Chart entered : 27 November 1959
Chart peak : 10
Winifred was the next person to drop out of the charts.
She had scored two number ones. Her "Let's Have Another Party" was the Christmas number one of 1954 and "The Poor People Of Paris" had taken the top spot eighteen months later. She had started having misses as early as 1955 usually with individual tunes and it gradually became clear that the public was only interested in her good time medleys. She made concessions to rock and roll with the medley "Let's Rock n Roll" but it was only a minor hit and she did a hysterical cover of Link Wray's "Raunchy" - talk about two worlds colliding ! - which would have been one of the funniest hits of all time if it had made it. She had her own TV show in 1957.
After a hitless year in 1958 she managed a whole song hit with "The Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll" before putting this one out for the Christmas market. As usual it was split across both sides. The A-side comprises six tunes "Baby Face", " Comin' Thro The Rye","Annie Laurie", "Little Brown Jug", "Let Him Go ,Let Him Tarry " and "Put Your Arms Around Me Honey" all played at quite a pace. I'm stuck for any other comment really.
Her first single of the 1960s "Rumpus" is quite lively with a bouncy bassline played on the low notes ; no doubt she was aware of Jerry Lee. "Tops In Pops" mashed up Bernstein's "Staccato's Theme" with recent hits "Oh Carol" and "Why" and is apparently pretty awful so it gets left off her compilations. The assault on recent hits continued with a quickfire cover of "My Old Man's A Dustman" which must have been as much fun for her to play as it is to listen to (i.e. none at all ). "Nicolette" from September 1960 is a jolly ragtime tune with an unexpected guitar popping up midway through after which the pace of releases slackened as she toured Australia and filmed a TV series there. "Old Pi-anna Party" pitched itself at the 1960 Christmas market but the time had passed for that sort of thing; her rival Russ Conway was also struggling. In 1961 she put out just the one single "Winnie's Piano Party" to which nobody came. That was her last single for Decca.
Pye picked her up in 1962 and released "Game Of Chance" which I haven't heard. She tried to get in on the Twist craze with "Twist Party Part 1" which put "Swanee River" , "Loch Lomond " and "When The Saints Go Marching In" to the appropriate rhythm. "Mississippi Mud " closed down her account there.
CBS were her next label releasing the festive "Snow Bells" in November 1965. The following year she came up with "Games That Lovers Play" ( a rare James Last original composition ) which at last sounded vaguely contemporary and has some mildly exciting sweeping runs down the keys to interrupt the muzak. That seems to have been her last single in Britain.
Early in the new decade she emigrated to Australia where she was still enormously popular .
and settled near Sydney. She put out at least one single "Cry" on RCA Victor in 1971. She entertained the construction workers at Sydney Opera House with a version of "Waltzing Matilda" while it was still being built. Despite her immigrant status she was outspoken about the treatment of the Aborigines. Her last appearance in the UK may have been on the Wheeltappers And Shunters Social Club in 1974 where she was introduced by Bernard Manning. She often returned to Trinidad where her house later became a music school and considered returning there after her husband's death in 1978.
In 1980 she suffered a slight stroke and a year later she announced her retirement on an Australian talk show. She became a naturalised Australian citizen the same year. Early in 1983 her house was destroyed by an electrical fire and she had a heart attack while staying with friends. She died on 28 February 1983 aged 73.
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