Chris Barber

Donald Christopher Barber was an English jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist. He helped many musicians with their careers and had a UK top twenty trad jazz hit with "Petite Fleur" in 1959. These musicians included the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife, and Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with Barber triggered the skiffle craze of the mid-1950s and who had his first transatlantic hit, "Rock Island Line", while with Barber's band. He provided an audience for Donegan and, later, Alexis Korner, and sponsored African-American blues musicians to visit Britain, making Barber a significant figure in launching the British rhythm and blues and "beat boom" of the 1960s.

17 April 1930

Born on the same birth day (17 April): Alanna Goldie • Arkan • Bella Freud • Brett Maher (basketball) • Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius • Don Kirshner • Frederik Magle • Henry Ian Cusick • Herms Niel • Hongseok • James Last • Johann David Heinichen • Kimberly Elise • Lachlan Maranta • Lagle Parek • Liz Phair • Lorna Fitzgerald • Michael IX Palaiologos • Olivia Hussey • Peter Morris (surgeon) • Richard Epstein

Born in the same month (April 1930): Antony Jay • Claude Bolling • Herbie Mann • Mary Costa • Paul Mazursky • Peter Schulz • Silvana Mangano • Wally Moon