Peggy Cochrane

British pianist, violinist, composer, singer, cabaret star and broadcaster.
Born January 12, 1902 in Streatham, London, England, UK
Died August 9, 1988 in (age of 86) Bognor Regis, West Sussex, England, UK.
For the classical liner note writer & translator, please use Peggie Cochrane.

She was the daughter of a civil servant. Cochrane was a musical child prodigy, winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music aged eight. At 14 she won open competitions on both violin and piano on the same day. She made her first broadcasts on BBC radio in 1924, in violin recital at 22. She married her first husband, Disney Hubert Cran, a medical doctor in that year,

In the later 1920s and early 1930s she featured regularly on BBC radio, and in cabaret with William Walker and Patrick Waddington, as That Certain Trio (and with Waddington as That Certain Pair after Walker left the act). In 1933, she gave her first performances on television, and the following year started a regular radio slot, "A Tune A Minute", in which she would play 15 tunes in 15 minutes. She composed and performed short pieces for children, and was able to move from playing a classical violin concerto in concert during the day, to performing on piano in hotel cabarets in the evening, occasionally with cellist Gwen Farrar. She also sang to her own piano accompaniment, and with Jack Jackson's Orchestra, and appeared in the 1936 film Rhythm in the Air.

In 1937, she began working regularly with bandleader Jack Payne, appearing together at the 1938 Royal Variety Performance. They established a close personal as well as professional relationship. Disney Cran died by suicide in 1938. Payne and his wife divorced, and Payne and Cochrane married in 1940. They recorded together, toured troops in France as part of ENSA, and continued to broadcast regularly, with Cochrane sometimes performing her own piano compositions. In 1951 was a regular member of the cast of the BBC radio programme "Happy Go Lucky".

Once asked why she gave up classical music and moved into other areas, she said: "More money was to be had (and less hard work) playing and singing popular music". Cochrane continued to perform, broadcast and record through the 1950s, releasing the EP Cocktails with Cochrane in 1958 and writing music for films and television. In 1959, she appeared as the guest on Desert Island Discs. After Payne's death, Cochrane published an autobiography, "We Said it with Music - the Story of Peggy Cochrane and Jack Payne", in 1979.