Antoine "Fats" Domino was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, on the 26th of February 1928. When he was a 7 year old kid, he learned piano from his ,much older, brother-in-law Harrison Verrett. His piano playing was influenced by boogie woogie pianists like Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis and his triplet piano style came from Little Willie Littlefield, who,by the way,lives in the Netherlands.His first record was "The Fat man", recorded in 1949 and became a R & B hit in 1950 and a gold record in 1953.His cooperation with the bandleader Dave Bartholomew resulted in an almost endless chain of R & B and Top 100 hit records.He also played the piano on Lloyd Price's millionseller "Lawdy miss clawdy".Fats performed in 4 Rock & Roll movies, "The girl can't help it, "Shake rattle and rock", "Jamboree" and "The Big beat".This ended in 1963 with "Red sails in the sunset", by than Fats recorded for ABC-Paramount and the cooperation with Dave had ended.In the period 1949-1960 he had 23 million sellers, not less than 17 were co-written with Dave Bartholomew.
In 1955, with the arrival of Rock & Roll, Fats became also popular with the white audience starting with "Ain't that a shame".Lew Chudd, the owner of Imperial Records sold his record company to LIBERTY in 1963.At that time success faded a little and Fats signed a contract with ABC-Paramount, were he had a couple of hits. Later, in 1965, he had a very good live album on MERCURY and a couple of albums on REPRISE and SONET.If you want more information I recommand this book written by John Broven, "Rhythm & Blues in New Orleans" (also published as "Walking to New Orleans"), Pelican Publishing Company, ISBN 0-88289-433-1.
Also recommanded: " I hear you knockin' (The Sound of New Orleans Rhythm and Blues) " by Jeff Hannusch , Swallow Publications, and his latest book,"The Soul of New Orleans (A Legacy of Rhythm and Blues)", published in 2001, and it has a chapter on Fats, the publisher is Swallow Publications, the ISBN is 0-9614245-8-3.
The long awaited first-ever biography of Fats Domino is published in May 2006. It is called "Blue Monday - Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn Of Rock 'n' Roll",written by Rick Coleman. The publisher is Da Capo Press , ISBN no. 13 978-0-306-81491-4. $ 26.95. 364 pages and lots of photos. If you are a fan of New Orleans music, then you have to buy it.
