Rock ’n’ Roll legend Fats Domino has died

Rock ’n’ roll pioneer Antoine “Fats” Domino Jr., known for hits such as “Blueberry Hill” and “Ain’t That a Shame,” died Tuesday at age 89. Domino was born in 1928 in New Orleans and dropped out of grade school to focus on music. By his late teens, he regularly played piano in local nightclubs. At age 19, he married Rosemary Hall and stayed married until her death in 2008. They had eight children. Domino’s 1950 rhythm and blues hit “The Fat Man” was an early example of rock ’n’ roll, and his boogie-woogie rhythm-and-blues style influenced many rock ’n’ roll legends of the 1950s and ’60s. John Lennon learned as a teenager how to accompany himself on the guitar by practicing Domino’s 1955 hit “Ain’t That a Shame.” Adolescent TV star Ricky Nelson launched his music career in 1957 with a recording of Domino’s “I’m Walkin’.” Elvis Presley, seven years Domino’s junior, said, “Rock ’n’ roll was here a long time before I came along. … Let’s face it. I can’t sing it like Fats Domino.” By 1963, Domino had made it onto Billboard’s pop chart more than 60 times and released more hit records than Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Buddy Holly combined. His biggest hit, “Blueberry Hill,” sold more than 5 million copies in 1956 and ’57. The 1964 invasion of the Beatles and other British musicians reflected a shift in taste of the record-buying American public that ended Domino’s string of hits. He continued touring into the 1980s, eventually retiring to New Orleans. During Hurricane Katrina in 2005 he stayed home with his wife. Forced upstairs by flooding when the levee broke, they were rescued by boat and evacuated to the Louisiana Superdome. Over seven decades, Domino sold more than 65 million albums and received many lifetime achievement awards. He was in the first group of artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and received the National Medal for the Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1998.