Without the band: Ottilie Patterson on tourinGermany, November 1957
EVEN those who consider themselves aficionados of British popular music of the ’50s and ’60s might not be familiar with Ottilie Patterson, but for a few years – between the Suez Crisis and the rise of The Beatles – she was the biggest live draw on the London scene, a homegrown singer possessed of a soaring blues voice that seem to have been beamed in from a different space and time. This excellent BBC documentary, presented by the African-American blues singer Dana Masters and using previously unheard interview footage, attempts to restore her reputation.