{"id":1719,"date":"2025-01-10T20:09:56","date_gmt":"2025-01-11T01:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/?p=1719"},"modified":"2025-01-10T20:09:56","modified_gmt":"2025-01-11T01:09:56","slug":"fats-wallers-first-vocal-recording-session-1931","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/2025\/01\/10\/fats-wallers-first-vocal-recording-session-1931\/","title":{"rendered":"Fats Waller’s First Vocal Recording Session – 1931"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Columbia<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Dallas Blues”
\nTed Lewis And His Band; Thomas “Fats” Waller, vocal & piano
\n(Columbia 2527 D mx 151397)\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 March 6, 1931<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Royal Garden Blues”
\nTed Lewis And His Band; Thomas “Fats” Waller, vocal & piano
\n(Columbia 2527 D mx 151398)\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 March 6, 1931<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Ted-Lewis-And-His-Band-Royal-Garden-Blues.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

From the Edward Michell collection<\/a>, here are two recordings from a historic 1931 recording session that I played on the recent Radio Dismuke New Year’s broadcast, and which are being added to the station’s playlist.<\/p>\n

This recording session with Ted Lewis<\/a> and His Band is historic because it marked Thomas “Fats” Waller’s<\/a> first appearance on records as a vocalist.\u00a0 The only mention of Waller on the record labels from that session was the description “fox trot vocal refrain” – a common practice for dance band recordings of that era.<\/p>\n

This was by no means Waller’s first recording session. Since 1922, he had made dozens of records for OKeh, Victor, and Columbia as a piano and pipe organ soloist.\u00a0 In December 1929, Waller provided comedic dialogue while Clarence Williams sang the vocal on The Seven Gallon Jug Band’s recording of “Wipe ‘Em Off” for Columbia.\u00a0 \u00a0And Waller was already internationally famous as the composer of songs such as “Ain’t Misbehavin” and “Honeysuckle Rose.”<\/span><\/p>\n

With the onset of the Great Depression and slowing record sales, Waller became concerned as opportunities for recording sessions suddenly dried up, and he consulted his publisher and agent, Joe Davis<\/a>.\u00a0 Pointing out that there was only a limited market for piano solo recordings, Davis suggested that Waller broaden their appeal by singing on such records.\u00a0 Waller scoffed at the idea, feeling that his voice was not good enough to be on records.<\/p>\n

In late 1930, Waller accepted a job as the organist on a new 13-week pilot radio program on CBS, Paramount On Parade<\/em>.\u00a0 On the radio, he was not able to incorporate the outrageous facial expressions that were a successful part of his in-person performances.\u00a0 To compensate, he began to sing in a manner intended to achieve the same comedic effect.\u00a0 It was an immediate success; the program became so popular its timeslot was expanded from 15 minutes to 30 minutes, and its contract was renewed for an additional 13 weeks.<\/p>\n

Joe Davis seized upon the radio success of Waller’s vocals to secure some recording sessions for him.\u00a0 He first approached management at the top-selling label, Victor, who expressed no interest in having Fats Waller sing.\u00a0 He then persuaded the popular music director at the number two label, Columbia, to listen in on Paramount On Parade<\/em>.\u00a0 Impressed with what he heard, the director saw that the next recording session on Columbia’s schedule was with the Ted Lewis band and successfully persuaded Lewis to include Waller.<\/p>\n

The two-day recording session on March 5 and 6, 1931, resulted in four sides.\u00a0 Among the musicians in Lewis’s band were Benny Goodman<\/a> on clarinet, Mugsy Spanier<\/a> on trumpet, and Bud Freeman<\/a> on tenor sax.<\/p>\n

One of those sides, “Egyptian Ella,” recorded March 5, in which Waller did not participate, eventually became one of Lewis’ better-remembered recordings.<\/p>\n

That same day, Waller performed piano and vocal on one of his own compositions, “I’m Crazy ‘Bout My Baby (And My Baby’s Crazy ‘Bout Me).”\u00a0 The following day, Waller performed on both of the recordings featured here.<\/p>\n

Fats Waller’s son, Maurice, later wrote that Ted Lewis was somewhat annoyed at being asked to include Waller in the session, fearing he might be upstaged.\u00a0 During Waller’s piano solo in “Dallas Blues,” Lewis provides a bit of brief vocal patter followed by his trademark expressions “Is Everybody Happy?” and “Yes sir!”\u00a0 \u00a0According to Maurice Waller,\u00a0 this was not planned and was entirely spontaneous on Lewis’s part.\u00a0 (To be fair, it should be pointed out that it was not uncommon for Lewis to provide similar comments during his own musician’s jazz solo passages.).<\/p>\n

Columbia was sufficiently pleased that they invited Waller back a week later to make two additional vocal recordings, accompanying himself on piano.<\/p>\n

Victor executives eventually changed their mind about having Fats Waller perform vocals as he later sang on well over 200 sides cut by Victor between 1934 and 1942.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Waller’s unique vocal recordings not only made him one of the top musical stars of the era but also helped him gain greater recognition as one of the great jazz pianists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  “Dallas Blues” Ted Lewis And His Band; Thomas “Fats” Waller, vocal & piano (Columbia 2527 D mx 151397)\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 March 6, 1931   “Royal Garden Blues” Ted Lewis And His Band; Thomas “Fats” Waller, vocal & … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1720,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":100,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1719"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1730,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1719\/revisions\/1730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}