Edmund James Arthur Hockridge (9 August 1919 – 15 March 2009)[1] was a Canadian baritone and actor who had an active performance career in musicals, operas, concerts, plays and on radio.

[1] Hockridge learned much of his craft as an entertainer at the radio (mike), singing and producing 400 shows for the BBC Forces Network and, as the war ended, he was snapped up for appearances with the big names in British popular music, Gerald Bright (better known as Geraldo) and George Melachrino among them.

[1] After the war, he had his own coast-to-coast radio show from Toronto with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, in whose Gilbert and Sullivan productions he played all thirteen patter-song roles.

His big break, in 1950, came with the chance to play Billy Bigelow in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel at the Theatre Royal in London's Drury Lane.

[1] Hockridge went on to make two more musical roles his own - Judge Forestier, in Can-Can, and Sid Sorokin in the original London production of The Pajama Game, an instant hit with the British public.

[1] Seven years of musicals were followed by public appearances, concerts, pantomimes, Royal Command Performances, London Palladium seasons, summer shows, television dates in the UK, Canada and Europe and some special occasions - topping the bill on the maiden voyage of the QE2 to New York and representing Canada in the choir at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II among them.

His second Nixa recording was a cover of Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons," with a version of Dean Martin's "Young and Foolish" on the flip side.