Rock 'n' roll great Fats Domino, 89, has reportedly died. He was known for his boogie-woogie style of piano playing and for his exuberant personality. A great man who was loved by everybody and for whom nobody ever had a bad word to say.
Domino, born Antoine Domino, made headlines in recent years when his New Orleans home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and the resulting flooding. He and his longtime wife Rosemary were rescued. They had eight children altogether. He was married to her for around sixty years (not "over 50 years" as some reports have it since the pair were married in 1948), until her death in 2008, and he remarried. All eight of their children's first names began with the letter "A," no doubt in honor of their dad.
Fats Domino, one of the architects of rock 'n' roll, died yesterday at 89 years old at his daughter's suburban New Orleans home. Haydee Ellis, a family friend, confirmed the news to NPR. Mark Bone, chief investigator for the Jefferson Parish Coroner's office, tells NPR Domino died of natural causes.
In the 1940s, Antoine Domino, Jr. was working at a mattress factory in New Orleans and playing piano at night. Both his waistline and his fanbase were expanding. That's when a bandleader began calling him "Fats." From there, it was a cakewalk to his first million-selling record — "The Fat Man." It was Domino's first release for Imperial Records, which signed him right off the bandstand.
Producer, songwriter, arranger and bandleader Dave Bartholomew was there. He described the scene in a 1981 interview now housed at the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University. "Fats was rocking the joint," Bartholomew said. "And he was sweating and playing, he'd put his whole heart and soul in what he was going, and the people was crazy about him — so that was it. We made our first record, 'The Fat Man,' and we never turned around."
Fats sold millions of records, not bad for somebody with just a fourth-grade education, but most of those were regional sales during his peak years. Still, his influence on popular music was enormous, like Chuck Berry's, the latter who died earlier this year. Unlike Berry, Domino had a scandal-free life.
Here is a live performance of one of his biggest hits, "Blue Monday":
He always wore flashy jewelry, especially the watches, which had to have cost him a king's ransom.
I never got to see him perform, but he did perform in northern Nevada a number of times over the years.
He continued to work well into old age.
New York Times:
In 1952, on a chance visit to Cosimo Matassa’s recording studio in New Orleans, Mr. Domino was asked to help out on a recording by a nervous teenager named Lloyd Price. Sitting in with Mr. Bartholomew’s band, he came up with the memorable piano part for “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” one of the first rhythm-and-blues records to cross over to a pop audience
Through the early 1950s Mr. Domino turned out a stream of hits, taking up what seemed like permanent residence in the upper reaches of the R&B charts. His records began reaching the pop charts as well.
In that racially segregated era, white performers used his hits to build their careers. In 1955, “Ain’t It a Shame” became a No. 1 hit for Pat Boone as “Ain’t That a Shame,” while Domino’s arrangement of a traditional song, “Bo Weevil,” was imitated by Teresa Brewer.
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