"They call, they call me the Fat Man cause I weigh two hundred pounds. All the girls they love me, Cause I know my way around. I was standing, standing on the corner Of Rampart and Canal, Watching those Creole gals …"
It's 1949 and Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino Jr. is in the J&M Record Shop with owner Cosimo Matassa who has set up a makeshift recording studio in his store. Matassa's store was something of a hub for rhythm and blues musicians and the WNOE radio station broadcast live from there every Sunday. The show featured upcoming musicians.
Fats Domino was just 22 and had recently signed to Imperial Records and was in the J&M store to record his first record, The Fat Man. As they settled down to record the song live (eight track recorders would come later), they realised that they could not add trumpet parts, so Fats would just "scat" those parts with his voice.
The song itself was derived from a song called Junker Blues, which was popular across the country. This recording featured Fats' rolling boogie-flavoured left hand pounding out a catchy bass, triplets from his right hand (like Professor Longhair) and a mellifluous, smooth baritone voice that contrasted sharply with "blues shouters" of the time like Big Joe Turner and Wynonie Harris.
Lew Chudd of Imperial Records realised the potential of the song and released it; two years later, Fats Domino, with his very first record, had racked up sales of a million copies. Some critics believe that The Fat Man was the first rock 'n' roll record to hit the million mark.
The song is considered along with songs like Roy Brown's Good Rockin'Tonight and Ike Turner's Rocket 88 as one of the first rock 'n' roll songs. What these songs did was to open up a new market for black musicians like Domino, creating the possibility of "crossing over" to the much big and more lucrative "white" market. Domino kept releasing his hits, such as the two he is forever associated with -- Ain't That A Shame (1955) and Blueberry Hill (1956) -- and his sales skyrocketed. Between 1956 and 1957, Blueberry Hill sold more than 5 million copies and was covered later by, among many others, Elvis Presley and Led Zeppelin.
Domino appeared in all the important radio shows and TV broadcasts in the 1950s with Alan Freed and Dick Clarke, as well as in rock 'n' roll films like Shake, Rattle And Roll (1956) and The Girl Can't Help It.
When Elvis was called "king of rock 'n' roll" in Las Vegas years later in front of Fats Domino, Presley demurred and pointed to Fats Domino, the "real" king of the genre. In fact, Domino was the second biggest selling rock 'n' roll artist in 1950s; only Elvis sold more records during this period. Domino would go on to sell a staggering 65 million records.
In 1957, The Louisiana Weekly noted that: "The roly-poly pianist, who was a day labourer making $28 a week in 1949, has grossed more than $500,000 since he hit the big time in 1952. He draws up to $2,500 a night." He was the first African-American artist to crossover like this, paving the way for those who came after like soul legend Sam Cooke.
Rock 'n' roll and the emergence of British beat bands in the early- to mid-sixties put many rhythm and blues acts out of business. Domino continued to enjoy chart success into the sixties but as sales dropped off, he began to tour for up to 300 days a year.
Domino was championed by bands like The Beatles (Paul McCartney is said to have written Lady Madonna in "Fats" style) and the Rolling Stones. His "soft howl" (as opposed to Little Richards' scream or Howling Wolf's haunting moan) was influential on lots of singers.
Eventually, this Southern Louisiana boy who was brought up speaking French Creole had enough of touring, so he settled in his beloved New Orleans and played locally (there's a lovely short video of him playing with pianist Jon Cleary on YouTube -- well worth checking out.)
He remained in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, which was known as a hotbed of bands, ensembles and piano players (distinct from other wards which favoured blues styles) in, as described in Up From The Cradle of Jazz, "a big white house trimmed in pink and yellow". In his yard, "Fats had a hot pink Eldorado with gold trim, two Continentals, and a snow-shite Rolls-Royce bearing the initials 'FD' bracketed by a pair of dominoes, all in gold". Now that's bling!
That house and all the treasures of his career, including four pianos, were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and although he was reported to have died during the flooding, he returned and rebuilt his life back in New Orleans.
So take a little time this week to listen to Fats Domino, a great musician and pioneer -- the "real king of rock 'n' roll".
This columnist can be contacted at clewley.john@gmail.com.
