Rock and Roll Legend “Fats”
Domino Passes At 89
By Music Critic Seth
Garth
Yes, no question, I am
belatedly recognizing the passing of the legendary New Orleans piano man Antoine
“Fats” Domino. Not out of any ignorance of his passing as has happened in some cases
like that of Etta James several years ago when somehow her passing fell through
the cracks in this space. Rather in the case of Fats I was for a time unsure of
how I wanted to place him in my growing up pantheon of pioneer rock and roll
artists and legends.
Here is my dilemma. No question
that massively crazy piano men Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard had a great
deal of influence on me during my growing up days in hard-pressed Carver down
in
cranberry country where I
would listen to the Boston rock radio station WMEX and hear Little Richard
rolling his eyes toward heaven on Lucille
and Good Golly Miss Molly . Even
better a little
later when I saw Jerry
Lee doing High School Confidential on
the back of a flatbed truck heading down the road to the local high school in the
film of the same name and I flipped out, went crazy despite the silly cautionary
tale about the dangers of drugs portrayed in the film.
But in the Fats case I
was pretty non-plussed by his classic Blueberry
Hill and others performed by him. So call it coming of age, call it a matter
of taste, call it hormones but Fats did not “speak” to me then. Now I can see
how he deserved all his fame although he still does not speak to me. I was in
great sorrow when I heard that Hurricane Katrina destroyed a lot of his record
holdings which I assume were invaluable to the history of rock and roll. Let’s
leave it at this the Fat Man had the goods to push rock and roll forward for my
growing up generation. RIP, Antoine “Fats” Domino, RIP
