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Fats Domino ("Blue Monday)

• #2 all-time in record sales (2^nd only to Elvis)
• 37 charted singles (#14 all-time)

Fats' professional career:

• 10 yrs old - played for pennies in Honky-Tonk bars
• early teens - played with New Orleans Greats (Professor Longhair, Amos Milburn)
• introduced the "New Orleans style" to a national audience in 1950:

The Fat Man

note boogie-woogie piano style & use of falsetto voice;
8-bar blues (modification of 12-bar form)

Dawson & Propes on "The Fat Man"

Ain't That a Shame

#10 (#1 R&B); cover version
by Pat Boone was #1 for 20 weeks!!
( 12-bar blues)

Style established:

Blueberry Hill

#2; #1 R&B; resurrected pop favorite
from the 40s (Tin Pan Alley)

I'm Walkin'

#1 R&B
(AABA form)

switch from mainstream rock to pop sound:

Walking to New Orleans

#6 in 1960; strings added,
no boogie-woogie piano,
no rocking sax solos

• since the 60s—nostalgia tours & Las Vegas
• 1986—inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame
• 1987—Grammy "Hall of Fame" award & "Lifetime Achievement"

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