01. Blueberry Hill (1956) (Al Lewis, Larry Stock, Vincent Rose) - 2:25
02. Be My Guest (1959) (Fats Domino, John Marascalco, Tommy Boyce) - 2:01
03. My Girl Josephine (1960) (Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew) - 1:59
04. I Hear You Knocking (1958) (Dave Bartholomew, Pearl King) - 1:54
05. The Fat Man (1949) (Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew) - 2:35
06. Blue Monday (1956) (Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew) - 2:21
07. Walking To New Orleans (1956) (Fats Domino, Robert Guidry, Dave Bartholomew) - 1:58
08. Ain't That A Shame (1955) (Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew) - 2:31
09. My Blue Heaven (1956) (George Whiting, Walter Donaldson) - 2:04
10. I Want To Walk You Home (1959) (Fats Domino) - 2:21
11. Whole Lotta Loving (1958) (Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew) - 1:38
12. Country Boy (1960) (Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew) - 2:15
13. Let The Four Winds Blow (1961) (Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew) - 2:02
14. It Keeps Raining (1961) (Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew, Robert Guidry) - 2:40
15. Jambalaya (On The Bayou) (1961) (Hank Williams) - 2:23
16. I'm Ready (1959) (Pearl King, Ruth Durand, Joseph Robichaux) - 2:03
17. Going To The River (1953) (Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew) - 2:31
18. I'm Walkin' (1957) (Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew) - 2:02
19. Goin' Home (1952) (Fats Domino, Al Young) - 2:11
20. Red Sails In The Sunset (1977) (Jimmy Kennedy, Hugh Williams) - 1:56

Personnel:
- Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino Jr. - vocals, piano
and others...

Born Antoine Domino, 26 February 1928, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. From a large family, Domino learned piano from local musician Harrison Verrett who was also his brother-in-law. A factory worker after leaving school, Domino played in local clubs such as the Hideaway. It was there in 1949 that bandleader Dave Bartholomew and Lew Chudd of Imperial Records heard him. His first recording, "The Fat Man", became a Top 10 R&B hit the next year and launched his unique partnership with Bartholomew who co-wrote and arranged dozens of Domino tracks over the next two decades.

Like that of Professor Longhair, Domino's playing was derived from the rich mixture of musical styles to be found in New Orleans. These included traditional jazz, Latin rhythms, boogie-woogie, Cajun and blues. Domino's personal synthesis of these influences involved lazy, rich vocals supported by rolling piano rhythms. On occasion his relaxed approach was at odds with the urgency of other R&B and rock artists and the Imperial engineers would frequently speed up the tapes before Domino's singles were released. During the early 50s, Domino gradually became one of the most successful R&B artists in America. Songs such as "Goin' Home" and "Going To The River", "Please Don't Leave Me" and "Don't You Know" were bestsellers and he also toured throughout the country. The touring group included the nucleus of the band assembled by Dave Bartholomew for recordings at Cosimo Matassa's studio. Among the musicians were Lee Allen (saxophone), Frank Field (bass) and Walter "Papoose" Nelson (guitar).

By 1955, rock 'n' roll had arrived and young white audiences were ready for Domino's music. His first pop success came with "Ain't That A Shame" in 1955, although Pat Boone's cover version sold more copies. "Bo Weevil" was also covered, by Teresa Brewer, but the catchy "I'm In Love Again", with its incisive saxophone phrases from Allen, took Domino into the pop Top 10. The b-side was an up-tempo treatment of the 20s standard, "My Blue Heaven", which Verrett had sung with Papa Celestin's New Orleans jazz band. Domino's next big success also came with a pre-rock 'n' roll song, "Blueberry Hill". Inspired by Louis Armstrong's 1949 version, Domino used his Creole drawl to perfection. Altogether, Fats Domino had nearly 20 US Top 20 singles between 1955 and 1960. Among the last of them was the majestic "Walking To New Orleans", a Bobby Charles composition that became a string-laden tribute to the sources of his musical inspiration. His track record in the Billboard R&B lists, however, is impressive, with 63 records reaching the charts. He continued to record prolifically for Imperial until 1963, maintaining a consistently high level of performance.

There were original compositions such as the jumping "My Girl Josephine" and "Let the Four Winds Blow" and cover versions of country songs (Hank Williams' "Jambalaya (On The Bayou)") as well as standard ballads such as "Red Sails In The Sunset", his final hit single in 1963. The complex off-beat of "Be My Guest" was a clear precursor of the ska rhythms of Jamaica, where Domino was popular and toured in 1961. The only unimpressive moments came when he was persuaded to jump on the twist bandwagon, recording a banal number titled "Dance With Mr Domino". By now, Lew Chudd had sold the Imperial company and Domino switched labels to ABC Paramount. There he recorded several albums with producers Felton Jarvis and Bill Justis, but his continuing importance lay in his tours of North America and Europe, which recreated the sound of the 50s for new generations of listeners. The quality of Domino's touring band was well captured on a 1965 live album for Mercury Records from Las Vegas with Roy Montrell (guitar), Cornelius Coleman (drums) and the saxophones of Herb Hardesty and Lee Allen. Domino continued this pattern of work into the 70s, breaking it slightly when he gave the Beatles' "Lady Madonna" a New Orleans treatment. He made further albums for Reprise Records (1968) and Sonet Records (1979), the Reprise sides being the results of a reunion session with Dave Bartholomew.

Official recognition of Domino's contribution to popular music came in the late 80s. In 1986 he was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, and won Hall Of Fame and Lifetime Achievement awards at the 1987 Grammy's. In 1991 EMI Records, which now owns the Imperial catalogue, released a scholarly box set of Domino's remarkable recordings. Two years later, Domino was back in the studio recording his first sessions proper for 25 years, resulting in his Christmas Is A Special Day set. "People don't know what they've done for me", he reflected. "They always tell me, 'Oh Fats, thanks for so many years of good music'. And I'll be thankin' them before they're finished thankin' me!" He remains a giant figure of R&B and rock 'n' roll, both musically and physically. --- music.us

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A1 	Detroit City Blues 	2:14
A2 	Hide Away Blues 	2:06
A3 	She's My Baby 	2:08
A4 	New Baby 	2:40
A5 	Little Bee 	2:30
A6 	Every Night About This Time 	2:40
B1 	I'm Walkin' 	2:12
B2 	I'm In The Mood For Love	2:47
B3 	Cheatin' 	2:35
B4 	You Can Pack Your Suitcase 	2:20
B5 	Hey! Fat Man 	2:04
B6 	I'll Be Gone	2:21

As with most of Imperial Records' LP releases on Fats Domino, this one reached across a lot of time for its dozen tracks, although the centerpiece was the hit "I'm Walkin'" in its first LP appearance. Also aboard was the latter's B-side, "I'm in the Mood for Love," but a lot of the rest dated from Domino's first Imperial sessions in December of 1949, making this something of an oldies album, or at least an excursion backward to a time and a sound from a decade earlier. Among the best of those cuts were the surprisingly elegant ballad "Hideaway Blues," with its supple piano trills, and the pounding rocker "She's My Baby," which had been two sides of a single at the outset of the '50s; also of note are the slow blues "Brand New Baby," highlighted by Ernest McLean's understated lead guitar and some supremely subtle sax work, and the jaunty "Little Bee," a charmingly raunchy and suggestive number from his second Imperial session in January of 1950. ---Bruce Eder, AllMusic Review

Like the great Louis Armstrong before him, Fats Domino was a perfect ambassador for New Orleans music.

Even at the height of the mid-‘50s rock and roll explosion, when Elvis and Chuck Berry were scaring the bejeezus out of parents with their primal rhythms and suggestive stage antics, Fats was a cherubic presence when seated behind a piano with a sweet smile on his face and a fat horn section by his side. No wonder he was one of the era’s most prolific and universally accepted hitmakers; with trumpeter/bandleader Dave Bartholomew as his co-writer and producer, Domino unleashed an incredible run of hits on Imperial Records that were irresistible to teenagers and their parents alike. Fats always did the Crescent City proud.

Domino, who died at the age of 89 in his beloved home in Harvey, Jefferson Parrish in New Orleans, Louisiana, at night on the 24th of October 2017, had been ailing in recent years after surviving the wrath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (he had to be rescued from his Ninth Ward home, which was utterly devastated). But prior to his health woes, Fats never stopped rocking like it was 1957 all over again, always fronting a rollicking band soaked in second-line rhythms and jabbing horns. Domino never seemed like he was just going through the motions; whenever he launched into his raucous set closer When The Saints Go Marching In, it was instant Mardi Gras time. --- Bill Dahl, bear-family.com

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1. Fats Domino - The Rooster Song [02:09]
2. Fats Domino - My Happiness [02:15]
3. Fats Domino - As Time Goes [01:42]
4. Fats Domino - Hey! La Bas Boogie [02:28]
5. Fats Domino - Love Me [01:57]
6. Fats Domino - Don't Me Calling [02:10]
7. Fats Domino - It's You I Love [02:04]
8. Fats Domino - Valley of Tears [01:56]
9. Fats Domino - Where Did You Stay [02:03]
10. Fats Domino - Baby Please [01:58]
11. Fats Domino - Thinking Of [02:11]
12. Fats Domino - You Know I Miss [02:16]

2008 reissue of this classic album from the Rock 'N' Roll/R&B star, originally issued in 1957. 'Blueberry Hill' had been written in 1940 but it was not until Fats Domino turned it into a more up-tempo R&B number in 1956 that it became a major hit, selling over five million copies worldwide in the space of a little over a year. Immediately following its success, interest in Fats Domino swelled, and much beyond his traditional R&B market. His label Imperial were quick to capitalize on this success, releasing a number of albums in short succession. This Is Fats Domino was released in February 1957 and quickly made the Top 20 of the Billboard charts, propelled by the inclusion of 'Blueberry Hill' and 'Blue Monday'. Hallmark. ---amazon.com

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A1 	Blueberry Hill 	2:14
A2 	Honey Chile 	1:55
A3 	What's The Reason I'm Not Pleasing You 	2:05
A4 	Blue Monday 	2:35
A5 	So Long 	2:05
A6 	La La 	2:05
B1 	Troubles Of My Own 	2:08
B2 	You Done Me Wrong 	2:05
B3 	Reeling And Rocking 	2:23
B4 	The Fat Man's Hop 	2:27
B5 	Poor Poor Me 	2:12
B6 	Trust In Me 	2:24

The most popular exponent of the classic New Orleans R&B sound, Fats Domino sold more records than any other black rock & roll star of the 1950s. His relaxed, lolling boogie-woogie piano style and easygoing, warm vocals anchored a long series of national hits from the mid-'50s to the early '60s. Through it all, his basic approach rarely changed. He may not have been one of early rock's most charismatic, innovative, or threatening figures, but he was certainly one of its most consistent.

Domino's first single, "The Fat Man" (1949), is one of the dozens of tracks that have been consistently singled out as a candidate for the first rock & roll record. As far as Fats was concerned, he was just playing what he'd already been doing in New Orleans for years, and would continue to play and sing in pretty much the same fashion even after his music was dubbed "rock & roll."

The record made number two on the R&B charts, and sold a million copies. Just as important, it established a vital partnership between Fats and Imperial A&R man Dave Bartholomew. Bartholomew, himself a trumpeter, would produce Domino's big hits, co-writing many of them with Fats. He would also usually employ New Orleans session greats like Alvin Tyler on sax and Earl Palmer on drums -- musicians who were vital in establishing New Orleans R&B as a distinct entity, playing on many other local recordings as well (including hits made in New Orleans by Georgia native Little Richard).

Domino didn't cross over into the pop charts in a big way until 1955, when "Ain't That a Shame" made the Top Ten. Pat Boone's cover of the song stole some of Fats' thunder, going all the way to number one (Boone was also bowdlerizing Little Richard's early singles for pop hits during this time). Domino's long-range prospects weren't damaged, however; between 1955 and 1963, he racked up an astonishing 35 Top 40 singles. "Blueberry Hill" (1956) was probably his best (and best-remembered) single; "Walking to New Orleans," "Whole Lotta Loving," "I'm Walking," "Blue Monday," and "I'm in Love Again" were also huge successes.

After Fats left Imperial for ABC-Paramount in 1963, he would only enter the Top 40 one more time. The surprise was not that Fats fell out of fashion, but that he'd maintained his popularity so long while the essentials of his style remained unchanged. This was during an era, remember, when most of rock's biggest stars had their careers derailed by death or scandal, or were made to soften up their sound for mainstream consumption. Although an active performer in the ensuing decades, his career as an important artist was essentially over in the mid-'60s. He did stir up a bit of attention in 1968 when he covered the Beatles' "Lady Madonna" single, which had been an obvious homage to Fats' style. ---Richie Unterberger, allmusic.com

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A1 	How Can I Be Happy 	2:17
A2 	One Of These Days 	2:11
A3 	So Glad 	2:12
A4 	Oh Wee 	2:04
A5 	Sailor Boy 	2:06
A6 	Lazy Woman 	1:49
B1 	Walking To New Orleans 	1:54
B2 	My Love For Her 	2:40
B3 	What's Wrong 	2:15
B4 	Little Mama 	2:40
B5 	I Guess I'll Be On My Way 	2:17
B6 	Goin' Back Home 	1:55

Antoine "Fats" Domino is among the most understated and underrated great musicians and performers who emerged during the era of vintage R&B and rock 'n' roll. Domino had a pleasing, if limited, voice, and his piano technique relied heavily on triplets, two-handed fills, and elements of boogie-woogie. His delivery occasionally also revealed in his enunciation the influence of a Creole patois, even though Domino's primary language is English, not French. Yet he recorded a host of unforgettable, exuberantly delivered, epic singles that remain among the most delightful and memorable songs issued from the Crescent City.

Domino's music wasn't rowdy or rebellious, nor was he an experimental or probing lyricist offering mournful laments or challenging expositions on social injustice. Instead, Domino earned 23 gold records by largely confining his material to celebratory party tunes, suggestive or anticipatory stanzas, and dance/novelty cuts. Domino was greatly assisted by remarkably creative producer/trumpeter Dave Bartholomew and a dynamic band that included saxophonists Herbert Hardesty, Clarence Hall and Red Tyler, guitarist Ernest McLean, pianist Salvador Doucette, bassist Frank Fields, and drummer Earl Palmer.

Domino dabbled in numerous idioms including country, blues, pop, Cajun, jazz and gospel, though his forte was always rollicking, stomping R&B. There's been a critical tendency to overemphasize that white artists such as Ricky Nelson and the Fontaine Sisters covered Domino selections, the implication being that Domino was another tragically exploited African-American performer languishing while faux rockers were thriving. But as this set repeatedly shows, Domino himself covered Hank Williams, Guy Lombardo, Bobby Mitchell, Bobby Charles, Louis Jordan and Smiley Lewis, and his great tunes weren't always trumped by inferior pop versions. For example, both Domino's and Nelson's renditions of "I'm Walkin" peaked at #4 on the pop chart.

Still, most of the compositions on Walking To New Orleans have a vocal freshness and musical vitality equaled only by a handful of American music pioneers. Elvis Presley was the lone artist to sell more records during the '50s than Fats Domino, and this invaluable reissue sonically reaffirms why Domino rose to that level. --- nodepression.com

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A1 	My Blue Heaven 	
A2 	Swanee River Hop 	
A3 	Second Line Jump 	
A4 	Goodbye 	
A5 	Careless Love 	
A6 	I Love Her 	
B1 	I'm In Love Again 	
B2 	When My Dreamboat Comes Home 	
B3 	Are You Going My Way 	
B4 	If You Need Me 	
B5 	My Heart Is In Your Hands 	
B6 	Fat's Frenzy

Fats Domino 	Arranger, Composer, Primary Artist 

In addition to the contemporary single "I'm in Love Again," Fats Domino's second long-player includes a brace of superb early- to mid-'50s tracks, among them "I Love Her," highlighted by Wendell DuConge's alto sax and Herb Hardesty's tenor sax. The highlights include "Second Line Jump," a pounding sax and piano-driven variation on "The Hucklebuck" that makes a good dance number in its own right, Domino's splendidly sung "Goodbye," and the jaunty "If You Need Me." Fats' piano takes the spotlight on the rollicking "Swanee River Hop," a genuine virtuoso performance at the ivories. ---Bruce Eder, AllMusic Review

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A1 	Goin' Home 	2:27
A2 	Trouble In Mind 	2:33
A3 	Every Night 	2:35
A4 	When I See You 	2:08
A5 	Oh Ba-A-By 	2:19
A6 	Ain't Gonna Do It 	2:04
B1 	Your Cheatin' Heart 	2:04
B2 	I Can't Give You Anything But Love 	2:08
B3 	Along The Navajo Trail 	1:43
B4 	South Of The Border 	2:37
B5 	Lil' Liza Jane 	1:51
B6 	Telling Lies 	2:20

In the 1940s, Antoine Domino Jr. was working at a mattress factory in New Orleans and playing piano at night. Both his waistline and his fan base were expanding. That's when a bandleader began calling him "Fats." From there, it was a cakewalk to his first million-selling record — "The Fat Man." It was Domino's first release for Imperial Records, which signed him right off the bandstand.

Producer, songwriter, arranger and bandleader Dave Bartholomew was there. He described the scene in a 1981 interview now housed at the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University. "Fats was rocking the joint," Bartholomew said. "And he was sweating and playing, he'd put his whole heart and soul in what he was doing, and the people was crazy about him — so that was it. We made our first record, 'The Fat Man,' and we never turned around."

Between 1950 and 1963, Domino hit the R&B charts a reported 59 times, and the pop charts a rollicking 63 times. He outsold Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly — combined. Only Elvis Presley moved more records during that stretch — and Presley cited Domino as the early master.

So how did a black man with a fourth-grade education in the Jim Crow South, the child of Haitian Creole plantation workers and the grandson of a slave, sell more than 65 million records?

Domino could "wah-wah-waaaaah" and "woo-hooo!" like nobody else in the whole wide world — and he made piano triplets ubiquitous in rock 'n' roll. "Blueberry Hill," for example, was not Domino's own song — it was first published in 1940 and had already been recorded by the likes of Glenn Miller, Gene Autry and Louis Armstrong — but Domino's version in 1956, complete with those right-hand triplets, was unforgettable.

Piano player Jon Cleary has devoted most of his life to the New Orleans sound. "The triplets thing," he says, "that was one of the building blocks of New Orleans R&B. And that's really the famous Fats Domino groove. Everybody knows that."

And then there was Bartholomew. He and engineer Cosimo Matassa perfected a rhythm-heavy sound in Matassa's studio that was the envy of rock 'n' roll. "Blueberry Hill" may have been Domino's biggest hit, but Bartholomew wrote Domino's favorite: "Blue Monday."

"Blue Monday" had other levels of meaning in Domino's career. In the 1950s, the birth of rock 'n' roll was hard labor. Social critics called the music vulgar. Jim Crow laws segregated Domino's audiences, sometimes with only a rope. And the combination of racial tension and teenage hormones at concerts proved violent: bottle-throwing, tear gas, stabbings and arrests.

Domino's biographer, Rick Coleman, says that there was a real disjunction between that era and the work that Domino was producing. "It was not an easy time period, even though the music was beautiful and joyful," he observes. "It was a hard birth."

By 1960, Domino's audience was overwhelmingly white. In South Carolina, the Ku Klux Klan gave his band directions — by the light of a burning cross. The late saxophone player Herbert Hardesty was driving the Domino bus on that occasion.

"So I had to make it tight," Hardesty recounted. "In about five minutes, I came to Ku Klux Klan. They said, 'Well, where's Fats Domino?' I said, 'He's not here.' They said, 'What are you guys doing?' I said, 'I'm lost, I'm trying to get back to the highway.' And they were very nice — the Ku Klux Klan treated us very nice!"

The British Invasion sent nearly every American performer tumbling down the charts. And yet longtime confidante Ellis says that Domino wouldn't change a note. "He said, 'When I play,' " she explains, " 'I want the people to hear exactly what they're used to hearing on the record.' And eventually, that was one of the things that made him reluctant to play, let's say. He was afraid that he would, you know, mess up a word or whatever."

Domino toured for many years but eventually settled into life at his compound in the Lower Ninth Ward, cooking loads of hog's head cheese for his many friends. Then came Hurricane Katrina — and everybody thought he was dead.

"When Katrina came," Ellis gasps, "Oh, Lord! Fats would say he wanted to leave, but he said, 'What kind of man would I be if I left my family? They don't want to leave.' "

The family survived. Domino lived out the post-Katrina years in a suburb of New Orleans with one of his eight children. But his house still stands on Caffin Avenue, in the Lower Ninth Ward, and has been restored in recent years. It's a reminder of the greatness that the neighborhood once produced, of the golden age of New Orleans music — and of what a fat man can do. ---Gwen Thompkins, kedm.org

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