Joyous sound
Antoine ‘Fats’ Domino made America boogie
One by one, the giants who defined early rock ’n’ roll are leaving the stage. It was only in March that Chuck Berry, the strutting architect of rock ’n’ roll, died. Last week, Fats Domino, the New Orleans pianist whose boogie-woogie piano style of playing infiltrated American radio and flooded the nation’s consciousness with a signature sound, died at his home in Harvey, La. He was 89.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Fats Domino exploded beyond the confines of his native New Orleans and became a national sensation with such hits as “I’m Walking,” “The Girl Can’t Help It,” “Blue Monday,” “Whole Lotta’ Lovin’ ” and an adaptation of an old Glenn Miller song, “Blueberry Hill.” Mr. Domino sold an estimated 65 million singles and scored 23 gold records. Among pioneer rockers who emerged in the 1950s, only Elvis Presley sold more singles and had more gold records.
Short of stature but wide of girth, Antoine Dominique Domino Jr. adopted the moniker “Fats” because it was both colorful and descriptive of a piano-playing prodigy coming out of New Orleans’ 9th Ward.
Picking up the piano in his teens, Mr. Domino was largely self-taught. From an early age, he was an impatient evangelist itching to spread the gospel of his hometown music far and wide. Whenever Fats Domino got near a piano, it was party time.
The musician’s joy for life was evident in every song he touched. In the early 1950s, his songs broke through the stifling confines of Jim Crow radio and entranced white teenagers by the millions. He was championed by rock ’n’ roll disc jockey Alan Freed and influential TV variety show hosts Ed Sullivan and Steve Allen.
He stopped touring in the 1980s in favor of performing exclusively in his native New Orleans, because, he insisted, his hometown was the only place where the food was good enough to sustain him.
He refused to leave his home in the lower 9th Ward when Hurricane Katrina flooded his neighborhood in 2005 and had to be rescued by helicopter. In 2006, Mr. Domino released the song “Alive and Kickin” to assure his millions of fans that the rumors of his death were exaggerated. Sadly, the reports of his demise are true this time. To paraphrase what was said of Lincoln on his death bed, Fats Domino now belongs to the ages.