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 “Fat” Domino, RIP