Songs From The Heart 95 members · 445 stories
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(T: Fats Domino's Ed Sullivan Show performance, c. 1956. B: His home during Hurricane Katrina, with words that could be said more accurately now than then.)
(Partly sourced from Both Sides Now Publications) - Antoine Dominique Domino Jr., or shall we say Fats Domino, died Tuesday at his home in Harvey, Louisiana, at the age of 89, from natural causes, according to the coroner's office. He was an American pianist and singer-songwriter of Louisiana Creole descent. Domino's large persona, dance hall piano playing, and tales of love and home made him Elvis Presley's top rival. By the end of his career, Domino was credited with selling more records than any other 1950s rock and roll act except Presley.

It was in 1947 when he was discovered by an ambitious white producer named Lew Chudd, who fronted a label called Imperial Records, who was getting into rhythm and blues production, particularly that of R&B artists from New Orleans, which had been largely ignored by the major record companies (Columbia, RCA Victor, Decca, Capitol, MGM, Mercury) of the time. In 1949 he recorded a song called "The Fat Man" which became an R&B hit in early 1950. Fats Domino was the most important artist on Imperial, bringing to the company a impressive string of hits from 1950 until 1963. His earliest records were sold in the "race record" market, but it was "Ain't That a Shame" in 1955 that brought the singer to national attention. That year, Domino was said to be earning $10,000 a week while touring, according to a report in the memoir of fellow rock-and-roll-pioneering artist Chuck Berry. He then made further hits, including "I'm in Love Again", "Blueberry Hill", "Blue Monday", "Whole Lotta Loving", "I Want to Walk You Home", and another signature song of his, "Walking to New Orleans". He appeared in such films as Shake, Rattle & Rock! (RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video 60913) and The Girl Can't Help It (CBS/Fox Video 1386).

On November 2, 1956, a riot broke out at a Domino concert in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The police used tear gas to break up the unruly crowd. Domino jumped out a window to avoid the melee; he and two members of his band were slightly injured. At his prime, there were four major riots that occurred at his concerts. According to his biographer Rick Coleman, this was owed not only to the concerts being integrated, "but also the fact they had alcohol at these shows. So they were mixing alcohol, plus dancing, plus the races together for the first time in a lot of these places."

In 1963, he exited Imperial, saying later in life that "I stuck with them until they sold out" to Liberty Records in 1963 (both labels were folded into United Artists Records, then EMI and ultimately into UMG's Capitol Music Group). He joined ABC-Paramount Records, with a dictation that he record in Nashville rather than New Orleans, with producer Felton Jarvis and arranger Bill Justis. Mr. Domino had not had a major hit since "Let the Four Winds Blow" in 1961, and he continued his chart slide at ABC, having one last crack at the top-40 in 1963 with a rendition of the pop standard "Red Sails in the Sunset."

Mr. Domino was one of the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, the year before he received the Lifetime Achievement Grammy award. He made yearly appearances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and other local events. He last toured in 1995, going for a European vacation. After being ill while on tour, Mr. Domino decided he would no longer leave the New Orleans area, having a comfortable income from royalty payments and a dislike of touring and claiming that New Orleans was the only place where he could get the only food that he liked. In 1998 President Clinton awarded him the National Medal of Arts but he declined an invitation to perform at the White House. In January 2016, he was inducted into Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame along with Dionne Warwick, Cathy Hughes, Smokey Robinson, Prince, and the Supremes. He had received the Rhythm & Blues Foundation’s Ray Charles Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. His song “The Fat Man” entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015.

Some of his last decades were spent in a mansion in a predominantly working-class neighborhood in the Lower Ninth Ward, where he was a familiar sight in his bright pink Cadillac automobile.

As Hurricane Katrina approached New Orleans in August 2005, Domino chose to stay at home with his family, partly because his wife, Rosemary, was in poor health. The house in which he lived was in a heavily flooded area, and thinking that he died in the hurricane because of that, someone spraypainted on his home the words "RIP Fats. You will be missed". On September 1, the talent agent Al Embry announced that he had not heard from Mr. Domino since before the hurricane struck. Later that day, CNN reported that Domino had been rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter. Until then, even family members had not heard from him since before the storm. Mr. Embry confirmed he and his family were rescued. The family was then taken to a shelter in Baton Rouge, after which they were picked up by JaMarcus Russell, the starting quarterback of the Louisiana State University football team, and the boyfriend of Mr. Domino's granddaughter. He let the family stay in his apartment. The Washington Post reported that on September 2, they had left Russell's apartment after sleeping three nights on the couch. Domino told the Post, "we've lost everything". By January 2006, work to gut and repair Domino's home and office had begun. In the meantime, the Domino family resided in Harvey, Louisiana, where he spent his last years. President Bush made a personal visit and replaced the National Medal of Arts that President Bill Clinton had previously awarded Domino. The gold records were replaced by the RIAA and Capitol Records, which owned the Imperial Records catalogue.

Rock critic Robert Christgau reflected on his impact on music in the 1950s:

Warm and unthreatening even by the intensely congenial standards of New Orleans, he's remembered with fond condescension as significantly less innovative than his uncommercial compatriots Professor Longhair and James Booker. But though his bouncy boogie-woogie piano and easy Creole gait were generically Ninth Ward, they defined a pop-friendly second-line beat that nobody knew was there before he and Dave Bartholomew created 'The Fat Man' in 1949. In short, this shy, deferential, uncharismatic man invented New Orleans rock and roll.

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