Beryl Bryden

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Beryl Bryden at the North Sea Jazz Festival in 1976

Beryl Audley Bryden (May 11, 1920, in Norwich, Norfolk - July 14, 1998) was an Englsh jazz singer who had played with Chris Barber and Lonnie Donegan. Ella Fitzgerald once said of Beryl Bryden that she was "Britain's queen of the blues".

Beryl Bryden, Britain's "Queen of the Washboard" was one of the most flamboyant figures in the British Traditional jazz scene.

An ardent jazz fan she established a Nat Gonella fan club in her teens before taking up the washboard and singing. Her vocal style was heavily influenced by Bessie Smith but avoid affectation of an American accent.

She sang with the Humphrey Lyttleton band and with Freddy Randall at legendary London jazz venues like Cook's Ferry Inn. She became a prolific supporter of visiting American jazz acts when the Musicians Union ban was lifted and befriended, amongst others, Buck Clayton, Louis Armstrong and Bud Freeman with whom she recorded.

She joined the Chris Barber band on washboard and played on the group's skiffle gold disc 'Rock Island Line' in 1955 with Lonnie Donegan on vocals. She later graduated to the Monty Sunshine jazz band where she covered Bessie Smith ("Young Woman's Blues", "Give Me A Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer") and long-term favourite "Coney Island Washboard Blues", which demonstrated her admirable washboard technique.

She remained active at the end of the British Trad Jazz boom and became particularly popular in Norther Europe playing with the Ted Easton Jazz Band and The Piccadilly Six. In 1979 she headlined the North Sea Jazz Festival with Rod Mason and His Hot Five. In the 80's she often sang with the New Orleans Syncopators, a Dutch jazzband, who she recorded an album of Jazz Classics with.

In the 1970's she recorded the astonishing feat of becoming the only British female jazz musician to be awarded the freedom of the City of New Orleans.

She remained active into the 1990's playing with the Metropolitan Jazz Band, Digby Fairweather, Nat Gonella and her own Blue Boys. She made her last recording with Nat Gonella in 1998, shortly before her death.

Bryden died in 1998 at the age of 78.