7 The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time 7

recording sessions. He was the first person inducted into

the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Fletcher Henderson

(b. Dec. 18, 1897, Cuthbert, Ga., U.S.—d. Dec. 29, 1952, New York, N.Y.)

F

letcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr., (born James Fletcher

Henderson) was an American musical arranger, band-

leader, and pianist who was a leading pioneer in the sound,

style, and instrumentation of big band jazz.

Henderson was born into a middle-class family; his

father was a school principal and his mother a teacher. He

changed his name (James was his grandfather’s name,

Fletcher Hamilton his father’s) in 1916 when he entered

Atlanta University, from which he graduated as a chem-

istry and math major. In 1920 he moved to New York,

intending to work as a chemist while pursuing a graduate

degree. Although he found a part-time laboratory job, he

immediately began getting work as a pianist. Within

months he was a full-time musician, and he began working

for W.C. Handy’s music publishing company as a song

plugger (i.e., promoting songs to performers). In 1921 he

took a position as musical factotum for Black Swan

records, the first black-owned recording company, for

which he organized small bands to provide backing for

such singers as Ethel Waters. He played piano for leading

black singers on more than 150 records between 1921 and

1923 and then began a full-time career as a bandleader.

Although Henderson had shown an interest in music

from childhood, when his mother taught him piano, he

knew little about jazz until he was in his 20s. His orchestra,

made up of well-established New York musicians, at first

played standard dance-band fare, with occasional ragtime

and jazz inflections. The band became more jazz-oriented