ACKER BILK
Genres: Pop, Art Song, Folk, Swing, Dixieland, Original New Orleans Jazz, Exotica • United Kingdom

Bernard Stanley "Acker" Bilk MBE (born 28 January 1929) is an English clarinettist. He is known for his trademark goatee, bowler hat, striped waistcoat and his breathy, vibrato-rich, lower-register clarinet style. Bilk earned the nickname Acker from the Somerset slang for 'friend' or 'mate'. His parents tried to teach him the piano, but as a boy, Bilk found it restricted his love of outdoor activities including football. He lost two front teeth in a school fight and half a finger in a sledging accident, both of which Bilk has claimed to have affected his eventual clarinet style. He learned the clarinet while serving in the Royal Engineers in the Suez Canal Zone after his sapper friend John A. Britten gave him a clarinet that he had bought at a bazaar and had no use for. The clarinet had no reed and Britten fashioned a makeshift reed for the instrument out of read more...