She was known as "the girl with sax appeal".
In her time, Betty Smith wowed Ella Fitzgerald, played Fly Me to the Moon for astronaut Neil Armstrong and cheered up the famously morose comic Tony Hancock.
A talented saxophonist, she left school at a young age to pursue her dream, and ended up playing all over the world.
She and her husband, Jack Peberdy, played for the Freddy Randall Jazz Group at the height of the trad-jazz boom before forming their own group and going on to play with musicians such as Humphrey Lyttelton and Bill Haley's Comets.
Betty died on January 21, aged 81.
Paying tribute to his wife yesterday, Jack, 88, said: "She was loved all over the world. We were never apart and I'll miss her so much."
Born in Sileby in 1929, Betty's talent was first spotted by a friendly villager, who paid for her to attend the private Stoneygate School, in Leicester.
Her father, Gerald, bought her a tenor saxophone and she started playing in clubs, which led to warnings from her headmistress.
But by the age of 15, she had quit school and was on the road with a jazz band.
Jack, who celebrated 60 years of marriage to Betty in August last year, said: "When she was 15, her dad took her to audition with Archie's Juveniles Band and she left school and went touring with them."
Betty's father was also instrumental in getting the couple together. Jack met Betty at her 19th birthday party in Sileby and, after a few drinks, plucked up the courage to make his move.
Jack said: "I said to her, 'Do you mind if I kiss you before I go?' and her father, who was standing nearby, said, 'You'll be a fool if you don't'."
As the trad-jazz boom grew, Betty travelled the globe, playing for troops in the Middle East in 1947, where her tour bus came under attack, and in West Berlin during the airlift after the Soviets denied Western access to the city in 1948.
Jack and Betty married in 1950 and, just over a year later, Jack joined his wife in the Freddy Randall Jazz Group. He worked as bassist arranger and conductor.
Jack said: "Freddy told me, 'Our bass player left. Buy a bass and start on Friday'. I couldn't even play bass."
That was the beginning of a long, happy career together.
During a tour of America in the mid-50s, the group got into the Hit Parade with Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered and stars such as Kenny Baker and Ella Fitzgerald became fans.
In America, racial tensions were running high and one theatre they played at in North Carolina had to be evacuated because of a bomb. Jack said: "I don't know if it actually went off. We all scarpered."
After forming their own group in 1957, Betty and Jack worked with TV comic Tony Hancock. Betty would cheer him up before each show by playing Abide With Me badly out of tune.
Jack said: "People loved Betty's style. She was full of stories and was as much a comedienne as a musician. She was lovely and a genius. But she took ill in the 80s. For the past 29 years, I've been caring for her and that's been my life. We moved back to Sileby in 1988."
Betty died at the Baron's Court nursing home, in Kirby Muxloe. Care assistant Karen Powell said: "To her last breath she was amazing. She would sing spontaneously and she had an amazing voice."
Betty's funeral will take place at Loughborough Crematorium on Friday, February 4, at 11.45am.
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