Fats Domino: Culture shaper

WHEN Michael Jackson died, on June 25, 2009 — already slipping into the mists of time — and when Prince died on April 21, 2016, the unexpected loss of two great musicians was all the more biting because they both died prematurely.

They were aged 50 and 57 respectively. So much more could have been expected from them.

When a founding father of today’s popular music Fats Domino — Antoine Dominique Domino Jr to his mother — died in New Orleans on Tuesday, he was 89 and he had given of his all. And what an impressive, influential “all” that was.

Domino sold 65m singles and made 23 records that went gold but those cold figures do not reveal how even when singing about heartbreak he celebrated the glory of love.

This great quality copperfastened his influence and made the careers of Jackson and Prince, and so many others, possible.