Welcome to the last Tuesday Timeline of the
month! For today’s topic, we’re going
back quite a few years into the past.
And, just as we have done with the previous three Tuesday Timelines,
this one will be devoted to an event in “Black History Month” within the world
of pop culture.
As always though, we have other happenings that
took place in the world throughout history.
So, let us take a look back through all the February 26 world
events of the past.
364
– Valentinian I is proclaimed Roman Emperor
1794
– Copenhagen’s Christiansborg Palace burns to the ground
1802
– Les Miserables author Victor Hugo is born in France
1815
– Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from Elba
1829
– Levi Strauss, the man who created the first company to manufacture blue
jeans, is born in Germany
1887
– Actor William Frawley (a.k.a. Fred Mertz) is born in Burlington, Iowa
1909
– Kinemacolor – the first successful color motion picture process – is shown to
the public at the Palace Theatre in London
1914
– HMS Britannia (sister ship of the Titanic) is launched from Belfast, Ireland
1917
– The world’s first jazz record is recorded by the Original Dixieland Jass Band
1919
– The majority of the Grand Canyon is officially declared a United States
National Park by President Woodrow Wilson
1920
– Robert Wiene’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” debuts in Berlin, which becomes
the very first German Expressionist film (on the same day that actor Tony Randall
is born)
1929
– President Calvin Coolidge signs an executive order to establish the Grand
Teton National Park in Wyoming
1932
– Country singing legend Johnny Cash is born in Kingsland, Arkansas
1935
– Adolf Hitler orders the Luftwaffe to be reformed, which violates the Treaty
of Versailles
1952
– Vincent Massey becomes the very first Canadian-born Governor-General of
Canada
1961
– Hassan II becomes the King of Morocco
1966
– The ROK Capital Division of the South Korean Army massacres 380 unarmed
citizens in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War
1972
– One hundred and twenty-five people are killed following the collapse of a dam
in Logan County, West Virginia
1987
– The Tower Commission rebukes President Ronald Reagan for not controlling his
national security staff at the height of the Iran-Contra Affair
1991
– The town of Al Busayyah is seized and captured by American forces during the
Gulf War
1993
– Six people are killed, and thousands more injured after a truck bomb
detonates underneath the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City
1995
– The United Kingdom’s oldest banking institution, Barings Bank, collapses
following a $1.4 billion loss by securities broker Nick Leeson
2004
– The Republic of Macedonia President Boris Trajkovski is killed in a plane
crash in Bosnia and Herzegovina
2009
– British born actress Wendy Richard dies of cancer at the age of 65
2012
– 17-year-old Trayvon Martin is shot at close range by George Zimmerman,
setting forth a controversial series of events
So, as you can see, February 26 was filled with
lots of events...the good, the bad, and the ugly.
February 26 also happens to have a lot of
celebrity birthdays associated with it as well.
The following people who are unwrapping birthday gifts and blowing out
candles are Tom Kennedy, Ariel Sharon, Josephine Tewson, Mitch Ryder (The
Detroit Wheels), Sandie Shaw, Sharyn McCrumb, Elizabeth George, Emma Kirkby,
Jonathan Cain, Michael Bolton, Rupert Keegan, Kevin Dunn, Joe Mullen, Greg
Germann, Susan J. Helms, Kelly Gruber, Chase Masterson, Mark Dacascos, Mark
Fortier, Currie Graham, Tim Commerford (Rage Against The Machine), Ed Quinn,
J.T. Snow, Steve Agee, Erykah Badu, Max Martin, Jenny Thompson, Marty Reasoner,
Greg Rikaart, Tim Thomas, Josh Towers, Corinne Bailey Rae, Gary Majewski,
Kertus Davis, Nate Ruess (Fun), Kara Monaco, Alexandria Hilfiger, Hannah
Kearney, Teresa Palmer, and Taylor Dooley.
Today’s blog subject also is celebrating a
birthday. Birthday number 85, to be
specific.
So, right off the bat, this should tell you that
our subject was born on February 26,
1928.
Our subject was born in New Orleans, Louisiana,
and grew up in the district known as the Lower Ninth Ward (the same area that
was nearly wiped off the map in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina flooded the
majority of the city). His first
language was Creole, and he was surrounded by music at an early age, with his
father playing the violin, and his uncle being jazz guitarist Harrison
Verrett. I suppose his upbringing might
have something to do with the fact that he had thirty-five singles charting on
the Top 40 charts during his heyday, and released five gold records before he
was thirty years old.
And, the reason why I mentioned Hurricane Katrina
in the paragraph above? I’ll get to that
in a minute.
For now, let’s take a look at the life and career
of Antoine Dominique Domino Jr. Of
course, those of you who might have been fans of his will know him best as Fats
Domino, who turns eighty-five years old today!
Fats Domino first started to get attention as a
recording artist at the age of just twenty-one, when he recorded his first
single, “The Fat Man” in December 1949.
He co-wrote the song with Dave Bartholomew, and was recorded for
Imperial Records at J&M Studio (run by Cosimo Matassa) in New Orleans. While Domino sang and played the piano on the
record, the rest of the band was made up of Earl Palmer (drums), Frank Fields
(string bass), Ernest McLean (guitar), and four saxophone players (Herbert
Hardesty, Clarence Hall, Joe Harris, and “Red” Tyler).
The song became a minor hit in New Orleans by
Christmas 1949, with Imperial Records claiming that the single had sold ten
thousand copies in ten days! By 1953,
the song had sold a million copies! And,
from that first single (which many people consider to be one of the first rock
and roll records ever released), Fats Domino’s career continued to take off.
It took Fats Domino about five years to make a
crossover into the more mainstream pop charts, but when Domino released the
1955 single “Ain’t That A Shame” reached the #1 position on what was called the
Black Singles Chart (it peaked at #10 on the Pop Charts), it was kind of
overshadowed by the fact that a cover version by Pat Boone that same year hit
the #1 position on the charts for two weeks!
Of course, one of the speculated reasons behind the reason why Pat Boone’s
version did better on the charts than Fats Domino’s version was because Boone’s
version received more airplay in states and cities that were more
racially-segregated. Though, it appeared
that Fats Domino’s feelings weren’t hurt too much. He did compliment Boone for singing the song
so well.
TRIVIA: The Four Seasons also recorded a version of
the song “Ain’t That A Shame” in 1963, which peaked at #22 on the charts.
Here’s some more trivia surrounding the debut
album of Fats Domino. Did you know that
it was released with two different titles?
When the album was originally released in November 1955, it was under
the name of “Carry on Rockin’”. It was
subsequently released as “Rock and Rollin’ with Fats Domino” in early 1956.
And, no matter what name the album went under,
this single below ended up becoming one of Fats Domino’s biggest hits.
Although “Blueberry Hill” was not an original Fats
Domino composition (it was originally released in 1940 by the trio of Vincent
Rose, Al Lewis, and Larry Stock), it peaked at #2 on the Pop Charts in
1956. It became his biggest hit, selling
over five million copies between 1956 and 1957, and it would forever be
immortalized by Ron Howard in the television series “Happy Days”, when his
character, Richie Cunningham, would sing the opening line of the song in
several episodes of the sitcom.
Fats Domino would continue to have much success on
the charts throughout the 1950s and early 1960s with singles such as “I’m
Walkin’”, “Valley of Tears”, “Whole Lotta Loving”, “Be My Guest”, “Walkin’ To
New Orleans”, and “My Girl Josephine”.
Of course, that success did not come without some lows...perhaps the
most public display of this came in November 1956, when a riot broke out during
one of his concerts in North Carolina.
The riot got so out of hand that Domino had to escape out of a window!
Domino remained with Imperial Records until 1963,
when the company was sold. During his
time with Imperial, he had recorded sixty singles in total, with two-thirds of
those songs placing within the Top 10 on the R & B charts alone! In 1963, Domino moved to a new label,
ABC-Paramount Records...but the change in record label came at a price. He was forced to relocate from New Orleans to
Nashville, and was assigned a new producer and arranger, which effectively put
an end to the partnership he shared with Dave Bartholomew (though they would
later reunite in the late 1960s when Domino joined Bartholomew’s Broadmoor
label). The change in label and
personnel also changed the sound of Domino’s sound, and despite recording almost
a dozen singles with the record company, only one (1963’s “Red Sails in the
Sunset”) charted within the Top 40.
Domino left ABC-Paramount in 1965, and continued recording at a variety
of labels before deciding to cease recording new material in the early 1970s.
By the 1980s, Domino returned to New Orleans to
spend the rest of his life, and despite being inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in 1986 with the opportunity to perform at the White House, he
refused to go. He was finished with
touring (he had said in numerous interviews that he didn’t like going on
tours), and he already had a comfortable income from song royalties. He moved to the Lower Ninth Ward in New
Orleans, and remained there until the mid-2000s.
In the late night hours of August 28, 2005,
Hurricane Katrina was about to make landfall in New Orleans, and while many of
the residents of New Orleans fled the city or took shelter in the Superdome,
Fats Domino opted to stay at his home with his family because of the fact that
his wife was in poor health. When
Katrina passed over New Orleans, the Lower Ninth Ward was almost completely flooded,
and one of the houses that were affected was Fats Domino’s.
In fact, Fats Domino’s home was so badly damaged
that it was initially believed that Domino had died in the storm, because
nobody close to him had heard from him since.
It wasn’t until September 1, 2005 that everyone learned that Fats Domino
and his family were rescued by the Coast Guard, and evacuated to a shelter in
Baton Rouge. Sadly, Fats Domino ended up
losing everything in the hurricane, but he still had his family, which was more
important.
Slowly, but surely, Fats Domino’s life has gotten
back on track. The National Medal of
Arts Award that Fats Domino was awarded in 1997 was destroyed in the hurricane,
but on August 29, 2006 - the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina – Domino
was awarded a replacement medal by President George W. Bush. Domino also released an album in 2006, in
which all the proceeds from the album went to the Tipitina’s Foundation (a
charity designed to benefit local musicians).
Domino was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by OffBeat Magazine in
January 2007. Nine months later, he was
inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
And, in May 2009, Fats Domino sat in the audience at “The Domino Effect”,
a concert named after the legend aimed at rebuilding schools and playgrounds in
New Orleans neighbourhoods destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
So, I suppose it’s fitting that Fats Domino would
spend his retirement years helping raise awareness towards the city that he has
called “home” for the majority of his 85 years on this Earth.
Happy birthday, Fats Domino!
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