Playlist: The Roots, And The Reach, Of Fats Domino
Calling Fats Domino an architect of rock and roll almost sounds like faint praise. Indeed, the amiable country boy from the Lower Ninth Ward, with the help of bandleader impresario Dave Bartholomew and one of the world's truly legendary gangs of sidemen, dug the hole and laid the actual foundation. Fats emerged from an old-school New Orleans piano tradition into a cultural force that would shake the world with atomic-level power, and reverberate through the decades with an ever-rippling exponential influence. But if you asked him about rock and roll, back in the day, he'd shrug off responsibility for the electrifying new movement, saying it was just the rhythm and blues he'd been hearing, and playing, for years.
It's hard to pull together a list of performers influenced by Fats Domino because, during their fall 1964 tour stop in his hometown New Orleans, he said, "No, they got to meet me.")
