Elvis Presley sure knew how to serve up the humble pie. As early as 1957, the young crooner from Tupelo, Miss., was trying to smother the idea that he had personally launched a musical revolution. 'œRock 'n' roll was here a long time before I came along,' he said. 'œLet's face it: I can't sing it like Fats Domino can.' At the time, Elvis' friend, Antoine Domino Jr., was the undisputed king of the R&B charts. More to the point, the 28-year-old New Orleans piano player's string of hits stretched all the way back to the year that Elvis turned 15. 'œThe Fat Man,' Domino's first single, announced in 1949 a new hybrid of boogie-woogie and the Texas shuffle. As for the lyrics, Elvis wasn't fat enough then to even attempt them.
Fats Domino's star has faded so much since 1957 that even many fans were surprised to learn last August that he hadn't died years ago, said David Kirby in the Chicago Tribune. Hurricane Katrina destroyed Domino's Ninth Ward mansion, but the 78-year-old former star has found a new home in New Orleans, and in music writer Rick Coleman, he's found a determined champion. Apparently, Coleman's 'œintimate, affectionate, yet completely honest portrait of this seminal talent' is the first biography of Domino ever published, said Lincoln Cho in January Magazine. But fittingly, it's also 'œa biography of New Orleans rock 'n' roll,' a richly evocative argument that the city itself should be more widely recognized as rock's true birthplace.
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