The Jazz Organ Scene

USA

Winston Walls Winston Walls was born on October 17, 1942 in Charleston, West Virginia, died February 5, 2008 in Fort meyers, Florida). He died from congestive heart failure and diabetes. His father was pianist Harry Van Walls.   Winston began playing piano, organ, and drums when he was 12 and his professional career started here in the mid 1950's when he was 14 or 15. He left here in the early 60's and went on the road as Bill Doggett's drummer. By 1962 he was touring this region of the United States as a Jazz organist.   Winston lived in many other cities from the 1960's onward (such as Cleveland, Ohio, Indianapolis, Indiana, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky, Denver, Colorado, Hartford, Connecticut, Boston, Massachusetts, Toronto, Canada, Montreal, Canada, and Fort Myers, Florida) but he always came home to Charleston every year or two and played a few shows for his hometown fans. He also played regular gigs every year in many other major cities throughout the U.S. and Canada. So he was well known in certain cities but was not well known to the Jazz world as a whole.   One factor that also contributed greatly to his not being more well known was Winston's refusal to record (in spite of many offers) for the first 30 years of his career. He finally agreed to cut the one album (CD) in 1993 (which was released in 1994) but then he did not release anything else after that. So he was not well known to the entire Jazz world but he was a legend among musicians in the U.S. And he was close friends with Jack McDuff, Groove Holmes, Jimmy McGriff, George Benson, Bobby Watley, Lou Donaldson, and many others.

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