold and two silver discs for piano music in Britain, and was the first black artist in the UK to sell a million records.
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| Atwell with Louis Armstrong |
She had her own series in Britain (1956-57) and on Australian television in 1960-1961. Her brilliant career earned her a fortune, and would have extended further to the U.S. but for issues of race. Her breakthrough appearance was to have been on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, but on arrival in America she was confronted with problems of selling the show in the south with a British-sounding black woman. The appearance was never recorded.
In 1955 Winifred Atwell arrived in Australia and was greeted as an international celebrity. She was paid $5,000 a week (the equivalent of around $50,000 today), making her the highest paid star from a Commonwealth country to visit Australia up to that time. Her enormous popularity in Australia led to her settling in Sydney in the 1970s. She became an Australian citizen two years before her death.
Winifred Atwell suffered a stroke in 1980. She officially retired on The Mike Walsh Show, then Australia's then highest rating television variety program, in 1981. The only public performances from this point were as organist in her parish church at Narrabean. She categorically stated on the Mike Walsh show that she would retire and not return as a public performer, but that she had an excellent career. Her last TV performance was a medley of Black and White Rag and Twelfth Street rag, before being given a standing ovation and awarded a bouquet.
In 1983 following a fire that destroyed her Narrabeen home, she suffered a heart attack and died while staying with friends in Seaforth. She is buried beside husband Lew Levisohn in South Gundarimba Private Cemetery in Northern New South Wales, just outside Lismore.
(Edited from Wikipedia) *There is some uncertainty over her date and year of birth. Many sources suggest 27 February 1914, but there is a strong suggestion that her birthday was 27 April. Most sources give her year of birth as 1914, but her gravestone states that she died at the age of 73, suggesting that she was born in 1910.