Bilk, born in Pensford - Somerset, earned the nickname Acker from the Somerset slang for friend or 'mate'. His parents tried to have him learn the piano, but Bilk as a boy found it restricting upon his love of outdoor activities including football (soccer). He also lost two front teeth in a school fight and half a finger in a sledging accident, both of which Bilk has claimed to have affected his eventual clarinet style. He learned the clarinet while serving in the Royal Engineers in the Suez Canal Zone, and by the mid-1950s he was playing professionally. Bilk was part of the boom in traditional jazz that swept the United Kingdom in the late 1950s and 1960s. He first joined Ken Colyer's band in 1954, and then after he formed his own ensemble, The Paramount Jazz Band, in 1956. Four years later, his single "Summer Set" (a pun on his home county) hit the British charts and it began a run of eleven top 50 hit singles.