The New Orleans pianist who shaped rock ’n’ roll

No single musician invented rock ’n’ roll, but Fats Domino did perhaps more than any other to shape the sound. His first hit, 1949’s “The Fat Man,” set the template: As Domino pounded out bouncy triplets on the piano—three notes for every beat—and sang in an easygoing baritone, the drummer hit the second and fourth beats to create the backbeat. It was a thrilling mix of R&B, boogie-woogie, and the swing of marching bands from his hometown of New Orleans, and it made Domino one of the biggest stars of the rock ’n’ roll age. Between 1950 and 1963, he made the pop chart 63 times with classic songs such as “Ain’t That a Shame,” “Blueberry Hill,” and “Blue Monday.” Yet Domino was not a typical pop idol: Standing just under 5-foot-4 and weighing 210 pounds, he never indulged in hip-shaking theatrics. “I didn’t need none of that,” he said. “The beat was enough.” Born in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, Antoine Domino Jr. was 10 “when the family inherited a battered piano with keys so worn that the ivory had become almost translucent,” said The Times (U.K.). A jazz musician brother-in-law taught him a few chords, and Domino was soon playing by ear to boogiewoogie records. By his late teens, Domino was a local sensation, playing to packed clubs, said The Washington Post. He was spotted by Dave Bartholomew, a talent scout with Imperial Records who became his longtime producer and co-writer. The lyrics to their first song together, “The Fat Man,” established Domino’s “happy-go-lucky stage persona”: “They call me, call me the fat man/’Cause I weigh 200 pounds/All the girls they love me/’Cause I know my way around.” Domino racked up hit after hit, and “his influence was far-reaching,” said the Financial Times. “Ain’t That a Shame” was the first song John Lennon learned to play; in Jamaica, Domino’s bubbly piano inspired ska and reggae. His star began to fade with the 1960s British Invasion, but he kept up a busy touring schedule—staying on the road for months at a time—until he retired to his Ninth Ward home in 1995. Interest in his music was reignited a decade later, when he was falsely reported dead after Hurricane Katrina. “I’m glad that people liked me and my music,” Domino said in 2007. “I guess it was an interesting life. I didn’t pay much attention.”