"Louisiana Fairy Tale" (or "Louisiana Fairytale") is a song written in 1935 by Haven Gillespie, with lyrics by Mitchell Parish and J. Fred Coots, and was originally popularized by

Fats Waller Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, violinist, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid much of the basis for modern jazz pi ...

. Waller's version opens with him playing a four-bar solo piano lead-in to a

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

melody backed by

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, guitar, clarinet, trumpet and piano. A muted trumpet bridge precedes Waller's vocal verses, and a Dixieland-style improvisational instrumental jam closes the recording. The instrumental introduction (32 bars featuring clarinet and the trumpet bridge) was used as the theme for the PBS television series '' This Old House'' from 1979 to 2002. In 1990,

Librarian of Congress The Librarian of Congress is the head of the Library of Congress, appointed by the president of the United States with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, for a term of ten years. In addition to overseeing the library, the Libra ...

James H. Billington presented Louisiana congresswoman Lindy Boggs with "three gifts" from the collection of the Library of Congress, including "a facsimile of sheet music for a 1935 piece, 'Louisiana Fairy Tale,' accompanied by a cassette of the music with Fats Waller on piano and vocal". In 2010, the song was part of a mid-week New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival event with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and My Morning Jacket, where the entire piece was performed acoustically and without the use of electricity. The song has been performed by many artists, including

Tom Sancton Thomas Alexander Sancton (a.k.a. Tom, Tommy) is an American writer, jazz clarinetist and educator. From 1992 to 2001 he was Paris bureau chief for ''TIME Magazine'', where he worked for 22 years, and he has contributed to numerous publications in ...

References

External links

Louisiana Digital Library recording of Fats Waller performing "Louisiana Fairy Tale"
{{authority control 1935 songs 1930s jazz standards Fats Waller albums Songs with lyrics by Mitchell Parish Television theme songs