Acker Bilk

Acker Bilk has won immortality on rock oldies radio for his surprise 1962 hit "Stranger on the Shore," an evocative ballad featuring his heavily quavering low-register clarinet over a bank of strings. To the jazz world, though, he has a longer-running track record as one of the biggest stars of Britain's trad jazz boom, playing in a distinctive early New Orleans manner.
The title of this compact disc tells it all - the tracks featured here are just some of Acker’s all time favourites and the loving care he puts into his performances show just that.
‘Stranger On The Shore’ must be one of Acker’s biggest favourites as he wrote it and had a world-wide hit with it, so it just had to be the opening title on this disc…

Bernard Stanley "Acker" Bilk was an English clarinettist and vocalist known for his appearance – goatee, bowler hat and striped waistcoat – and breathy, vibrato-rich, lower-register clarinet style. Bilk's 1962 instrumental tune "Stranger on the Shore" became the UK's biggest selling single of 1962: it was in the UK charts for more than 50 weeks, peaking at number two, and was the first No. 1 single in the United States by a British artist in the era of the modern Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.