R.I.P. Fats Domino!

[PeterC]

Fats never played the same show twice either, constantly changing the set list and improvising quite a bit.

Yes, I know that.

Perhaps "predictable" is the wrong word ... "dependable" is more appropriate.

[scottdoran1]

A very powerful voice indeed - no i never saw him live

[Dirk B.]

While Fats constantly changed his setlists and improvised quite a lot, the sound of his singing and his piano playing always kept the same. When I saw him in 1995 I thought "he sounds just like he did on his 1965 Vegas live album", no difference in his voice.

[wolfgangguhl]

Just because someone sells a lot of records or plays his most famous songs in concert does not make him a great artist. Just look at Justin Bieber!

But Fats sold a lot of records and was a great artist. Back in the 90's his fee was higher than that of Chuck and Jerry combined. Commercially, Fats was a superstar!

[john1]

Fats Domino was a unique stylist full stop. Nobody but nobody could do a song quite like Fats. Maybe Jerry Lee would like to correct his I am the only stylist, the rest are just musicians ego crap. Pleased to say I saw Fats live. What I remember most is the absolutely first class FULL band he had. No picked up musicians for Fats, no he had pride is his music and not just his pocket. I recall him improvising /directing the band and them looking for his directions. I also recall him having a very extrovert sax player, who would put his sax down, start dancing around the stage, going into the audience waving a large scarf etc. Now virtually every other artists would stop a ‘backup band’ member stealing there show –not Fats, he not only let his sax player ‘steal the show’ he paid tribute to the man! Now the world pays tribute to a truly great artist. RIP Antoine Domino

[wolfgangguhl]

Yes, I know of nobody else, who could play like Fats.

There are also very few impersonators out there, probably because his style was unique and very difficult to play as Little Richard once mentioned.

[Richard Harvey]

Fats semi-retired in 1990, and fully retired in 1995, after his final tour in Europe and UK. He did the right thing at age 67. No one likes to witness an entertainer in old age being wheeled in a wheelchair unto a stage, or one who can't tune a guitar or remember words to their songs.

You should have said "I don't want to witness an entertainer in old age being wheeled in a wheelchair unto a stage". Because that would be true. To say no-one wants to watch it, is obviously untrue, and these gigs still get sold out.

Luckily, in the UK we try to promote equal rights for people with disabilities and seniors, and we think the attitude of you shouldn't do that if you're in a wheelchair to be quite archaic, not to mention disrespectful. Does your anti-wheelchair stance run to classical music, or folk music? Or is it just rock & roll?

[PeterC]

...in the UK we try to promote equal rights for people with disabilities and seniors...

Political correctness gone mad! They'll expect us to see people who can't tune a guitar or remember words to their songs next.

[wolfgangguhl]

They'll force you to see them and if you refuse they will call you a Nazi!

[Richard Harvey]

...in the UK we try to promote equal rights for people with disabilities and seniors...

Political correctness gone mad! They'll expect us to see people who can't tune a guitar or remember words to their songs next.

Chuck's guitar was always in tune when I heard him. His fingers weren't always in the right place of the fretboard though!

But seriously, I'm the first one to admit that Chuck shouldn't have been on-stage when he appeared all confused, it was a troubling sight. But saying someone shouldn't be on stage because their voice isn't as powerful as it used to be, or they're a certain age, or they're in a wheelchair, is a bit hard to agree with.

[wolfgangguhl]

There is something charming about the thought to carry on for as a long as you can. To me the definition of the ultimate musician is where he becomes one with the music through youth and beauty, but also through trouble and pain reflecting what is life:

There hung pictures of youth and of beauty
Of old age and a blushing young bride
They all hung on the wall but the saddest of all
Are the pictures from life's other side

Just a picture from life's other side
Someone has fell by the way
A life has gone out with the tide
That might have been happy some day

[wolfgangguhl]

And that's the reason why Fats while he is in my Top 5 is not No. 1 or 2.

The number one spot changes depending on my mood between Chuck and Jerry with Jerry probably being my all-time favourite.
Chuck => best songwriter and showman
Jerry => best musician and all-around human being

[wolfgangguhl]

By Jon Cleary (as originally posted on Facebook):

Fats used to sit on his porch, about fifteen or twenty blocks from my front door, and wave back to local fans as they drove home from the grocery store. His house, modern and stylish in the early sixties, still stands out like a run down birthday cake on a tray of old vegetables, and when the levee broke and the neighborhood drowned he was taken away in a helicopter from the streets he’d grown up in to a suburb a way away from the city.
The first time I visited him in his new place we had to punch in a combination for an electric gate to swing silently into a private world of empty neat streets and manicured lawns. This was a long way from the old and funky New Orleans 9th ward. These neighbors were politicians and lawyers, not musicians, gangsters and plumbers, a long way from the funk on the other side of the Mississippi river.
His memory was failing and he’d stopped gigging when he started to forget his song lyrics. ‘Is little Booker still living’? he asked me and seemed confused when I answered, as gently as I could, that no, James Booker died nearly thirty years ago. His eyes misted over and he seemed to focus on a distant time somewhere in the past. He thought for a second, looked back at me, and asked ‘Is little Booker still living?’ and when I gave him the same answer he was obviously lost.
After the storm, a piano company from Arkansas had given him a new baby grand, but his daughter said he rarely went near it. Through neglect it had become a bit plunky and a little out of tune but I squeezed a few bars of a blues out of it and from the other side of the room I could see Fats look up with a curious expression. It was as if, for him, everything in the periphery had been shunted to the side and someone had flicked on a switch.
He came over, a bit cautious at first, leant on the right side of the piano looking concerned and then, at a flourish smiled and edged round a little closer. By the second chorus he was reaching out to the keyboard, tentatively testing the water, and then he set his beer on top and moved around so that he could join in properly and started playing some octave runs that were the hippest licks I think I’d ever heard him play. I mean, really good! The man was in his mid-eighties with his head somewhere in the clouds but for a minute there his touch was as light and dextrous as it had probably been back in the fifties when he’d tear up the keys at the club Desire. Fats Domino was getting down.
We brought it to a close, laughed and patted each other on the back and as he stepped away to sit down again the light in his eyes seemed to dim a little.
As we stood in the door way to say our goodbyes he turned to me and asked ‘Is li’l Booker still living’?

[wolfgangguhl]

Domino’s funeral was a private ceremony attended by family and close friends at Providence Park Cemetery in Metairie.

http://www.offbeat.com/articles/antoine-fats-domino-jr