Stranger On The Shore (3:17)

Acker Bilk wrote “Stranger on the Shore” for a British television serial series, and recorded it as the title track of a new album in which his signature deep, quivering clarinet was backed by the Leon Young String Chorale. The single was not only a big hit in the United Kingdom (where it stayed on the charts for a remarkable 55 weeks, gaining a second wind after Bilk was the subject of the TV show This Is Your Life) but shot to the top of the American charts as well – at a time when the American pop charts and radio playlists were open to just about anything … , in just about any style[1]; making Bilk the first male Briton ever to have a single in the number one position on the Billboard singles chart.

In the early 1980s, Bilk and his signature hit were newly familiar, thanks to “Stranger on the Shore” being used in the soundtrack to Sweet Dreams, the film biography of country music legend Patsy Cline.