Early rock legend Fats Domino changed music for the better

Fats Domino has died at the age of 89. He outsold the greats, spurred the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, and changed popular music forever (and for the better).

As a mid-90s millennial, the first time I heard Antoine “Fats” Domino was while watching the 1999 movie October Sky, about a group of high schoolers in a 1950s West Virginia coal town who endeavor to build their own rocket. The song “Ain’t That A Shame” fades in and out during a montage as the boys build and test various prototypes.

I remember asking my mother what song was playing. It had a breezy, danceable swing to it, yet somehow felt heavy with the weight of historical significance. Like all good pop songs, you know it immediately, regardless of whether or not you’ve heard it before.

Though I missed the window (by far) to be organically exposed to him through the radio, and even my parents were a generation too young to have experienced Fats Domino’s heyday, film played an important role in passing his tunes on to the next generation, as it does for many artists.

I’m willing to bet other fans other fans have been introduced to Domino in the same way I was. As of today, Fats Domino has 104 soundtrack credits on IMDb. Thus, most people probably know Fats Domino, in that they have undoubtedly heard him at some point, even if they don’t know they know Fats Domino.

Though he is not exactly a household name today, make no mistake — Fats was a star. At the peak of his career, roughly 1950 to 1963, Domino’s songs were on the pop charts 59 times.

And, as the BBC points out, Domino had over 65 million record sales under his belt, which places him ahead of every rock ‘n’ roll act from the ’50s besides Elvis Presley, and means that he outsold Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly combined.

Following his death, media coverage will undoubtedly reflect on the early days of rock ‘n’ roll and Domino’s relationship to the genre. Some authors will (and already have) label him an “inventor” or a “pioneer.”

In fact, “inventor” of rock ‘n’ roll is probably not the right term for Domino. (If we must assign a single person that title, it should probably go to Chuck Berry, though one could say Fats was to rock piano what Berry was to rock guitar).

Rather, Domino was more of an influencer than an inventor. He was a classic rhythm-and-blues artist and one of a handful of musicians who kept reinventing the blues until it became something entirely new.

Domino sang melancholy lyrics about heartache in a way that made you forget they were sad. His his raspy, leisurely vocals caught your attention, but his piano skills made him absolutely unforgettable. The “Domino Groove” consists primarily of repetitive piano triplets, which would not only define not only Domino’s sound but also heavily influence rock, pop and soul music for the rest of the century.

Returning momentarily to the question of how rock ‘n’ roll started: In trying to pinpoint when and by whom the now-amorphously broad genre was invented, many cite the 1951 song “Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston.

Listening to the track today, it does not take an expert in music theory to pick out the similarities between “Rocket 88” and many of Domino’s hits. Most notably, Brenston’s hit prominently features Domino’s signature piano triplets.

And of course, that was only the beginning. From Little Richard to Otis Redding to Paul McCartney, rockstars who cite Fats Domino as an influence are too numerous to count, and their praise of Domino is more than deserved.

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Ultimately, if you are willing to grant that 1951 hit the auspicious honor “first rock song,” then that would place the birth of rock ‘n’ roll right on the tail end of Fats Domino’s reign of the pop charts — which is quite fitting. He was not quite part of the movement, but the movement probably would not have happened had he not preceded it.