{{short description|American American jazz pianist and bandleader (1906–1967)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=December 2019}} {{Infobox musical artist | name = Fats Pichon | image = FatsPichonLP.jpg | caption = Fats Pichon playing at the Old Absinthe House, 1950s | image_size = | background = solo_singer | birth_name = Walter Gabriel Pichon | alias = | birth_place = New Orleans, Louisiana, United States | birth_date = {{birth date|1906|4|3}} | death_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1967|2|25|1906|4|3}} | origin = | instrument = Vocals, piano | genre = Jazz | occupation = Singer, pianist | years_active = | label = | associated_acts = | website = | current_members = | past_members = }}
'''Walter Gabriel Pichon''' (April 3, 1906<!-- his given birthyear; may have been somewhat older --> – February 25, 1967)<ref name="bare">{{cite book| first1= Bob| last1= Eagle| first2= Eric S.| last2= LeBlanc| year= 2013| title= Blues – A Regional Experience| publisher= Praeger Publishers| location= Santa Barbara| pages=169 | isbn= 978-0313344237}}</ref> professionally known as '''Fats Pichon''', was an American jazz pianist, singer, bandleader, and songwriter.
==Biography== Pichon was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, and began playing piano in his childhood. He also played baritone horn in brass bands in his youth, already a professional musician by 1920.
He first went north about 1922, playing at various venues in New York City and New Jersey before settling in Boston for a few years where he studied at the New England Conservatory of Music.<ref name="AMG">{{Cite web|url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/walter-fats-pichon-mn0001217277|title=Walter "Fats" Pichon | Biography & History|website=AllMusic|access-date=March 10, 2021}}</ref> After touring the United States and Mexico with various bands in the mid-1920s, he settled again in his hometown of New Orleans for the later part of the decade, leading bands under his own name at dance halls and on river boats on the Mississippi River.<ref name="AMG"/> On visits back to New York he made some recordings, mostly as a vocalist on novelty numbers, with Luis Russell and other New Orleans groups.<ref name="LarkinBlues">{{cite book|title=The Guinness Who's Who of Blues|editor=Colin Larkin|publisher=Guinness Publishing|date=1995|edition=Second|isbn=0-85112-673-1|pages=292/3}}</ref>
In the 1930s, Fats Pichon led what some considered the best big band in New Orleans; it also made Mississippi Riverboat excursions. Musicians included young Dave Bartholomew. This band never recorded. In the 1940s he began a long gig as the house pianist at ''The Old Absinthe House'', a popular venue on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter, where he remained until about 1960,<ref name="LarkinBlues"/> with occasional tours of other parts of the U.S., Latin America, and the Caribbean. Pichon moved into the role of Eddie the Waiter, replacing comedian Eddie Green on the NBC weekly radio comedy ''Duffy's Tavern'' during the show's last season, 1950–1951. After several episodes the waiter's name was changed from 'Eddie' to 'Fats'.
He died in Chicago in 1967, aged 60.<ref name="bare"/>
==See also== *Lionel Ferbos
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.answers.com/topic/fats-pichon Answers]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pichon, Fats}} Category:1967 deaths Category:Jazz musicians from New Orleans Category:African-American pianists Category:American jazz bandleaders Category:American jazz pianists Category:American male jazz pianists Category:American jazz singers Category:Louisiana Creole people Category:1906 births Category:20th-century African-American male singers Category:20th-century American male singers Category:20th-century American singers Category:20th-century American pianists Category:Singers from Louisiana Category:20th-century American male pianists