On a previous monthly playlist post this year I wrote about my mild disappointment in a TV documentary claiming to be about a ‘great lost Nina Simone album’ which was really just a thin excuse to place Emile Sande with some of Nina’s old musicians and play a jazz gig enhanced by the Simone spirit. The actual album in question was of questionable provenance to say the least although, if you view the film for what it actually was, it was perfectly watchable. On the other end of the scale however, over the past few weeks I watched a music documentary that gave me everything I look for in this style of program. A new feature on the life of Ottilie Patterson sent me diving back into the archives to check out a lot more of the music she made in the fifties and sixties and on top of that, it brought the woman behind the voice vividly to life as lucid personal details added depth to her story.

Ottilie Patterson was a Northern Irish singer who, as a prominent vocalist in the Chris Barber Jazz Band from 1954 onwards, became a leading light within the British Jazz and Blues scenes of the period. Her kudos was down to a voice that stamped conviction and raw power (not something the Trad Jazz scene was often credited with) on the material she brought to the bands repertoire. The part Ottilie played in this is often overlooked; she had married Chris Barber in 1959 and an image as the textbook fifties housewife probably explains how people assumed the connoisseurs material revived by the group was done so solely at the behest of Barber. But Patterson was a genuine aficionado of those music roots and her knowledge, as well as her talent, assured she could hold her own with the many visiting Blues veterans who toured with the Barber band during this time.

Like it or not though, people are judged on appearance so that prim and proper fifties look dated very quickly as the swinging sixties progressed with Mod, Beat, Hippy and Psychedelic fashions crash landing year after year. Maybe that is why the name of Ottilie Patterson is still not mentioned in the same breath as an Amy Winehouse or a Janis Joplin? If there was one thing this documentary did reveal it was that her life brought as much hurt, mental health damage and depression as that experienced by other more heavily documented tortured artists. But Ottilie was born of a different era and a fast fading set of values. She was apparently deferential to her husband in ways that would be scorned today. For Ottilie, it may have been the unfulfilled hopes of a marriage for life (she was divorced from Chris Barber in 1983) and motherhood that broke her soul. It is noted by friends in the film that, even as she disappeared to live out her final two decades in relative solitude and obscurity in Scotland, she maintained the surname Barber, never to marry again.

An emotional core of the documentary comes from a lo-fidelity tape recorded interview Ottilie gave to a journalist in 1990 during which she opens up on devastating personal details of an abortion she had to go through in January 1956, then continues to offer glimpses on how the fall out from those events shadowed her for the rest of her life. It does not seek to deliberately paint Chris Barber in a bad light, criticism of him is mainly limited to an anecdote on how he could sometimes irritate Ottilie by fussing around her too much, it merely reflects how the struggles of their marriage and joint careers impacted Patterson’s world. As early as 1963 she was already beginning to step back from her Barber Band appearances due to stresses the lifestyle brought about, although she would be involved with the set up for another twenty years off and on before finally calling it a day.

Most fascinating of all, Ottilie made a solo album in 1969 released on the Marmalade label and featuring a few compositions of her own. Some of these are especially revealing as hidden in those grooves are hints to the inner turmoil’s her life and vigorously held beliefs led her to endure. It also demonstrates a voice that could enrich any style of material, what a shame she did not choose to develop this side of her art further. ‘3000 Years Of Ottilie’ is impossible to place in any category, it is a unique hybrid of folk, blues and show tune flamboyance. It is also very hard to find nowadays, you can go on Discogs and it is there but you are not going to get it for anything less that £250. Surely this one needs a re-issue? The documentary is well worth seeking out, it is called ‘My Name Is Ottilie’ and features an American musician living in Northern Ireland called Dana Masters whose investigative work does appear motivated by a genuine love of the subject. To tickle your interest further, I have headed up and closed this months playlist with the sound of Ottilie Patterson…