Description
2cd's in longbox + 20 page booklet
Artist
American jazz pianist, organist, composer and comedic entertainer (born 21 May 1904 in Harlem, New York, USA - died 15 December 1943 in a Santa-Fé-Express near Kansas City, Missouri, USA (bronchial pneumonia).
Note: Credits that either are the real surname alone (or misspellings thereof) or include the real forename (or its initial) belong to the real name profile Thomas Waller.
One of the most popular jazz performers of his era.
Thomas Wright Waller was the youngest of four children born to Adaline Locket Waller and the Reverend Edward Martin Waller. He started playing the piano when he was six and graduated to the organ of his father's church four years later. At the age of fourteen he was playing the organ at Harlem's Lincoln Theater and within twelve months he had composed his first rag. Waller's first piano solos ("Muscle Shoals Blues" and "Birmingham Blues") were recorded on October 1922 in Race Records when he was 18 years old.
He was the prize pupil, and later friend and colleague, of stride pianist James P. Johnson. Fats Waller was the son of a preacher and learned to play the organ in church with his mother. Overcoming opposition from his clergyman father, Waller became a professional pianist at 15, working in cabarets and theaters. In 1918 he won a talent contest playing Johnson's "Carolina Shout", a song he learned from watching a player piano play it.
Waller contracted pneumonia and died on a cross country train trip near Kansas City, Missouri on December 15, 1943, after making a final recording session with an interracial group in Detroit that included white trumpeter Don Hirleman. He was on his way back to Hollywood for more film work, after the smash success of "Stormy Weather". Coincidentally, as the train with the body of Waller stopped in Kansas City, so stopped a train with his dear friend Louis Armstrong on board.
Thomas "Fats" Waller was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.
Tracks
1-1
Muscle Shoals Blues
1-2
Birmingham Blues
1-3
St. Louis Blues
1-4
Blue Black Bottom
1-5
Sugar (Instr.)
1-6
Fats Waller Stomp
1-7
Thou Swell
1-8
Handful Of Keys
1-9
The Minor Drag
1-10
Harlem Fuss
1-11
Ain't Misbehavin'
1-12
Gladyse
1-13
I Need Someone Like You
1-14
Turn On The Heat
1-15
Ridin' But Walkin'
1-16
After You've Gone
1-17
I'm Crazy 'bout My Baby (And My Baby's Crazy 'bout Me)
1-18
Royal Garden Blues
1-19
Draggin' My Heart Around
1-20
Do Me A Favour
1-21
Georgia May
1-22
Sweetie Pie
1-23
You're Not The Only Oyster In The Stew
1-24
Alligator Crawl
2-1
Viper's Drag
2-2
You Fit Into The Picture
2-3
I Ain't Got Nobody (And Nobody Cares For Me) (Vocal)
2-4
Rosetta (Vocal)
2-5
Lulu's Back In Town
2-6
I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter
2-7
Dinah
2-8
12th Street Rag
2-9
Sweet Sue, Just You
2-10
Sugar Blues
2-11
Rhythm And Romance
2-12
I've Got My Fingers Crossed
2-13
Sugar Rose
2-14
It's A Sin To Tell A Lie
2-15
You're Not The Kind
2-16
Fractious Fingering
2-17
Honeysuckle Rose
2-18
Blues
2-19
Blue, Turning Grey Over You
2-20
Keepin' Out Of Mischief Now
2-21
Stardust
2-22
Basin Street Blues
2-23
Tea For Two
2-24
I Ain't Got Nobody
