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A pianist and composer born in the colony of Trinidad who migrated to Britain and who enjoyed great popularity in Britain and Australia from the 1950s

Atwell left Trinidad in the early 1940s and travelled to the United States to study with Alexander Borovsky.She played in a concert at The Town Hall in New York on 10 May 1945, as part of a presentation by the Altruss Opera Company starring Paul A. Smith, a well-known tenor.

When Atwell first came to Britain, she initially earned only a few pounds a week. By the mid-1950s, that had shot up to over $10,000. By 1952, her popularity had spread internationally.

Her hands were insured with Lloyd's of London for £40,000, the policy stipulating that she was never to wash dishes. She signed a record contract with Decca, and her sales were soon 30,000 discs a week. She was by far the biggest-selling pianist of her time. Her 1954 hit, "Let's Have Another Party", was the first piano instrumental to reach number one in the UK Singles Chart.


On 6 October 1945, it was announced that "the noted British pianist" had left for England where she would broadcast for the BBC on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In London, she gained a place at the Royal Academy of Music where she completed her musical studies.[13] She became the first female pianist to be awarded the academy's highest grading for musicianship.

To support her studies, she played rags at London clubs and theatres. From those modest beginnings in variety she went on to top the bill at the London Palladium. She said later, "I starved in a garret to get onto concert stages".

On 21 October 1946, Atwell appeared on BBC TV programme Stars in Your Eyes, which was quickly followed by several radio appearances on the BBC Light Programme. In January 1947, she headed the bill of Come to the Show at the Empire Theatre, Belfast, where she was billed as "radio's most versatile pianist".Frequent radio appearances continued, including the well-known Variety Bandbox show.

She appeared on the variety stages too, sometimes with another pianist called Donald Thorne.
Atwell attracted attention with an unscheduled appearance at the Casino Theatre, where she substituted for an ill star. She caught the eye of entrepreneur Bernard Delfont, who put her on a long-term contract in 1948.


Atwell was championed by popular disc jockey Jack Jackson, who introduced her to Decca Records promotions manager Hugh Mendl. Mendl launched his career as a staff producer at Decca by producing Atwell's recordings. She released a number of discs for Decca in 1951 that were well received. "Jezebel" sold well,[19] but it was another disc that catapulted her to huge popularity in the UK.

A complex arrangement called "Cross Hands Boogie" was released to show her virtuoso rhythmic technique, but it was the B-side, a 1900s tune written by George Botsford called "Black and White Rag", that was to become a radio standard.The disc sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.


"Black And White Rag" started a craze for her honky-tonk style of playing.The rag was originally performed on a concert grand for the occasion, but Atwell felt it did not sound right, and so got her husband to buy a honky tonk piano for 50 shillings from a junk shop in Battersea, London, which was used for the released version of the song.


Atwell's husband, former stage comedian Lew Levisohn, was vital in shaping her career as a variety star. The two had met in 1946, and married soon afterward. They were inseparable up to Levisohn's death in Hong Kong in December 1977. They had no children.