Jean Hart

Jean, whose maiden name was Budgen attended St Martin’s School of Art in the late ‘50s. She met her first husband, Malcolm Hart at art school and they used to sing and play guitar together. She later became Bill Oddie's first wife. and is credited as Jean Oddie in the chorus on Mike Cooper’s ‘Places I Know’. She was a singer and actress originally from the East End of London. She briefly stood in for Jo Kendall on I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again.Jean Hart sang with another UK jazz band, Spencer's Washboard Kings, cutting a record with them in 1966 - ‘If You Knew Susie’ (Bill Oddie on the flip singing ‘Five Feet Two’), and appearing on BBC Radio Light Programme's 'Swingalong' with them December of that year. She had been a regular singer at the Establishment club, performed ‘Hamba Lilli’ on ABC(UK) TV’s folk show Hullabaloo in 1963, toured with Cambridge Circus Footlights show and guested in ISIRTA, worked with Richard Rodney Bennett…you can hear her on a couple of film soundtracks, but sadly she didn’t make many records in her own right.