https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/obituaries/fats-domino-89-one-of-rock-n-rolls-first-stars-is-dead.html
"Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino Jr. (born February 26, 1928, died October 24, 2017) He was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Domino is French Creole and Creole was his first language. Domino was delivered at home by his midwife grandmother. Like most families in the Lower Ninth Ward, Domino's family were new arrivals from Vacherie Louisiana. His father was a well known violinist, and young Antoine was inspired to play himself.
Domino
began to develop his musical skills at a very early age, learning to
play the piano from his brother-in-law Harrison Verrett on an age-worn
upright owned by his parents. Many of the members of his family were
involved in music, and by the time he was 10 it was clear that Fats was
headed that direction himself; at the age of 14 -- having dropped out of
school and taken a factory day-job to support himself -- he was already
working professionally on the thriving local club circuit. The young
performer quickly attracted a sizable following with his blend of blues
and boogie, and by 1949 was an established, popular attraction at the
Hideaway Club, where he was leading his own band three nights a week.The turning point for Domino's career came about in that year and at that club, when he was introduced to established trumpeter/performer Dave Bartholomew. Bartholomew had been enlisted as a talent scout by the Los Angeles-based Imperial Records label, and was well aware of Domino's growing popularity; after taking label owner Lew Chudd to see one of the Hideaway Club performances, a contract with the label was quickly arranged. Recording sessions were undertaken in December, during which eight tracks were completed -- amongst them Domino's signature tune The Fat Man, the traditional creole "good luck" song Hey La Bas, Hide Away Blues and the Bartholomew composition Boogie Woogie Baby. The release of Fat Man in 1950 was met with enthusiastic sales, pushing it up to the #2 slot in the R&B charts. Over the next couple years, songs like Every Night About This Time (1950), Goin' Home (which reached #1 in 1952) and Going To The River (also 1953) maintained his popularity and chart presence.
During this period, Domino and Bartholomew
maintained a productive songwriting partnership, with Bartholomew also
handling production duties for their sessions. In 1955 this partnership
reached its peak, placing Domino back at the top of the R&B charts
while also giving him a rare break into the mainstream pop top 10 with
the song Ain't That a Shame (a song subsequently covered by honky
crooner Pat Boone, who took it to #1). The duo continued to churn out
hit songs throughout the rest of the decade, several of which were
updated versions of old classics that have since eclipsed the original
performances: My Blue Heaven (a big band favorite from the 1930's), When
My Dreamboat Comes Home (previously recorded by Bing Crosby), and
Blueberry Hill (originally performed by Gene Autry, but formerly a hit
for both Louis Armstrong and Glenn Miller). Domino's charismatic stage
presence was then captured for posterity in 1957 when he appeared in the
rock and roll showcase/Jayne Mansfield jiggle-a-thon The Girl Can't
Help It.
By the start of the 1960s, Fats Domino's golden era as a recording artist had ended. After his contract with Imperial expired in 1962, he was lured to ABC-Paramount by the offer of an extravagant sum of money, but his chart success evaporated almost immediately: the producers at ABC shipped the singer to Nashville and gave his songs the lavish, string-drenched treatment that was typical of the "Nashville sound" at the time, effectively alienating his rock and roll following while failing to find a new audience. A few songs still managed to creep into the top 40 during the early 60s (such as his version of Red Sails In The Sunset, 1963), but by the onslaught of the British Invasion at the end of '63, Domino's prominence in the recording industry had declined. Ironically, his final entry into the charts would be a 1968 cover of The Beatles' Lady Madonna -- a song with which Paul McCartney had made a conscious attempt to imitate Domino's distinctive style.
Regardless of the fate of his recording career, Fats Domino continued to be a popular live attraction across the decades that followed, and he is widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of popular music. In 1986 he was picked as one of the first 10 inductees for the inaugural year of the Rock and Roll hall of Fame, and the following year he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 30th annual Grammy ceremony. New studio releases essentially ceased to appear after the 1960s, and the most recent exception has been a collection of Christmas songs (including a couple original compositions) issued in 1993 under the title Christmas Gumbo; however, numerous live collections have been regularly issued through a wide variety of corporate and independent labels. In 2005, Domino received a brief flurry of publicity when his fate in the wake of Hurricane Katrina remained uncertain for several days: the singer and his wife had both refused to evacuate their New Orleans home before the storm hit, but it was eventually discovered that both had been rescued by helicopter after the area was overrun by the ensuing flood." (wiki and nnbd)
