“Everybody started calling my music rock ‘n’ roll, but it wasn’t anything but the same rhythm and blues I’d been playing down in New Orleans.”—Fats Domino
Growing up as the youngest of eight children in New Orleans, Antoine Dominique Domino, Jr. learned to play the piano with help from his older sister’s husband. Guitarist Harrison Verrett labeled the keys of the Domino family piano and taught the beginner about the concept of chords. Young Domino was drawn to the boogie-woogie and swinging grooves of Meade Lux Lewis, Louis Jordan, and Amos Milburn. He started imitating those sounds on his own piano.
A Bandleader Gave Domino the Nickname “Fats”
Bassist Billy Diamond assembled a band to play at The Hideaway in New Orleans, including Domino and Verrett. Diamond was giving Domino a hard time about his voracious appetite and bestowed on him the “Fats” moniker. The nickname stuck for the rest of the singer’s life. The great drummer Earl Palmer asked Domino to sit in on piano with a band he was playing with. It was Dave Bartholomew’s band. Bartholomew was recently assigned as a talent scout and arranger for Imperial Records. He took his boss, Lew Chudd, to The Hideaway to see Domino and a record deal was offered on the spot. With Bartholomew’s band backing him, Domino recorded “The Fat Man” at J&M Studio in New Orleans. It was a reworking of Champion Jack Dupree’s “Junker Blues,” and it put Domino on the musical map. His string of R&B hits for Imperial led him to become the biggest-selling black artist of the ’50s. Domino went on tour with Annie Laurie, Professor Longhair, and Paul Gayten.