Fats Waller

 ( 1904 Births ) 

Via his friend Clarence Williams, a Tin Pan Alley music publisher, Waller became involved with the new recording label Okeh Records. He was originally slated to accompany Sara Martin in "Sugar Blues", but failed to attend the recording session; Williams played instead, which launched his performing career. Williams convinced Fred Hager, the head of artists and repertoire for Okeh, to try Waller again, and his first recordings were "Muscle Shoals Blues" and "Birmingham Blues" in October 1922. In December he accompanied Martin in "Mama's Got the Blues" and "Last Go Round Blues". James P. Johnson got Waller work recording piano rolls for QRS, the first of which was "Got to Cool My Doggies Now", recorded in March 1923. In the summer of that year Waller began composing original pieces, his first being "Wildcat Blues", with lyrics by Williams. The pair collaborated on over 70 songs during the subsequent five years, including "Squeeze Me".

Waller continued to accompany blues singers in recordings, play rent parties, and perform at nightclubs, gaining exposure. During this period he met Andy Razaf, a lyricist with whom he collaborated extensively, and who encouraged him to sing as well as play the piano. He met J. C. Johnson in 1923, and began collaborating with him as well. Waller became known for his prolific output of catchy songs, although did not copyright any of them, instead selling them outright to publishers or performing them without getting them published. In 1926 he composed for two with Spencer Williams.

In 1926, Waller began his association with the Victor Talking Machine Company (later RCA Victor) after being contacted by Ralph Peer. On November 17, 1926, he recorded "St. Louis Blues" and his composition "Lenox Avenue Blues", his first solo recordings, and on December 1, 1927, he recorded "Red Hot Dan" with Thomas Morris, the first recording of Waller singing.

1929 saw the composition of some of Waller's most highly-regarded songs, such as "Ain't Misbehavin'" (for the revue Hot Chocolates), "I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling", "Honeysuckle Rose" (for the revue Load of Coal), and "Black and Blue". To avoid having to pay more in child support to Edith, whom he had divorced in 1923, Waller sold the rights for twenty of his songs (including "Ain't Misbehavin'") to Irving Mills for $500. This was a small fraction of their value. As a consequence he earned only the musician's share of the royalties from the subsequent recordings.

Waller began to play regularly at the Hot Feet Club, where he developed his storytelling asides and style as a raconteur: "the cocked eye brow, the finger punctuating the air for emphasis, and eyes rolling heavenward whenever he said something blue". In the summer of 1931 he visited Paris with Spencer Williams, playing in the city's nightclubs and enjoying the much lower levels of racial discrimination and absence of prohibition. Davis appointed Marty Bloom as Waller's manager after Waller's return, but Bloom resigned the position shortly thereafter and it was taken by Phil Ponce, who was experienced in showbusiness and had established and managed the Ponce Sisters.

Ponce decided to focus on Waller's radio career, and secured a two-year contract with WLW in Cincinnati, where he was given his own program, "Fats Waller's Rhythm Club". Waller also played for their show "Moon River", but was not credited due to his own show's "raucous and comedic reputation". After the contract ended in late 1933, Waller moved back to New York. A sequence of CBS radio performances in March and April of 1934 provided extensive publicity, and led to his own regular show, "The Rhythm Club", as well as regular appearances on other CBS programs.

This radio success led to RCA Victor offering a recording contract, assuming that the records would at least sell well in the black community, but they unexpectedly proved to have wide appeal, and became bestsellers. Victor arranged for tours for Waller and a group of musicians as the Fats Waller Band in 1935, and while back in New York during breaks between fixtures the group recorded a number of songs, the most popular of which was "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter". Part of the tour involved promoting the release of the film Hooray for Love, in which Waller had appeared earlier that year, and the success of this publicity activity led to him featuring in King of Burlesque.

The band continued to tour and record over the next few years, but Waller's drinking became heavier and his behavior more erratic, and interest from promoters declined after a racially-motivated boycott led to poorly-attended events in South Carolina and Florida in 1937. Ed Kirkeby had taken over as manager in 1935 due to Ponce's ill health, and he attempted to revive domestic interest in Waller by arranging a tour of Britain and Scandinavia in 1938, where jazz was increasing in popularity. The tour was a great success, with Waller recording for HMV and appearing on the new medium of television in addition to his live performances, but it was curtailed due to the threat of invasion from Nazi Germany. Waller had been developing his interest in composition and classical music, inspired by George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F. He began to incorporate more classical themes into his music, and took up the violin. While in London he composed the impressionist London Suite, representing different areas of the city he had visited, and this was recorded by HMV.

Waller's interest in more "serious" music continued, and on January 14, 1942 he staged a concert in Carnegie Hall in an attempt to make audiences take jazz more seriously. The concert was received well by the audience, although at least one critic gave it a mixed review, possibly because Waller had become drunk during the interval.

Irving Mills had become a film producer, and in early 1943 engaged Waller to perform songs including "Ain't Misbehavin'" (which he owned the rights to) in Stormy Weather. Upon returning to New York, he began to compose for the musical Early to Bed, which premiered in Boston on May 24, 1943. It received positive reviews, and was staged at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway on June 17. Waller was the first black composer to write a Broadway show for a white cast.

Standards attributed to Waller, sometimes controversially, include "I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby". The song was made famous by Adelaide Hall in the Broadway show Blackbirds of 1928.