>Thomas "Fats" Waller
b, May 21, 1904, New York, N.Y., USA, d. 1943, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Overview:
"Fats" Waller was a pianist, composer and entertainer. Most of his songs were written in the late 1920's and '30s. Perhaps his most famous compositions are 1929's "Honeysuckle Rose." and "Ain't Misbehavin'" , beautifully played here my Mr. Irwin Schwartz.

Waller had a natural bent toward music from his earliest childhood. His father, an Abyssinian Baptist Clergyman hoped his son would also wear 'the cloth', but Fats had to follow his heart. He played the organ in his father's church, and he had a lifelong love of that instrument, later making jazz recordings on the pipe and Hammond organs, when other jazz musicians shunned the instrument. He won first place in an amateur piano contest. After his graduation from DeWitt Clinton High School, he took a job as organist in a Harlem theater. While there, he often worked with Florence Mills, the negro vocalist. When he was 16, he was working as a pianist in Harlem nightclubs. At age 17, he recorded his first piano rolls, and cut his first records. At age 19, he made his first radio broadcast.

In 1924, at age 20, he began touring the vaudeville circuits; he was playing the organ in motion picture houses; he played in many different jazz bands; he even accompanied the great Bessie Smith, and other blues singers. He made many recordings, distinguishing himself as a virtuoso stride pianist. In 1932, at age 24, he made his first tour of Europe.

Brief Chronology:
1925 His first published song "Squeeze Me", lyric Clarence Williams.
1928 He wrote score for the Broadway musical 'Keep Shufflin'', with J. C. Johnson as his collaborator.
1929 He scored the Broadway musical 'Hot Chocolates'. The show grew out of the original Cotton Club show concept. It boasted a pair of memorable songs:
"Ain't Misbehavin'", with musical collaboration of Harry Brooks and lyric by Andy Razaf.
"What Did I Do To Be So Black and Blue". Very poignant. (Still another hit song for Louis Armstrong.)

Many of Waller's hit songs were written to lyrics by Andy Razaf.
1929 saw many other songs by Waller, including:
"I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling"
"Honeysuckle Rose"
"Blue Turning Gray Over You"
"Zonky"
"My Father, In Your Hands"

In the 1930's, some of Waller's notable songs were:
"It Ain't Love"
"Keepin' Out of Mischief Now"
"Ain'tcha Glad?"
"Doin' What I Please"

Among Waller's instrumental compositions, we find:
"Handful of Keys"
"Viper's Drag", Played here by Irwin Schwartz.
"Minor Drag"
"London Suite"
In 1938, he again played in London, Glasgow and Scandinavia.

In 1943 His last Broadway musical score for 'Early to Bed'. In this same year, Waller died aboard the Atchison, Topeka and Sante Fe, Super Chief train, on his way back from Hollywood. He went to sleep in his compartment, and the next morning, when he didn't answer the knock, his manager called the pullman porter, who unlocked the door. Waller had died in his sleep during the night.

The Broadway musical 'Ain't Misbehavin'' celebrated the music Waller wrote and sang during his days in the Harlem of the late twenties and thirties. The show won the Tony Award for the year's best musical for 1978. Waller was elected to the Songwriters' Hall of Fame.

       Guy Warrack
b: 1900, d: 1986
Currently no information available for this British Composer.
Among his film credits are:
A Defeated People (1945)
Theirs is the Glory (1946)
The Story of Time (1949)
The official film of the 1953 Coronation

       Oliver Wallace
b. August 6, 1887, d. September 15, 1963
Here's a photograph of        Oliver G. Wallace, who composed music for the majority of the classic Disney cartoons. In 1942, he was awarded an OSCAR for best music and scoring of the Disney film 'Dumbo'. In addition, he e was also nominated three times for academy awards; in 1944 for his music and scoring for the film 'Victory Through Air Power', and in 1951 and 1952 for music scoring for film Cinderella.

He wrote the music for the song "Louisiana", with lyric by Arthur Freed. But, Wallace will probably always be remembered for his 1917 Lyric to the song "Hindustan", (music by        Harold Weeks). The song was reprised again in 2001 on one episode of the Nero Wolfe Mysterys on TV.

Little recalled now, is the rather interesting sidelight that in addition to co-writing songs such as "Louisiana" and "Hindustan", Oliver Wallace also wrote "Der Fuerher's Face", in 1942. It was an anti-Nazi song, and was used in the cartoon Donald Duck in Nutsy Land (Nazi/Nutsy!). This tune was a huge hit recording for Spike Jones and His City Slickers.