Jazz legend Acker Bilk, best known for his chart-topping hit Stranger On The Shore, died yesterday aged 85.

The clarinet-player and singer passed away in hospital after a short illness with his wife Jean by his side.

Bilk’s goatee, bowler hat and colourful waistcoats became almost as recognisable as his style of playing – which he attributed to losing half a finger while sledging in his youth and to the teeth lost in a school punch-up.

Jazz singer and clarinettist Bernard Stanley 'Acker' Bilk has died at the age of 85, his manager said today

His signature tune, Stranger On The Shore, was the UK’s biggest-selling single of 1962 and made him the first artist to have a simultaneous chart-topping hit in both Britain and the US.

Last night his personal manager Pamela Frances Sutton said he was a ‘wonder of a man’ adding: ‘He lived for music – and music was his life.’

Mrs Sutton, who worked as his personal manager for 45 years, said: ‘He was a great mate and a marvellous musician. Every minute spent with him was a pleasure.

‘He had a special tone to his clarinet playing, he was fun-loving and very much a Somerset guy. His last concert was simply brilliant. He could really charm an audience.’ The much-loved entertainer was born Bernard Stanley but he was nicknamed Acker – slang for a friend or mate in his native Somerset.

Bilk tried a number of careers and dabbled with boxing before borrowing a clarinet and copying recordings of famous jazz musicians as an 18-year-old in the Army. Posted to Egypt with the Royal Engineers during his National Service, he found himself with plenty of spare time in the desert and was leant a marching clarinet. Hooked, he smuggled the instrument back to his home village of Pensford.

Number one: Bilk's 1962 tune Stranger on the Shore, originally called Jenny after his daughter, was number one in the US and the UK, and sold one million copies

Successful career: Jazz musician Acker Bilk, pictured left in his trademark hat and waistcoat, and right, after receiving his MBE at Buckingham Palace in 2001

Family first: Acker Bilk, pictured with wife Jean and daughter Jenny at their home in 1961

He formed his first band in Bristol after demobilisation – and his style later personified the trad jazz revival of the 50s and 60s.

Clocking up 12 hits altogether, Bilk sold millions of records and toured worldwide during his 50-year career. During the Eighties, he was a regular on the BBC’s early magazine show Pebble Mill At One.

Bilk was awarded an MBE in 2001 for services to the music industry.

But he had a couple of major health scares along the way. Bilk gave up smoking after he suffered a heart attack in 1976 and in 2000 he battled cancer of the throat.

In later life he returned to Pensford and played his last live concert at the Brecon Jazz Festival in August last year.

Bilk leaves daughter Jenny, son Peter and wife Jean – his childhood sweetheart whom he had known since the age of five.

The musician maintained that when he wrote his biggest hit – an instrumental – he didn’t immediately realise it was special.

He said: ‘I didn’t think it was much different from any of the rest of it. It was just a thing that came out of my head, that’s all.’

Among the tributes on Twitter last night, George Freeman, the Tory MP for Mid Norfolk, wrote: ‘Happy memories of going to hear him play in my first week at University.’