Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, and singer. His innovations in the stride style were widely influential among musicians. A popular performer in the Jazz Age and swing era, he toured internationally, achieving critical and commercial success in the United States and Europe. His best-known songs, "Ain't Misbehavin' and "Honeysuckle Rose", were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1984 and 1999 respectively.
Waller was based mainly in New York City, and grew up under the influence of the Harlem Renaissance. He composed hundreds of songs, many of them uncredited, as he would frequently sell the rights to a new composition to get an immediate cash sum. His recording career spanned two decades and produced hundreds of recordings, with his solo output of particular interest to critics. He developed a distinctive performance style, wherein he performed risqué patter, witty asides, and amusing facial expressions while playing a piece. This proved popular on radio, as well as in the nightclubs and theater venues he performed in throughout his career. He was involved in several successful musical theater ventures, and developed an interest in classical music toward the end of his life, hoping to encourage audiences to take jazz as seriously as they did classical performances.
Early life Thomas Wright Waller was born in New York City on May 21, 1904, the seventh child of eleven (five of whom survived childhood). His parents were Adeline Waller (), a musician, and Edward Martin Waller, a Baptist lay preacher and teamster; they originated from rural Virginia but moved to New York after marrying at the age of 16 in the hope of better employment, housing and education prospects. Thomas Waller started playing the piano at the age of six, and later played the reed organ at his father's open-air services. He also studied the double bass and violin, paying for music lessons by working in a grocery store. From an early age he proved adept at playing by ear, and was inspired by hearing Ignacy Jan Paderewski perform at Carnegie Hall. The nickname "Fats" dates from around this time, on account of his being overweight, although during his career he only tended to use it as a stage name.
Waller's mother Adeline developed diabetes, which made her weak; consequently the family moved to an apartment with fewer stairs, in central Harlem. The post-war period saw Harlem become populated with bars and clubs which featured live music, fueling Waller's artistic aspirations. Waller attended DeWitt Clinton High School for a short period of time, but left to pursue his ambition to become a professional musician. He briefly worked polishing jewel boxes and delivering illicit alcoholic drinks during prohibition, with the wages allowing him to afford piano lessons, and at the age of 15 he became an organist at the Lincoln Theatre, where he earned $23 a week. This position allowed him to practice his stagecraft and improvisation.
Edward Waller disapproved of his son's career in music due to his strict religious beliefs, which was a continual source of tension between them. Adeline Waller, who encouraged his aspirations, acted as a mediating influence, but she died on November 10, 1920, from a stroke due to her diabetes. Shortly thereafter Waller moved out to live with a friend, who was acquainted with pianist James P. Johnson, a leading figure of the burgeoning Harlem stride style. Waller met Johnson at the age of 16, and Johnson began to teach him the piano and introduce him to important figures on the Harlem music scene such as Eubie Blake, Willie Gant, Cliff Jackson, Duke Ellington and Willie "the Lion" Smith, bringing him to rent parties where they would perform. Johnson continued to be a friend and mentor throughout Waller's life.
Career Early career
In 1921 Waller was invited to accompany the vaudeville group Liza and Her Shufflin' Six on a tour of the northeast of the U.S., having impressed Liza with his organ playing at the Lincoln Theatre. While in Boston he met Count Basie, who asked for organ lessonsthese took place back in New York, in the Lincoln. After his return Waller played his first rent party, having improved dramatically from practice and his lessons with James P. Johnson, and he continued to perform at these, as well as undertake short-term contracts at nightclubs and cabarets. Waller's steady job at the Lincoln Theatre transferred to the Lafayette Theatre after a change of management.
From early in his career, Waller displayed an aptitude for risqué patter. A song named "The Boy in a Boat" contributed to his popularity on the rent party circuit, and was a veiled reference to clitoral stimulation. The song was later recorded with different lyrics as "Squeeze Me", but retained "A Boy in a Boat" as a subtitle on the 1926 piano roll publication. Waller also showed an inclination to drink large amounts of alcohol from the age of about 17 or 18, a habit which would last the rest of his life.
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 those he wrote during this period, instead selling them outright to publishers or performing them without getting them published.
Recordings Via his friend Clarence Williams, a Tin Pan Alley music publisher, Waller became involved with the new recording label Okeh Records in 1922. 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 late 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".
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', "I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling", "Honeysuckle Rose", and "Black and Blue". To avoid having to pay more in child support to his former wife 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.
The Great Depression caused a sustained slump in record sales, and Waller participated in only six recording sessions between January 1930 and May 1934, as opposed to fifteen during 1929. He turned his attention to developing his radio career from December 1930, when he featured on a new show for CBS playing the piano and, unusually until this point, singing. Joe Davis, who had become Waller's publisher and manager after the sale of his material to Irving Mills, began to market Waller as a singer as well as a pianist, and he recorded the solo songs "I'm Crazy about My Baby" and "Draggin' My Heart Around" on March 31, 1931.
Musical theater
The latter half of the 1920s saw Waller's only involvement in musical theater until he started working on the musical Early to Bed shortly before his death in 1943. In 1926 he composed for two revues with Spencer Williams: Tan Town Topics and Junior Blackbirds, both performed at the Lafayette. The same year Waller performed in productions named Creole Follies (at the Lafayette) and Signor Fats Waller's Lincolnians (at the Lincoln Theatre).
Waller's first highly successful stage endeavor was the revue Keep Shufflin''', which featured the comedians Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles as a follow-on from their 1921 show Shuffle Along. About half of the songs were composed by Waller and Razaf, with the others by Henry Creamer, Clarence Todd and James P. Johnson. The show opened in February 1928 at the Standard Theatre in Philadelphia, before transferring after a two-week run to Daly's 63rd Street Theatre on Broadway, and subsequently the more prestigious Eltinge 42nd Street Theatre in April. After its run there, Waller accompanied the rest of the band on tour until June 1928, at which point he traveled to Philadelphia to take a short-term position as organist at the Royal Grand Theater.
1929 saw the premieres of two further revues: Load of Coal, which featured "Honeysuckle Rose", and Hot Chocolates, which featured "Ain't Misbehavin'", both among Waller's best-known songs. Both revues were performed at Connie's Inn, a nightclub next to the Lafayette where Waller had occasionally performed both as a soloist and with the house band. Hot Chocolates was a success, and moved to the Windsor Theater and then the Hudson Theatre on Broadway, where it ran for 219 performances and received glowing reviews, with "Ain't Misbehavin'" receiving particular praise.
Radio In the early 1930s, 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, a "proper manager" who was experienced in show business 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 adapted his nightclub performance style to radio, including risqué patter, witty asides and comical accents alongside the music. Waller also played for WLW's 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 1934 provided extensive publicity, and led to his own regular show, "The Rhythm Club", as well as regular appearances on other CBS programs.
Fats Waller and His Rhythm