Jim Crow laws segregated Domino's audiences sometimes with only a rope. In the 1950s, the birth of rock 'n' roll was hard labor. THOMPKINS: "Blue Monday" had other levels of meaning in Domino's career. "Blueberry Hill" may have been Domino's biggest hit, but Bartholomew wrote Domino's favorite.ĭOMINO: (Singing) Blue Monday - how I hate Blue Monday - got to work like a slave all day. He and engineer Cosimo Matassa perfected a rhythm-heavy sound in Matassa's studio that was the envy of rock 'n' roll. THOMPKINS: And then there was producer and arranger Dave Bartholomew. Everybody knows that.ĭOMINO: (Singing) On Blueberry Hill, on Blueberry Hill when I found you. And that's really the famous Fats Domino groove, you know? (Playing piano, singing) I found my thrill. JON CLEARY: The triplets thing - this little pattern (playing piano) - that was one of the building blocks of New Orleans R&B. Jon Cleary is a piano player who's devoted most of his life to the New Orleans sound. And he made piano triplets ubiquitous in rock 'n' roll. THOMPKINS: So how does a black man with a fourth grade education in the Jim Crow South, the child of Haitian Creole plantation workers and the grandson of a slave sell more than 65 million records? Domino could wah-wah-wah (ph) and woo-hoo (ph) like nobody else in the whole wide world. But Presley cited Domino as the early master.ĭOMINO: (Singing) When whip-poor-wills calls and evening is nigh, I hurry to my blue heaven. Only Elvis Presley moved more records during that stretch. THOMPKINS: He outsold Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly combined. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'M GONNA BE A WHEEL SOMEDAY")ĭOMINO: (Singing) I'm going to be a wheel someday. THOMPKINS: Between 19, Fats Domino hit the R&B charts a reported 59 times and the pop charts a rollicking 63 times. And we made our first record, "The Fat Man," and we never turned around. And people was crazy about him, and so that was it. He'd put his whole heart and soul in what he was doing.
Fat dominos fooseball archive#
He described the scene in a 1981 interview now housed at the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University.ĭAVE BARTHOLOMEW: Fats was rocking the joint. THOMPKINS: "The Fat Man" was Domino's first release for Imperial Records, which signed him right off the bandstand. All the girls - they love me 'cause I know my way around. From there, it was a cakewalk to his first million-selling record.įATS DOMINO: (Singing) They call me the fat man because I weigh 200 pounds.
That's when a bandleader began calling him Fats. THOMPKINS: Both his waistline and his fan base were expanding. (SOUNDBITE OF FATS DOMINO SONG, "THE FAT MAN")
was working at a mattress factory in New Orleans and playing piano at night. GWEN THOMPKINS, BYLINE: In the 1940s, Antoine Domino Jr. Fats Domino died in his sleep yesterday of natural causes. Elvis Presley tipped his hat to Domino, as did hundreds of others who followed in his footsteps. Fats Domino took the rhythms of New Orleans and used them to help build the foundation of rock 'n' roll.
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