Fats Domino
American pianist and singer (1928-2017)
Antoine Caliste "Fats" Domino Jr. (February 26, 1928 – October 24, 2017) was an American singer-songwriter and pianist. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records. Born in New Orleans to a French Creole family, Domino signed to Imperial Records in 1949. His first single "The Fat Man" is cited by some historians as the first rock and roll single and the first to sell more than 1 million copies. Domino continued to work with the song's co-writer Dave Bartholomew, contributing his distinctive rolling piano style to Lloyd Price's "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" (1952) and scoring a string of mainstream hits beginning with "Ain't That a Shame" (1955). Between 1955 and 1960, he had eleven Top 10 US pop hits. By 1955, five of his records had sold more than a million copies, being certified gold.
Domino was shy and modest by nature but made a significant contribution to the rock and roll genre. Elvis Presley declared Domino a "huge influence on me when I started out" and when they first met in 1959, described him as "the real king of rock 'n' roll".
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Fats Domino” is american pianist and singer (1928-2017). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Fats, Domino and American, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “american pianist and singer (1928-2017)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q209586. VIAF identifies the subject as 7573689. The Library of Congress control number is n82145590. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1928, 2017, 1949 and 1952.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Fats Domino” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.