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Thomas (Fats) Waller
1938
Basic Information
Born: May 21, 1904, Waverly, New York (US)
Died: December 15, 1943 (age 39) on a train near Kansas City, MO
Primary songwriting role: composer; also pianist and organist
Gary Marmorstein in his book Hollywood Rhapsody compares the screen presence of Waller, who appeared in only one major film, to that of Louis Armstrong. Waller, writes Marmorstein, "locked a movie camera in a love-grip and didn't let go. Few men of such girth have exuded such sexiness, a growling, mocking eyebrow-bouncing sensuality that was ripe for the movies. Had Waller lived longer -- he died just months after the release of Stormy Weather, at thirty-nine -- he might have used the movies, or let the movies use him, in new musical ways."
Fats Waller and Ada Brown perform "That Ain't Right" (Nat 'King' Cole & Irving Mills),
with drummer Zutty Singleton, bassist Slam Stewart, and trumpeter and Benny Carter
in Stormy Weather (1943)
Fats Wallerresearch resources in print (listed chronologically):
Arnold Shaw, 52nd Street: The Street Of Jazz,Da Capo Press (reprint of The Street That Never Slept, 1971) -- multiple and extended comments on Waller.
Maurice Waller and Anthony Calabrese. Fats Waller. New York: Schirmer Books, 1977
ASCAP Biographical Dictionary, New York: American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Cattell/Bowker, Fourth edition, 1980 (dates, collaborators, shows/movies, songs, etc., entry p. 526).
David Ewen. American Songwriters, An H. W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1987 (includes 146 bios of composers and lyricists). -- a wide selection of used copies is available at abebooks.com (entry pp. 413-417).
The Oxford Companion to Jazz, Ed. by Bill Kirchner, Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press: 2000 (multiple and extended references to Waller and his songs).
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Cafe Songbook
Master List of Great American Songbook Songwriters
Names of songwriters who have written at least one song included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook are listed below.
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(1943) 
Da Capo Press (reprint of The Street That Never Slept, 1971) -- multiple and extended comments on Waller.
, An H. W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1987 (includes 146 bios of composers and lyricists). -- a wide selection of used copies is available at 
, Continuum: 2005.
New York: Routledge, 2006 (multiple references to Waller).
, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012 (multiple and extended references to Waller and his songs).