So if you were to walk into a room full of music
historians today. Right. And just ask them to
name the true king of rock and roll. Oh, you
would immediately start a fight. You really would.
A massive fight. Because most people, naturally,
are going to say Elvis Presley. I mean, he is
the brand. He is the image, the absolute icon.
Exactly. But if you could travel back in time
to, say, 1969 to this. specific press conference
in Las Vegas. And if you asked Elvis himself
that exact same question, you would actually
get a very different answer. It's really one
of the most telling moments in all of music history.
A reporter at that press conference actually
called Elvis the king right to his face. Which
you'd expect him to just accept, right? Right.
But Elvis didn't just accept the compliment.
He actually stopped the proceedings. He pointed
to the back of the room where this short, kind
of heavy set, very unassuming man was standing
quietly. And Elvis said, no, that's the real
king of rock and roll. and the man he was pointing
to was Antoine Domino Jr., better known to the
world as Fats Domino. Fats Domino. And I feel
like that single moment perfectly encapsulates
this strange paradox of Fats Domino. He is arguably
the most successful, most influential, and yet
somehow the most unassuming figure in the entire
history of American music. It really is a paradox.
I mean, we associate rock and roll with rebellion.
Oh, absolutely. Smash guitars, trashed hotel
rooms, dangerous sexuality. We think of Jerry
Lee Lewis literally setting his piano on fire
or little Richard screaming on top of the speaker.
Yeah, total chaos. But the man who arguably built
the architecture for all of that. The man who
sold more records than literally any other 1950s
rocker except for Elvis was this shy homebody.
The guy who preferred cooking in his room. Exactly.
Cooking spicy beans on a hot plate in his hotel
room rather than partying with groupies. So what
we're going to do today in this deep dive is
spend the time trying to really square that circle.
Because when you look at the source material
we've gathered, the biographical records, the
discography analysis, the historical accounts
of his life, the numbers associated with Fats
Domino are just staggering. They really are.
We are not talking about some niche underground
artist here. We are looking at sales estimates
ranging from 65 million all the way up to 110
million records. Which just for context is absolutely
astronomical for the mid 1950s. The record buying
market just wasn't what it became later in the
80s or 90s. Right the infrastructure wasn't there.
It wasn't. To move 65 million units in the era
of 45 rpm singles is a level of dumb that is
almost unfathomable today. I mean, between 1955
and 1960 alone, he had 11 top 10 US pop hits.
11. He was an absolute machine. The hit factory.
But our mission today is not just to sit here
and list his chart positions. We want to understand
the entire arc. How a kid from the Lower 9th
Ward in New Orleans, who spoke Creole before
even spoke English, managed to essentially invent
a genre. and bridge the racial divide of a deeply
segregated America while doing it. Exactly. And
influence everyone, from the Beatles to the creators
of Jamaican ska music. And then, on top of all
that, literally survive the devastation of Hurricane
Katrina in his 70s. Right. And I think that word
survival is really the through line for this
whole deep dive. Because if you listen to Fats
Domino's music, it sounds happy. It's joyous.
It's incredibly uplifting music. But his actual
life was fundamentally about surviving, surviving
grinding poverty, surviving the notoriously cutthroat
mid -century music business, surviving actual
racial violence at his own concerts, and eventually
surviving the literal flood waters of history.
So to really understand how he did all of that,
we have to start where the sound itself starts.
You really can't understand what became known
as the big beat, that rolling rhythm that changed
the world without understanding the specific
soil it grew out of. We need to go to New Orleans.
Specifically, the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans
in the late 1920s. Yeah. Let's set that scene
for the listener because the location is everything
here, isn't it? It is entirely foundational.
The Lower Ninth Ward isn't just a neighborhood.
At that time, it was almost a separate ecosystem
within New Orleans. It's geographically downriver.
Historically, it was very isolated. It was working
class and honestly semi -rural in parts. So when
Antoine Domino Jr. is born there in Figuary of
1928, he is not being born into that glamorous
jazz age French quarter scene that we always
see in the movies. Not at all. He was born at
home. And he was actually delivered by his own
grandmother, who is a local midwife. Wow. And
the cultural makeup of that household is a crucial
detail from the historical records. We often
think of New Orleans as this general blended
gumbo of cultures, but the Domino family was
specifically French Creole. Right, which carries
very specific linguistic and cultural traits.
Exactly. That distinction matters immensely for
his musical development. His first language wasn't
English. It was Louisiana Creole. He grew up
in a house where French was the primary mode
of everyday communication. And how does that
language background translate into his music?
Well, think about the rhythm of language. The
cadence of Louisiana Creole, which creates this
incredible phonetic bridge between French and
African linguistic structures, that cadence is
arguably the very first music he ever heard.
It sets up a totally different way of hearing
the world, rhythmically speaking, than a kid
growing up in Memphis or Chicago. That makes
so much sense. Now, his father, Antoine Callis
Domino, was a part -time violin player who worked
at a local racetrack, so there clearly was music
in the bloodline. But from the source material,
it sounds like music wasn't the center of his
childhood initially. It was mostly about labor.
It was a very hard, very practical life. He attended
the Louis B. McCarty School for a bit. but he
didn't stay long. Like a lot of kids in his neighborhood
during the Depression era, he dropped out early
to help support the family. And his job was delivering
ice, right? Yes. He worked as a helper to an
ice delivery man. Now, I want you to really picture
what that job entails in the 1930s and early
40s in the Deep South. Right. This is long before
modern refrigeration is in every home. Exactly.
People had ice boxes. So you are hauling massive,
heavy blocks of solid ice with these giant iron
tongs all day in the sweltering New Orleans heat.
It's brutal, grinding physical labor. It is.
But if you look at it from a pianist's perspective,
it is also a massive workout. You are developing
incredible forearm strength and grip strength.
Oh, that's a great point. When we talk later
about his... specific piano style, that relentless
hammering rolling power he had. A lot of music
historians believe that physical endurance directly
stems from those formative years hauling ice
blocks. He had incredibly strong heavy hands.
So the start for the music didn't actually come
from formal lessons at a conservatory. It came,
as it often does in these blues and jazz origin
stories, from a relative. Right. Around 1938,
when Antoine is about 10 years old, this old
upright piano comes into the house and his brother
-in -law, a man named Harrison Verrett, steps
into the picture. And from everything I read...
Harrison Verrett seems like the unsung hero of
this entire story. He really is. Verrett was
a jazz guitarist. He was a working, gigging musician
who intimately knew the local New Orleans club
scene. And the fact that a guitarist, not a classical
pianist, taught Fats how to play is profoundly
significant. Why is that? What's the difference
in the teaching approach? Well, a traditional
piano teacher back then might have sat him down
and taught him formal scale, sheet music theory,
proper upright posture. Very rigid. Right. But
a guitarist? A working rhythm guitarist teaches
you rhythm. They teach you how to lock into a
groove with a band. It's a much more percussive,
functional approach to the instrument. Exactly.
Verrett showed him the basic chords, showed him
the underlying structure of the blues, but he
strongly encouraged him to play by ear and to
physically feel the music. It was a purely practical
street level education. And Antoine just took
to it with absolute obsession. The accounts say
he wasn't just practicing. He was devouring the
instrument. He was completely absorbed. And by
the time he was just 14 years old, he wasn't
just entertaining his family in the living room
anymore. He was out playing in actual bars and
honky tonks in New Orleans. 14 years old, that
has to be a pretty rough environment for a young
kid. Oh, it was. The smoke, the alcohol, the
late nights, the rowdy crowds. But it's also
an incredible training ground. Yeah. It's the
University of the Honky Tonk. You learn things
on those stages you absolutely cannot learn in
a classroom. You learn how to keep a drunk, restless
crowd entertained and dancing. You learn very
quickly that if you stop playing, or if the rhythm
drops, the energy in the room dies. So you have
to keep the momentum going no matter what. Exactly.
So he develops this continuous, highly rhythmic,
hypnotic style of playing. He basically learns
to be a human jukebox. And this is exactly where
the fat's persona really begins to form. He wasn't
a front man. or a singer yet, right? He was strictly
a sideman, a utility player. Right. But in 1947,
a local bandleader named Billy Diamond starts
hearing rumors about this kid. And the story
goes that Diamond was actually invited to a backyard
barbecue specifically so he could hear young
Antoine play the piano. Which is just the most
quintessential New Orleans way to be discovered.
It's not a polished demo tape. It's not a formal
industry showcase. It's a backyard barbecue.
It really is perfect. So Billy Diamond hears
him play and He immediately realizes this kid
is an absolute rhythm machine. He hires him on
the spot to play with his band at the hideaway
club. And the pay for this life -changing gig?
Three dollars a week. Three dollars? I mean,
even adjusting for inflation, that is barely
anything. It was tiny, but for Antoine, it wasn't
about the money yet. It was about getting regular
stage time. And Billy Diamond is actually the
one who looked at this young, slightly overweight,
very jovial kid and said, we're going to call
you Fats. It was a nickname that kind of linked
him to other piano greats, right? Like Fats Waller,
who was hugely famous at the time. It was definitely
a nod to Fats Waller, but it also just fit Antoine's
demeanor perfectly. Fats sounds friendly. It
sounds disarming. It sounds like a guy you just
want to hang out and have a drink with. It took
the edge off the intense music he was playing.
him approachable. Very approachable. And that
name stuck forever. But the real transformation,
the leap from being a great local piano player
to a national recording artist, happens a couple
of years later in 1949. And this involves a man
named Lou Chud and a brand new independent label
called Imperial Records. Now, this relationship
with Imperial Records is fascinating to me because
usually when we discuss early rock and roll contracts
and these deep dives, it's a complete horror
story. Oh, absolutely. was rampant. Right. We
expect to hear that he signed away his life,
his publishing, and his soul for a cheap Cadillac
and a handshake. But the source material shows
that is not what happened here at all. No. And
this is a critical distinction that separates
Fatt's dominoes trajectory from so many of his
peers, particularly black artists of that specific
era. So how did the deal work? Well, Luchud was
starting this new label in Los Angeles. He was
hungry for regional talent. He signed F .A .T
.S., but the contract they drew up stipulated
that F .A .T .S. would be paid royalties based
on actual record sales, not just a flat session
fee. Let's really explain why that matters so
much. Because to a modern listener, getting royalties
just sounds like standard industry practice.
Today it is, sure. But in 1949, for a regional
R &B artist, it was exceptionally rare. The absolute
standard practice back then was called The Buyout.
Where they just pay you once? Exactly. A label
would give a musician maybe 50 or 100 bucks,
have them record four songs in an afternoon,
and say, thank you very much, goodbye. And if
that record went on to sell a million copies,
the label kept every single penny of the profit.
The artist got nothing more than that initial
50 bucks. Which happened to so many legends.
It happened to Little Richard. It happened to
countless bluesmen. But by securing a royalty
deal, Fats ensured that his commercial success
would actually translate directly into personal
wealth. It meant he was a stakeholder in his
own career, not just day labor for the studio.
And that partnership bore fruit almost immediately.
The very first recording session they did in
December 1949 produced a song called The Fat
Man. The Fat Man. Now, this track is highly significant.
It is a major contender in music history for
the title of first rock and roll record. Right,
because historians fight about this constantly.
Some say it's Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston. Some
say it's Elvis with That's Alright. But The Fat
Man has a very, very strong claim to that title.
It predates both of those. And it was a collaboration
with Dave Bartholomew. We really need to talk
about him. Yes, the Domino Bartholomew partnership.
If Fats Domino was the raw talent and the voice,
Dave Bartholomew was the architect. He was a
brilliant trumpeter, a bandleader, a songwriter,
and a producer. They were the Lennon and McCartney
of New Orleans R &B. So how did the Fat Man come
together? They actually took a traditional blues
song called Junker Blues. Now Junker... in this
specific local context meant a junkie, a drug
addict. It was a very dark, slow, gritty, blues
song about heroin addiction and going to prison.
Which is definitely not radio -friendly pop material
for 1949. Not at all. You couldn't play that
on mainstream radio. So, Dave and Fats took the
basic melody and the chord structure, completely
cleaned up the lyrics to make it a boastful,
fun song about a fat man who loves the girls
and having a good time, and they significantly
sped up the tempo. But reading the musical analysis,
the real magic isn't just the tempo change. It's
the execution. It's entirely the execution. Fats
plays this aggressive rolling piano. And then
he does this incredibly unique vocal trick on
the track. He starts singing wah, wah, wah, basically
imitating the sound of a muted trumpet with his
voice. Now, why do that? Why imitate a trumpet
when your producer, Dave Bartholomew, literally
plays the trumpet? Why not just have Dave play
a solo? That's the genius of it. It was about
texture and vibe. It was playful. It added this
highly stylized human percussive element to the
melody that a brass instrument wouldn't have
captured in the same way. But more importantly,
Listen to the rhythm section on that recording.
Listen to the back beat. That heavy accent on
the two and the four. Exactly. That accent is
the sound of rock and roll being born. It is
distinctly different from the swing jazz or the
big band sounds that came right before. It's
much harder. It's simpler. It aggressively drives
forward. And the public completely understood
it. The record sold a million copies by 1951.
Which was practically unheard of for a debut
R &B single by an unknown regional artist. But
here's the fascinating thing about Fats Domino's
mindset. He never thought he was inventing a
new genre. Right, he didn't see himself as a
pioneer of rock. No. To him, this was just what
they played in the clubs in New Orleans. He famously
said years later, rock and roll is nothing but
rhythm and blues. He didn't see the dividing
line that the record executives and the marketers
eventually created to sell the music to white
teenagers. That initial massive success really
kicks off what the historical sources call the
imperial years. Because this definitely wasn't
a one -hit wonder situation. Fats and Dave Bartholomew
basically built a hit factory. It was a machine
in the truest sense of the word. They assembled
this core group of elite studio musicians, guys
like Herbert Hardesty on tenor sax, Lee Allen
on sax, the legendary Earl Palmer on drums. These
guys played on almost everything Imperial put
out. They must have had incredible chemistry.
They developed almost telepathic musical communication.
And at the absolute center of all of it was that
defining New Orleans sound. We keep using that
phrase, the New Orleans sound or the big beat.
I'd love to get just a little bit technical for
a minute here. What specifically are we hearing?
If you put on a classic Fats Domino record, what
is the musical fingerprint that identifies it?
It all comes down to one fundamental element.
The piano triplet. This is the absolute DNA of
his style and of New Orleans rock. Okay, bring
that down for us. So in traditional 44 -time,
which most pop music uses, you count the beats.
One, two, three, four. And a lot of the boogie
-woogie or swing music that predated Fats, the
rhythm is what we call dotted. It has a bounce
or a lilt to it. Kind of a swing and feel. Right.
But Fats did something structurally different.
He filled the empty space between those main
beats with triplets. So instead of a straight
one, two, it's more like triplet, triplet. Precisely.
You count it as one and a C and a three and a
four and a. His right hand is furiously hammering
these full chords three times for every single
beat. That sounds exhausting to play. Remember
those giant blocks of ice? That's where the stamina
comes from. Playing those right hand triplets
creates this massive wall of sound. It's thick,
it's rolling, it feels like a heavy wheel that
just never stops turning. And what's the left
hand doing while the right hand is running a
marathon? The left hand is locking in perfectly
with Earl Palmer's kick drum to hit that heavy
backbeat. So you have this incredibly solid heavy
anchor on the bottom and this rapid rolling hypnotic
motion on top. It physically makes you want to
move. You simply cannot sit still when you hear
it played right. And he wasn't just using this
signature style for his own solo records? Yeah.
I was genuinely surprised to learn from the sources
that he was secretly the driving force behind
other massive hits as a session player. Oh, yes.
Before he was a massive household name pop star,
he was the absolute go -to piano guy in New Orleans.
For example, in 1952, a young artist named Lloyd
Price recorded a song called Lottie Miss Clottie,
which is a hugely seminal R &B track. massive
track, and the iconic piano intro on that record,
that is Fats Domino Pling. He was only paid union
scale for that session just as a sideman, but
his sound completely defined the entire record.
So he was kind of spreading that triplet virus
throughout the whole music industry before the
general public even really knew his face. Exactly.
But the true crossover, the exact moment he stops
being just a regional R &B star and becomes an
undeniable American pop icon, happens in 1955
with the release of Ain't That a Shame. Right.
This is the big watershed moment. It really is.
And to understand why it was such a big deal,
we have to look at how the music industry tracked
success back then. In 1955, Billboard magazine
maintained strictly separated charts. Segregated
charts. Functionally, yes. The pop chart was
for white artists playing to white audiences.
The R &B chart, which used to be called the Race
Records chart, was for black artists. They were
essentially two completely segregated commercial
worlds. So for a black artist from the R &B chart
to cross over into the pop top 10 was a monumental
hurdle. Incredibly difficult. It meant that white
teenagers were actively going to record stores
and buying the physical record, despite the fact
that mainstream white -owned radio stations often
refused to play it. And ain't that a shame? Broke
completely through that wall. It hit the top
10 on the pop charts. But this success brings
us to the Pat Boone problem. Ah, yes. This is
a story that gets told in pretty much every rock
history class. It is the absolute textbook example
of industry sanitization. Pat Boone was this
very popular white, clean -cut, sweater -wearing
crooner. His record label saw Fats Dominoes,
ain't that a shame, rapidly climbing the R &B
charts and crossing over. And they wanted a piece
of that money. Of course. But they thought, well,
that's a really catchy song, but the singer is
too rough, too urban for our mainstream white
radio affiliates. So they literally had Pat Boone
record a note -for -note cover version to release
to the white market. And let's be honest here.
The Pat Boone version is, well, it's very different.
It's extremely polite, it completely lacks the
swing, the grit, the soul of the original. Pat
Boone even wanted to change the title to, isn't
that a shame, to be grammatically correct. But
the producer stopped him. Oh wow. I didn't know
that. Yeah. But because of the deeply entrenched
racial segregation of the radio industry at the
time, Pat Boone's sanitized version received
massive airplay and actually went to number one
on the pop chart. Now that has to be infuriating.
You write this brilliant song, you create this
entirely new sound, and the guy who just copies
it gets the number one slot. the mainstream glory.
You would certainly think so and for many of
Fats contemporaries, like Little Richard, this
practice of white artists covering their songs
was a source of massive lifelong resentment.
But Fats Domino had a very different perspective
on the whole situation. Remember that royalty
deal we talked about? Right, the songwriting
royalty. Exactly. Fats was the credited songwriter
on Ain't That a Shame, so every single time Pat
Boone sold a record, Fats Domino got a check
in the mail. Oh, that changes everything. Because
Pat Boone sold millions of copies to that huge
mainstream audience, Fats made an absolute fortune
off a record he didn't even sing on. There's
actually a famous anecdote in the source material
about this, right? About a concert. Yes, it's
a legendary story. Fats was performing on stage
one night, and he noticed Pat Boone was actually
in the audience. So Fats calls him out, introduces
him to the crowd, and then Fats holds up his
hand, points to this massive glittering diamond
ring on his finger, and says into the microphone,
Pat Boone bought me this ring. That is just such
an incredible flex. It's so practical. He completely
refused to let his ego get in the way of the
business side of things. It perfectly shows his
temperament. He wasn't looking to start a cultural
war. He was looking for long -term success and
security. And frankly, the Pat Boone cover ended
up acting like a gateway drug for mainstream
listeners. How so? Well, white teenagers would
buy the Boone version, realize the underlying
song was fantastic, and then they'd go looking
for the original artist. Eventually, Phat's original
version actually outsold Boone's in the long
run. That is real justice right there. So by
1955, the money is just pouring in. The sources
say Fass is making something like $10 ,000 a
week on tour. Which is staggering money for that
era. He's buying pink Cadillacs. He's buying
diamond horseshoe stick pins. Oh, he loved his
jewelry. The accounts say he owned 50 custom
tailored suits, 100 pairs of shoes. He was absolutely
living the high life of a superstar. But I think
we really need to pivot here and look at the
actual reality of that touring life because it's
It sounds glamorous, $10 ,000 a week, the suits,
the cars, but the conditions under which he had
to earn that money were genuinely terrifying.
This is the part of his story that often gets
completely glossed over because Fats was known
as being so nice and unbothered. People just
assume his tours were smooth sailing. Right.
But he was a black man traveling constantly through
the deep south in the mid 1950s. It was incredibly
dangerous. Jim Crow laws were in full brutal
effect. Despite being one of the most famous
musicians in the country, he legally could not
stay in the very hotels where he was performing.
Couldn't eat in the restaurants either. No, he
often couldn't even use the front door of the
venues he was selling out. He had to carry his
own food on the bus, which is actually partly
why he developed that habit of cooking in his
own rooms. It wasn't just some quirky culinary
preference. It was a basic survival necessity.
And the concerts themselves were massive cultural
flashpoints. The research mentions several full
blown riots breaking out at his shows. And it's
not because Fats was inciting the crowd with
radical speeches. Not at all. It was simply because
of who was in the audience. Rock and roll, at
its core, was the great cultural integrator of
the 1950s. Teenagers drawn to the big beat didn't
care about local segregation ordinances. White
kids and black kids were showing up to the exact
same dance halls to see Fats play. And that mixing
was seen as a threat. A huge threat. The kids
would be drinking, they'd start dancing, and
the physical ropes that local police used to
literally separate the races on the dance floor
would inevitably get torn down in the excitement.
The local authorities viewed this as a dangerous
breakdown of the entire social order. There is
a very specific incident detailed in the sources
that happened in Fayetteville, North Carolina
in 1956. That event was essentially a war zone.
The local police became so enraged by the integrated
dancing that they fired actual tear gas directly
into the crowd to violently break up the concert.
Tear gas at a dance? Yes. And the venue's ventilation
system sucked the tear gas straight onto the
stage. Fats and his band were completely blinded,
choking. Fats actually had to physically jump
out of a back window just to escape the gas and
the chaos. He severely injured his leg in the
fall. You just have to try and imagine that surreal
contrast. You're up there singing Blueberry Hill.
which is quite possibly the most harmless, sweet,
romantic song imaginable, and you end up having
to dive out of a window to escape police tear
gas. It entirely reframes his legacy. We look
at the vintage footage, the big smile, the chubby
face, the relaxed posture at the piano, and we
automatically code him as safe. But his mere
presence on those stages was a deeply radical
political act. He was actively desegregating
America one dance floor at a time, often at tremendous
personal risk. He was actually banned from playing
in several major cities. Griffith Stadium in
Washington, D .C. canceled his scheduled show
outright, citing public safety concerns. Because
the music was just too powerful to contain. He
was a lightning rod, whether he wanted to be
or not. Speaking of Blueberry Hill, we definitely
have to discuss that specific song. It came out
in 1956, and it essentially became his permanent
signature tune. But what's fascinating is that
he didn't write it, and it wasn't even a new
song. No, it was a very established standard
from way back in 1940. The Glenn Miller Orchestra
had done a version. Gene Autry, the famous singing
cowboy, had recorded it. It was a very stiff,
formal, almost cornball melody. So why did Fats
Domino decide to record it? Well, this is where
the true genius of Fats and Dave Bartholomew
shines. They took this incredibly stiff square
song and forcefully wrestled it into that rolling
128 New Orleans triplet groove. They slowed the
tempo down, they made it ache. When Phat sings
that opening line, the moon stood still. He holds
that note with the slight creole inflection and
the piano just beautifully rolls underneath it
like a rising tide. It transforms from a cowboy
tune into this deeply soulful lament. And the
public response was monumental. It went to number
one on the R &B charts and stayed there for an
astonishing 11 weeks. It went to number two on
the mainstream pop charts. It eventually sold
over five million copies worldwide. It really
proved that this new rock and roll genre wasn't
just about shouting in fast tempos. It could
be a ballad. It could be tender. It proved the
genre had emotional range. And that specific
song, more than any other, cemented him as a
true global superstar. Which brings us right
back to our original discussion about the King,
because Elvis Presley clearly knew all of this
history. Elvis was a massive student of the music.
He grew up in the South listening to the exact
same high -powered R &B radio stations. When
Elvis finally met Fats in person in 1959 and
then later at that famous 1969 Vegas press conference,
his deference to Fats wasn't fake humility. It
was genuine respect. Completely genuine. Elvis
famously told reporters, I can't sing like Fats
Domino Cam. He recognized that the rhythmic feel,
that innate swing was something Fats just owned
naturally in his bones. Elvis had to consciously
learn how to rock. Fats was the rock. And it
wasn't just American artists like Elvis who recognized
this. The whole British invasion movement, which
history usually claims for killing off the careers
of the 1950s American rockers, was actually led
by massive Fats Domino superfans. The Beatles
absolutely worshiped him. John Lennon cited Fats'
version of Ain't That a Shame as literally the
very first song he ever learned to play on the
guitar. That's incredible. But Paul McCartney
is really the ultimate disciple here. If you
listen closely to the Beatles song Lady Madonna,
which which was released in 1968. What do you
immediately hear? You hear that piano rhythm?
Dun, dun, dun, dun. It sounds exactly like a
Fats Domino record. Because it is, stylistically.
McCartney wrote Lady Madonna specifically as
a tribute to Fats. He was actively trying to
write a Fats Domino song. McCartney even alters
his vocal style on the track. He sings in this
much lower, throatier register to mimic Fats'
delivery. And the most beautiful part of that
story, the perfect closure to that loop, is that
Fats heard leading Madonna on the radio, loved
the song, and decided to cover it himself. Yes.
The Beatles copy Fats Domino, so Fats Domino
covers the Beatles copying him. It's like Inception.
And Fats cover version of Lady Madonna actually
became his very last charting single in 1968.
It was just this lovely full circle moment of
mutual artistic respect. Now here is a musical
connection from the source material that absolutely
floored me. We entirely expect the Elvis connection.
We completely understand the Beatles influence.
But I did not expect to find a direct link between
Fats Domino and the creation of Jamaican ska
and reggae music. Oh, this is one of the most
fascinating butterfly effects in all of music
history. To really understand how this happened,
you have to look at the geography. Okay, lay
it out for us. Jamaica is an island nation. In
the 1950s, they did not have a robust local recording
industry of their own yet, but they had radios.
And atmospheric conditions dictate that on clear,
warm nights, the massive high -powered AM radio
signals from New Orleans, specifically stations
like WNOE, would literally bounce off the ionosphere,
skip straight across the Gulf of Mexico, and
beam perfectly into Jamaica. So you have Jamaican
teenagers sitting on the beach in Kingston picking
up New Orleans radio. Exactly. And because Fats
Domino was the undisputed king of New Orleans
radio, his records were in incredibly heavy rotation.
So all these young Jamaican musicians, the kids
who would grow up to invent ska and rocksteady,
were intently studying his specific rhythm. What
specifically were they latching onto in his sound?
It's the shuffle. Fats had this habit of heavily
accentuating the offbeat, the and of the musical
beat. One and two endy. If you take a standard
Fats Domino Boogie Woogie track, slow the tempo
down just a little bit, and visually chop that
rolling piano rhythm into a sharp staccato guitar
strum. You get the signature skank guitar sound
of ska music. You get the absolute foundation
of Jamaican pop music. And the Jamaican artists
openly acknowledged this debt. Artists like Yellow
Man specifically cited him. The legendary reggae
singer Justin Hines explicitly named his backing
group the Domino's. Wow, so not because they
liked playing the board game dominoes. No, strictly
because they wanted to honor Fats Domino. You
can draw a direct sonic straight line from the
working class Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans
all the way to Bob Marley. That is the very definition
of global influence. But as we move the timeline
forward into the 1960s, the musical landscape
in the United States begins to drastically change.
Fats officially leaves Imperial Records in 1963.
Yes, Imperial was sold off and Fats ended up
moving over to ABC Paramount. And this move marks
the beginning of his commercial decline. It is
a classic tragic case of a giant record label
buying a legacy artist and completely failing
to understand what made them great in the first
place. They tried to modernize him, didn't they?
Which, in the music business, usually means ruin
him. They pulled him out of the gritty New Orleans
studios, they took him up to Nashville, and they
forcibly layered on what we call the country
-politan sound. What does that entail? Slick
s - sterile production, huge sweeping string
sections, very polite white backing vocal choirs.
They basically tried to strip away the rhythm
and blues and turn him into a middle of the road
pop crooner. They took all the dirt and the grit
completely out of the mix. They polished the
soul right off his records and it failed miserably.
The big hits just stopped coming and simultaneously
the massive wave of the British invasion completely
took over the charts. Which is deeply ironic.
considering the British bands all worshiped him.
It's highly ironic, but the teenage record buyers
wanted loud guitar bands with long hair now.
They didn't want solo piano players in tailored
suits. Fats rapidly began to look to the mainstream
like a relic of the 50s. But unlike so many of
his peers who either burned out on drugs, went
completely broke, or spent decades desperately
chasing the fleeting spotlight, Fats just went
home. He really did. He retreated back to the
exact place he started. the Lower Ninth Ward.
He bought a double plot of land right in his
old neighborhood and built this massive sprawling
mansion. The famous yellow brick house. Right,
with the big initials FD built right into the
front facade. And once he was there, he essentially
just stayed there. He actually became famous
in the industry for actively not touring. He
turned down millions and millions of dollars
in lucrative booking offers over the decades.
He was invited to perform at the White House.
He often just wouldn't go. He'd be invited to
headline major international festivals. He'd
politely decline. And his reasoning for turning
down all this money and prestige was so brilliantly
simple. It's hilarious. His main excuse was always,
I can't get any food that I like anywhere else.
I mean, if you have ever had authentic New Orleans
cooking, you completely understand his point.
You are not going to get a good spicy crawfish
etouffee in a hotel in London. You're really
not. He was deeply a creature of habit. He just
loved his neighborhood. He'd drive his bright
pink Cadillac slowly around the block. He'd spend
his days cooking massive pots of food for his
friends and neighbors. He wasn't acting like
an untouchable celebrity. He was just Mr. Antoine
to the neighborhood. And he stayed securely in
that pocket for decades. Through the 70s, the
80s, the 90s, he collected his massive accolades.
He was in the very first class and inducted into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. He got
the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987.
But after the ceremonies, he always went straight
back to that yellow brick house in the Ninth
Ward. Which, tragically, brings us to August
of 2005. Hurricane Katrina. Yes. This is the
moment where the biographical story of a musician
radically pivots into a harrowing survival epic.
It really does. We all know the historical facts
of Katrina. We know the Lower Ninth Ward was
the absolute epicenter of the destruction. The
levees failed. The water came rushing in with
catastrophic force. But the question everyone
asks is... Why did he stay? He was wealthy. He
had the resources to evacuate. It came down to
loyalty, and it came down to health. His wife,
Rosemary, who he had been married to since he
was a teenager, was in very poor health at the
time. Fats was terrified that the stress of a
chaotic evacuation would be too much for her.
He didn't want to risk moving her. Exactly. And
furthermore, he thought, like so many native
New Orleanians did, that they could just ride
the storm out. They had successfully ridden out
dozens of hurricanes in that house over the decades.
But Katrina wasn't a normal hurricane. No. Because
the levees broke, the water didn't just rain
down from the sky. It violently surged up from
the ground. The floodwaters rapidly rose to the
very roof line of his mansion. And for several
agonizing days, there was just complete radio
silence. The entire world literally did not know
if Fats Domino was dead or alive. I remember
watching the news reports during that week. People
were actively writing his obituaries on the air.
It was very grim. Someone actually took a can
of spray paint and wrote, RIP Fats, you will
be missed right on the front of his flooded house.
Everyone naturally assumed the word that he had
drowned trapped inside. But he hadn't. No. As
the water furiously rose, he and his family had
managed to climb up to the second floor and then
eventually into the upper reaches of the house.
They were completely trapped without power or
food. It took until September 1st, several days
after the storm initially hit, for a Coast Guard
helicopter to finally spot them. You just have
to picture the profound intensity. of that specific
image. This man who literally built rock and
roll, who sold 65 million records, now 77 years
old, having to be physically hoisted up into
a military helicopter from the complete wreckage
of his life. And honestly, the story gets even
more surreal immediately after the rescue. They
were flown out and dropped off at a massive triage
shelter in Baton Rouge. It was complete chaos.
Thousands of displaced, traumatized people. And
do you know who actually came to pick them up
from the shelter? DeMarcus Russell. Yes. DeMarcus
Russell, the starting quarterback for the LSU
football team. How does that connection even
happen? It turns out, Jamarcus Russell was dating
Phat's granddaughter at the time. So in just
one of the most bizarre twists of fate imaginable,
the legendary king of rock and roll ends up sleeping
on the couch of a college quarterback's apartment
for three nights simply because he has literally
nowhere else to go. He gave a quote to the Washington
Post shortly after that where he just said, we've
lost everything. And it was completely true.
His beautiful grand pianos were entirely destroyed
by the floodwater. Decades of original master
tapes were ruined. His gold and platinum records
were washed away. The prestigious National Medal
of Arts that President Bill Clinton had awarded
him was lost in the toxic mud. He was, in that
moment, just another displaced refugee. But the
ensuing recovery... really showed how much he
deeply meant to the culture. It was incredibly
touching. The whole country rallied. President
George W. Bush actually traveled personally to
New Orleans just to present Fats with a shiny
new replacement for that lost medal of arts.
The recording industry rapidly minted brand new
gold records to replace the ones he lost. But
you can't just replace a sense of safety. The
trauma he endured was very real. Oh absolutely.
He was scheduled to be the grand closing act
at the New Orleans Jazz Fest in 2006, which was
the highly emotional first festival after the
storm. It was billed as this massive triumphant
homecoming. And what happened? He just couldn't
do it. He physically got to the venue, but he
suffered a massive anxiety attack backstage.
The pressure, the trauma of the past year, it
was just too overwhelming. He ultimately walked
out onto the stage, gave a small wave to the
crowd, and walked off. He didn't play a single
note. It is heartbreaking. But I imagine the
crowd understood. They completely did. Frankly,
the crowd didn't even care that he didn't play.
They just cheered wildly because they were so
relieved he was simply alive and standing there.
He lived for another decade after that, largely
out of the public eye, until he passed away in
October of 2017 at the age of 89, from natural
causes. A very peaceful end to an incredibly
turbulent century of living. And when the official
obituaries finally ran, Robert Kreskow, who is
a notoriously tough, very famous music critic,
wrote something I thought was incredibly poignant.
He described Fats Domino as a shy, differential,
uncharismatic man who nevertheless invented New
Orleans rock and roll. You know, calling him
uncharismatic feels a bit like a slap in the
face at first glance. But considering everything
we've talked about, I think I understand the
distinction he's making. Right. It's really not
an insult at all. It's an astute observation
of his specific style of greatness. Fats Domino
wasn't Mick Jagger strutting across a stadium
stage. He wasn't Prince. He didn't have this
overwhelming, arrogant persona. He didn't need
to be that guy. Exactly. His charisma wasn't
located in his hips or in a massive ego. His
charisma was entirely in his fingers. It was
in that driving triplet. He proved to the world
that you absolutely didn't have to be an unpredictable,
dangerous star to be a foundational legend. You
just had to have the beat. So, as we wrap up
this deep dive into his life, how do you think
we should properly view the legacy of Fats Domino
today? I really think we need to view him fundamentally
as the bridge. He is the crucial missing link
in American music. Without Fats Domino, you simply
do not get from the acoustic blues and boogie
woogie of the 1940s to the explosive rock and
roll of the 1960s. He literally paved the road
that Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and countless
others happily drove down. And he did all of
that without ever losing his cool? Never. Without
ever abandoning his beloved neighborhood and
without ever fundamentally changing who he was
as a person. He was the quiet king. The quiet
king who managed to make the loudest, most joyous
music in the world. So here's my final challenge
to you, the listener. When this deep dive ends,
don't just automatically let the app roll over
to whatever the next show is. Take a moment.
Go find the original recording of The Fat Man
or put on Blueberry Hill. Turn the volume all
the way up. Turn it up loud. And don't just casually
listen to the vocal melody. Listen deeply to
the engine of the song. Listen to that relentless
piano trip at rolling underneath everything.
One and a, two and a. Feel that massive physical
drive because that specific sound is the actual
heartbeat of rock and roll and it is still beating
just as strong over 70 years later. And while
you're listening, just try to imagine the man
actually playing it. Sitting there, smiling warmly,
a huge diamond ring flashing on his hand, probably
just thinking about what he's going to cook his
friends for dinner that night. It's a perfect
image. Thanks for joining us on this Journey
to the Source material. We'll see you next time.