The Songwriters Hall of Fame inducted Domino and Bartholomew in 1997. In 1999, National Public Radio named Domino’s “Ain’t That a Shame” (the first song John Lennon ever learned) as one of the 100 greatest songs of the 20th Century. Like “Blueberry Hill,” Fats’ recording also entered the Grammy Hall of Fame. The National Endowment for the Arts and the Record Industry Association of America also ranked “Blueberry Hill” No. 18 in the “Songs of the Century,” between Duke Ellington’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” and Kate Smith’s “God Bless America.”
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Although Domino has recorded relatively few songs since his heyday (and released even fewer), last year he released Alive and Kickin’, a CD of the songs he has been working on over the last decade through the Tipitina’s Foundation in a benefit for the relief of Katrina-devastated musicians (www.tipitinasfoundation.org). Though he had written (or co-written) the songs before the disaster, some of the titles seem to speak to the recovery of his beloved New Orleans: “Alive and Kickin’,” “I’ll Be All Right” and “One Step at a Time.” The CD also contains a strong ballad with a sophisticated lyric by Roger Pauly that, with any justice, will find popularity through a movie and/or television soundtrack. “Love You ‘Til the Day I Die” poignantly speaks to Domino’s everlasting love of his family, his fans, and his hometown.
Indeed, though his homes were flooded and his neighborhood destroyed, Antoine “Fats” Domino has recovered. Nearing age 79, he is still working on songs in his new home in Harvey, across the river from New Orleans. On August 29, 2006, exactly a year after Katrina, President Bush visited Domino at his old home to replace the National Medal of the Arts originally presented by President Clinton in 1998. Amazingly, Domino, who-aside from his forced evacuation after Katrina-had not ventured outside of his hometown since 1995 (when he stopped touring), traveled to Washington, D.C. to attend a formal dinner with Bush at the White House two weeks later.
Though Presidents have courted him, Domino always wrote about the working man. In fact, the favorite song of Domino, Bartholomew and Lew Chudd-Bartholomew’s workingman’s anthem “Blue Monday”-also spoke of joy. “Everybody has a job to work five or six days a week,” remarks Fats. “They’re paid on Friday or Saturday. Then they go out and have some fun. Sunday, they have to get their rest. You know, they say, ‘Well, I’m gonna get some rest because I got to work and it’s gonna be rough.’ That’s why I say ‘Monday’s a hard-workin’ day,’ see?”
Bartholomew wrote the song at the end of 1950 after he had led two particularly hard tours with Fats, the second ending in a blizzard in Independence, Missouri. Dave was inspired by the “Blue Monday” night the jazz musicians celebrated in nearby Kansas City, though there was a similar tradition in New Orleans. Fats describes working like a slave, but the visceral release in his pounding piano speaks of spiritual freedom-a continual revival of the soul through music. That was always the core feeling of the music of New Orleans, where even slaves once celebrated one day a week at Congo Square. Where everyone finds joyful release at Mardi Gras. Where people dance in the streets during funerals. Where perhaps the world’s most musical city is slowly bouncing back from one of the greatest tragedies in American history.
Already available in hardback, Rick Coleman’s Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock ‘n’ Roll will be published in paperback by Da Capo Books in April 2007.
Could “Fats read sheet music?