Domino first attracted national attention with "The Fat Man" (1949, Imperial Records), credited by some as being the first rock and roll record, featuring a rolling piano and Domino doing wah-wah vocalizing over a fat back beat. The record, a reworking of "Junker's Blues" by Champion Jack Dupree, was a massive hit, selling over a million copies and peaking at #2 on the Billboard R&B Charts. It has been estimated that Domino has sold in excess of 110 million records.
Domino then released a series of hit songs with producer and co-writer Dave Bartholomew, saxophonist Alvin "Red" Tyler and drummer Earl Palmer. Other notable and long-standing musicians in Domino's band were saxophonists Reggie Houston, Lee Allen, and Fred Kemp who was also Domino's trusted bandleader. Domino finally crossed into the pop mainstream with "Ain't That a Shame" (1955) which hit the Top Ten, though Pat Boone characteristically hit #1 with a milder cover of the song that received wider radio airplay in a segregated era. Domino would eventually release 37 Top 40 singles, including "Whole Lotta Loving", "Blue Monday".
His 1956 uptempo version of the old song "Blueberry Hill", reached #2 in the Top 40, was #1 on the R&B charts for 11 weeks, and was his biggest hit. The song had earlier been recorded by Gene Autry, and Louis Armstrong among many others.
Fats appeared in two films released in 1956: Shake, Rattle & Rock![1] and The Girl Can't Help It.[2] On 18 December 1957, Domino's hit "The Big Beat" was featured on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. Domino was a huge star in Jamaica and can be considered a father of reggae music along with Louis Jordan. The well known "upbeat" style of guitar in reggae can be directly traced to his piano playing. "The Big Beat" was also played at #4 in Rhythm & Blues' Top 10 Hits on the CD. This CD was copied on December 10, 2006.
Domino continued to have a steady series of hits for Imperial through early 1962, including the 1960 "Walkin' to New Orleans written by Bobby Charles. Twenty-two of his Imperial singles were double-sided hits -- that is, both the A-side and the B-side of the single charted (i.e., 44 songs). After he moved to ABC-Paramount in 1963, however, Domino's chart career was drastically curtailed. He managed one top 40 hit for ABC (1963's "Red Sails In The Sunset"), but by the end of 1964 the British Invasion had changed the tastes of the record-buying public, and Domino's chart run was over.
Despite the lack of chart success, Domino continued to record steadily until about 1970, and sporadically after that. He also continued as a popular live act for several decades. He was furthermore acknowledged as an important influence on the music of the sixties and seventies by some of the top artists of that era; Beatles song "Lady Madonna" was reportedly written by Paul McCartney in an emulation of Domino's style. Domino did manage to return to the "Hot 100" charts one last time in 1968. Ironically, it was with a cover of The Beatles' "Lady Madonna", which appeared at exactly #100 for two consecutive weeks.
In the 1980s, Domino decided he would no longer leave New Orleans, having a comfortable income from royalties and a dislike for touring, and claiming he could not get any food that he liked anyplace else. His induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and an invitation to perform at the White House failed to get Domino to make an exception to this policy. He lived in a mansion in a predominantly working-class Lower 9th Ward neighborhood, where he was a familiar sight in his bright pink Cadillac. He makes yearly appearances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and other local events. Domino was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #25 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[3]
When Hurricane Katrina was approaching New Orleans in August 2005, Domino chose to stay at home with his family, due to his wife's poor health. His house, located in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward, was in an area that was heavily flooded. He was thought to be dead, with someone spray-painting a message on his home, "RIP Fats. You will be missed," which was shown in news photos. On September 1, Domino's agent Al Embry announced that he had not heard from the musician since before the hurricane had struck.
Later that day, CNN reported that Domino was rescued by a United States Coast Guard helicopter. His daughter, gospel singer Karen Domino White, identified him from a photo shown on CNN. The Domino family was then taken to a Baton Rouge shelter, after which they were picked up by JaMarcus Russell, the starting quarterback of the Louisiana State University football team, and Fats' granddaughter's boyfriend. He let the Dominos stay in his apartment. The Washington Post reported that on Friday, September 2, the Dominos had left Russell's apartment after sleeping three nights on the couch. "We've lost everything," Domino said, according to the Post story.[4]
By January 2006, work to gut and repair Domino's Lower 9th Ward home and office had begun.
Domino was the first artist to be announced as scheduled to perform at the 2006 Jazz & Heritage Festival, although he was too ill to perform and was only able to offer the audience an on-stage greeting. Domino also released an album Alive and Kickin' in early 2006 to benefit the Tipitina Foundation, which supports indigent local musicians. The title song was recorded after Katrina, but most of the cuts were from unreleased sessions in the 1990s.