Harry Van Walls

Van "Piano Man" Walls, R&B piano player. House pianist at Atlantic.

Born : August 24, 1918 in Middlesboro, Kentucky.
Died : February 24, 1999 in Charleston, West Virginia.

Walls grew up around piano as his mother was a piano instructor. Once a teen, Walls left home and hit the road with traveling carnivals and circuses.
In his mid-20s, he returned to Charleston to work in local clubs and on-air at WCHS-AM. In the early 1940s, he played first with Cal Greer then a combo he assembled himself in Columbus, Ohio. After taking the Atlantic staff position in 1949, Walls would play behind hitmakers Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, The Clovers and The Drifters while releasing some solo material as well. In 1954, Walls joined The Nite Riders. Matrimony in the early 1960s led to a move to Canada and formation of a new band. He remained active on the Canadian circuit through the 1970s particularly in Quebec Province.

After a decade of inactivity, a concert May 18, 1990 in Brooklyn Heights, New York, with his former student Dr. John would reinvigorate his touring schedule with the pair gigging together again at that year's Montreal International Jazz Festival.

He would go on to play at numerous other jazz and blues festivals over the rest of the decade. In 1997, Walls’s final CD was released and the man himself received a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. He would die two years later of cancer.

A 2013 documentary Vann “Piano Man” Walls: The Spirit of R&B and a 2015 induction to the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame would honor his legacy.