Tag Archives: Rhythm and blues

Fats Domino and New Orleans

 

Antoine “Fats” Domino, the rhythm-and-blues singer whose two-fisted boogie-woogie piano and nonchalant vocals made him one of the biggest stars of the early rock ’n’ roll era, stopped touring in the early 1980s when he decided that he did not want to leave New Orleans; he said it was the only place where he liked the food.

Reclusive and notoriously resistant to interview requests, Domino even refused to leave New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, remaining at his flooded home until he was rescued by helicopter. “I wasn’t too nervous” he said later, “I had my little wine and a couple of beers with me.”

He was often seen around New Orleans, emerging from his pink-roofed mansion driving a pink Cadillac. “I just drink my little beers, do some cookin’, anything I feel like,” he said in 2007.

This according to “Fats Domino, early rock ’n’ roller with a boogie-woogie piano, is dead at 89” by Jon Pareles and William Grimes (The New York times 26 October 2017).

Today would have been Domino’s 90th birthday! Below, performing in 1955.

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Ruth Brown’s legacy

Ruth Brown’s recordings—including, just for starters, 5-10-15 hours, (Mama) He treats your daughter mean, and Oh what a dream—have come to define for generations of music lovers the epitome of 1950s-era R&B: elegant and swinging, yet with a sassy sexiness that proclaimed the freedom-seeking spirit of a new generation.

Generations of vocalists, extending into the present day, have cited her as a major musical role model. And they weren’t all women: Little Richard patterned his squeal on his hit Lucille after Brown’s squeal on (Mama) He treats your daughter mean three years earlier.

This according to “Ruth Brown” by David Whiteis (Living blues XXXVII/1:188 [February 2007] pp. 69–71).

Today would have been Brown’s 90th birthday! Above, performing in 2005; below, Little Richard’s muse in 1955.

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Filed under Performers, Popular music