Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,769

This is the grave of Fats Domino.

Born in 1928 in New Orleans, Antoine Domino, Jr. grew up in the French-speaking Catholic Creole world of Louisiana. In fact, his first language was French. His family had only just moved to New Orleans from rural Louisiana, settling in the Ninth Ward. Like most residents of that ward, his parents were working class, getting whatever jobs they could find in that segregated world. His father worked at the racetrack, while also playing violin in various bands. So that’s the world of Domino. Music was in the family. His older sister had married Harrison Verrett, the early R&B banjo and guitar player but who also played piano, who started teaching the latter to Domino when the latter was 10.

Domino was already playing in bars by 1942 and in 1947, was asked to join Billy Diamond and the Solid Senders. It was Diamond who nicknamed him Fats and it fit as he was not a slender man. It didn’t take long though for Domino to rise out of being someone’s pianist. In 1949, Lew Chudd signed him to Imperial Records. Rather than the normal contract of being paid by the song, it paid by the sales. Domino was already creating something that could be defined as rock and roll, taking those R&B beats and ramping them up considerably. In 1949, he and the producer and bandleader Dave Bartholomew took an old heroin song called “Junkie Blues” and rewrote it as a more lyrically tamed song called “The Fat Man” that used some of these new piano techniques that Domino had created. The song sold like gangbusters and by 1951 and sold over one million copies. This is widely considered the first rock and roll hit, though there are other songs that could have a claim, depending on how you define the genre.

For the next few years, Domino kept churning out songs, usually his own but sometimes playing piano on his friends songs, and many of them were regional hits. But when he recorded “Ain’t That a Shame” in 1955, it reached a whole other level, hitting the top 10 of the pop charts, as well as #1 on the R&B charts. Pat Boone immediately stole it for his own career; the fact that Boone is the last living person in that early rock scene is outrageous. But Domino’s copy itself sold over a million copies. Music was changing fast now and Domino was leading the charge. That led to an album, compiling a bunch of his previous less known hits, Rock and Rollin with Fats Domino, released in 1956.

That same year, Domino recorded “Blueberry Hill,” one of the great all-time songs. It was written in 1940 and tons of people had already recorded it, including Glenn Miller, Gene Autry, and Louis Armstrong, but it was definitely Fats’ song after that. And really everything Domino did through 1959 was just magic. “Blueberry Hill” topped the R&B charts for 11 weeks. It sold 5 million copies by the end of 1957. Shortly after came “I’m Walkin’,” “Valley of Tears,” “Whole Lotta Lovin’,” “I Want to Walk You Home,” “Be My Guest,” and just so many more.

Of course Fats Domino being a Black guy selling record to white girls freaked the authorities out. In 1956, Domino played a show in Fayetteville, North Carolina. There was a riot that forced Domino to jump out a window while the cops lobbed tear gas. For the authorities, this was Satan incarnate. First, people voluntarily engaged in racial mixing to see Domino. Then there was alcohol. And dancing. DANCING! This rock and roll had to be destroyed! The reaction to early rock and roll is insane, but honestly, you see the exact same reaction through the 20th century to new forms of Black music reaching white ears, from ragtime to hip hop. Every generation has its Tipper Gore.

It’s almost impossible to overstate Domino’s influence on the history of rock and roll. He was a terrible self-promoter really. Personally, he was a very shy man. But his music spoke so loud. Among those more than happy to tell you about how much they owed him was Elvis Presley, who was in absolute awe of a real hero when they met in 1959. Of course, everyone else was influenced by him as well. Time for a bit of an aside. In part because the 60s generation still controls so much of American culture, everything still refers back to that very long time ago. But in the 60s, things were changing so fast that the music one heard from just a few years ago could be transformed into something entirely new, which is what bands such as the Beatles and the Who and the Rolling Stones did when they heard Fats Domino as well. Of course the British bands were pretty open about their heroes from the Black South (though in the case of Led Zeppelin, just openly ripping them off). So they were happy to talk to their fans about Fats or James Brown or the blues legends or anyone else.

Alas, the good times did not last forever for Domino. The music changed so fast. He stayed with Imperial Records until it folded in 1963. He still had some hits through that time, most notably “Walking to New Orleans,” in 1962. He signed with ABC-Paramount after that. Although he recorded consistently until 1970, nothing was a hit anymore. He became a nostalgia act early, including appearing on a Monkees TV special. Still Ike & Tina had him open for them at Carnegie Hall in 1971. They knew what was up.

Overall, Domino sold about 110 million records in his career, so let’s not feel too bad that he didn’t have big hits after the early 60s. He refused to tour after 1995, deciding that he didn’t like food outside of New Orleans. And the thing was that since he had his per-song royalties, he was ripped off a lot less than most musicians of that period and he simply didn’t have to tour. He had big time royalty payments. In fact, when Bill Clinton asked him to perform at the White House in 1998, when the Big Dog was going to present the great musician with a National Medal of the Arts, Domino refused to go. That’s cool, why leave paradise if that’s your paradise?

Not surprisingly, Domino was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its very first class, in 1986.

Late in life, Domino had it rough. He was a man of the Lower Ninth Ward and he lost his house to Hurricane Katrina. He did not evacuate because of his sickly aging wife and nearly died. He lost everything. All his memorabilia was gone. Some stuff could be replaced–another gold record could be pressed. George W. Bush had his National Medal of Arts granted by Bill Clinton replaced. But still. Now my favorite bit of trivia in this entire grave series–who rescued Domino from his house? JaMarcus Russell, soon to be the greatest bust in NFL history! Russell, then the QB at LSU, was dating Domino’s granddaughter at the time.

Domino showed up occasionally late in life, including in an episode of Treme in 2012. He died in 2017, at the age of 89.

Let’s listen to some Fats Domino:

Fats Domino is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana.

If you would like this series to visit other members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Elvis Presley is in Memphis and Chuck Berry is in St. Louis. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.