My friend Victor Evans, who has died aged 88, was the singer with the Birmingham-based jazz band Andy Hamilton and the Blue Notes.
Vic was born in Kingston, Jamaica, where he was a manual labourer, and came to the UK as a 30-year-old in 1964 to seek a better life. After a short spell in London he moved to Birmingham and eventually settled in the Ladywood district of the city, where he had met his wife, Joyce.
As well as singing jazz, he made his living as a factory worker, first with Dunlop and then with Cadbury’s, where his habit of singing while he worked occasionally attracted pejorative and racist remarks. “They had the cheek to be sarcastic,” he once told me. “They were just jealous because I could sing.”
Vic, who had great presence both on and off the stage, joined the Blue Notes in the 1990s and sang with them until the death of Andy Hamilton in 2012. They were popular in Birmingham, but rarely had the opportunity of playing outside the area – with the wonderful exception of the Cape Town international jazz festival in South Africa in 2006.
In 2012 he was invited to give a masterclass for voice students at the London College of Music. He embraced all types of music, and enjoyed visiting the Wigmore Hall in London and attending performances by the Welsh National Opera in Birmingham.
I was first introduced to Vic in 2003, and he became a family friend for 20 years, during which time he coped with advancing ill health and moves to various care facilities with an inbuilt dignity and stoicism, supported by his ever-watchful family.
Joyce predeceased him. He is survived by his children, Angela, Gina, Dionne, Samantha and Jason, grandchildren, Devine, Raqual, Shereife, Saffron, Fauna, Jove and Alasdair, and great-grandchildren, Aysia and Azarai.
