Fats Domino is born in New Orleans
Antoine Domino was the youngest of eight children born into a Creole family that spoke French as its first language.Dominos father was a fiddle player but it was his much older brother-in-law Harrison Verrett who taught young Antoine the piano.By age 10 Antoine was playing professionally in New Orleans honky-tonks where he earned the nickname Fats from bandleader Bill Diamond.
In 1949 he caught the eye and ears of trumpeter band leader and Imperial Records talent scout Dave Bartholomew and a legendary partnership was born.The first record Fats Domino put out with Bartholomew as his producercollaborator was 1949s The Fat Man a big foot-stomping boogie-woogie that established Dominos signature sound.Over the next half-decade Dominos backbeat-heavy rolling piano played a vital role in defining the shape of rock and roll.Aint That A Shame needed a boost from Pat Boones white-bread cover version before finding its way to the pop charts in 1955 but that breakthrough paved the way for two more top-five pop hits in Blueberry Hill and Im Walkin in 1956 and 1957 respectively.After three decades as a major international stara star who sold an estimated 65 million records worldwideDomino went into semi-retirement in the 1980s announcing that he would no longer travel outside his native New Orleans.
A man of his word Domino was not enticed to travel even to be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Grammy a National Medal of the Arts from President Bill Clinton or induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.Domino remained a neighborhood fixture in the Ninth Ward however living in his colorful double-shotgun mansion and making occasional forays out to local clubs in his enormous bright-pink Cadillac.Not surprisingly Fats Domino returned to New Orleans as soon as he could following Hurricane Katrina.
