Fats Domino remembered as a pioneer

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Tributes have been paid to Fats Domino, whose rollicking boogie-woogie piano helped give birth to rock and roll, following his death at his lifelong home of New Orleans. He was 89.

One of the top-selling artists of the 1950s, Domino had been hailed as an indispensable influence by legends including Elvis Presley, Bob Marley and especially The Beatles. The band called his music their first encounter with rock.

Antoine "Fats" Domino aka Fats Domino performing in 1978. /VCG Photo

"He was a world-class musician, known for his shaping of rock 'n' roll as we know it," New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in a statement. Domino's daughter earlier told a local television station that the rock legend died peacefully around family on Tuesday.

Despite finding global fame, Domino never moved out of the working-class Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans where he and his late wife Rosemary raised eight children and he would sometimes be spotted sleeping outside in a hammock.

In his heyday Domino rivaled Presley in record sales and for the crown of King of Rock 'n' Roll. But with a natural shyness, and segregation still reigning in much of the United States, the self-effacing Domino faded in prominence by the mid-1960s as a crop of swaggering rock stars came to dominate pop culture.

With his rhythm-and-blues piano backed up by an energetic back-beat, Domino on "The Fat Man" offered self-deprecating humor -- "They call me the fat man / 'Cause I weigh 200 pounds" – and turned his voice into a trumpet-like instrument, singing, "Wah-wah-wah, wah-wah."

He later recorded hits that became omnipresent on American jukeboxes such as "Ain't That a Shame," "Blueberry Hill," "I'm Walking" and "It's You I Love."

Source(s): AFP