Your Favorite Fats Domino Top Ten Hits

Eleven of them from 1955 to 1960. Didn't want to do this as a poll, but tell me which ones are your favorites. They are:

"Ain't That a Shame"
"I'm in Love Again"
"Blueberry Hill"
"Blue Monday"
"I'm Walkin'"
"Valley of Tears"
"It's You I Love"
"Whole Lotta Loving"
"I Want to Walk You Home"
"Be My Guest"
"Walking to New Orleans"

Going with these as my top three:

"Blue Monday"
"Ain't That a Shame"
"I'm in Love Again"

Man, they're all so good.

To narrow it down, here are my favorite Fats Domino songs about walking:

"I'm Walkin'"
"Ain't That a Shame"
"Walking to New Orleans"

Haha, I meant to include "I Want to Walk You Home" in the middle. Cut-and-paste failure. But really, any of them.

I’m Walkin and Blueberry Hill. Kind of obvious but hits are hits.

Fats is also behind one of my 2 or 3 favorite Beatles covers ever. A rollicking take on Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey. Check it out here.

Blueberry Hill and Blue Monday - burned out on Ain't That A Shame I guess but obviously that one's great too. Maybe I'd throw in the #22 "I'm Gonna Be A Wheel Someday," one my mother loved. "You will cry - You will cry-ha-ha-ha-ha-high!"

Got a 10 cd Fats box set, so I have been listening to the Maestro a lot, lately. Most of his songs are on point, sharp and simple. Walking to New Orleans remains pure bliss in under 2 minutes. Melancholy and almost mystical, this man loved his home.

Blue Monday is a proper banger.

Not as comprehensive, but I got this four CD box set years ago:

https://www.discogs.com/release/2486718-Antoine-Fats-Domino-They-Call-Me-The-Fat-Man-The-Legendary-Imperial-Recordings

Highly recommend it as it's very inexpensive and easy to find in great condition on the secondhand market. I think mine was like $10 shipped and it was basically a "like new" cutout. If the price wasn't so ridiculously low, I probably would've passed on it, thinking it was too much Fats, but from end-to-end it really is a great listen. One of the great box sets of its kind - the four-CD longbox retrospective was at its peak in the early '90s. I only wish I had seen him live, but by the time I visited New Orleans I think he was pretty much retired.

I love a few songs, "Walkin' to New Orleans" especially, but I think I'd have a hard time with a huge box set. Legendary Masters is enough for me. Fats is one of those Ramones-type guys, where a certain saminess sets in after a while.

(But underappreciated, witness this six-year-old thread.)

I have the Legendary Masters one-disc set as well. Everything on it is good to great.

Since the revive I've got another box set (lol) from a thrift store. 3 cd's packed with the Paramount Years, his later work... Looking forward to discovering it, though undoubtedly the Imperial years will remain his peak.

I read a Dr John obit somewhere where he reminisced how Fats Domino loved to give loooooooong concerts, which I can totally imagine. Fats probably just kept hammering out those blues piano riffs til everyone in the venue was either drunk or crazy or both.

I can see a piano being the ideal way of giving a long show. You're sitting the whole time, you can breathe normally without tiring out (i.e. no singing or blowing), it's easier to press a key than work a guitar string, and if load up on slower numbers or long notes, it could make it even easier on your fingers.

Your wrists and arms might complain if you play as many fast triplets as Fats did!

hahah, true

Finally got around to listening to the Paramount Years 3cd boxset. Clearly Fats' vocal powers are waning, but among the 60+ tracks there still are some fine gems.

I've compiled a 'Alle 13 Goed' compilation (an old Dutch classic compilation series) with 13 'all fine' tracks. Grab it here before I'm banned, lots of these tracks unfortunately aren't on Spotify
:
https://file.io/XAZanQdOhFJw

One of the highlights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPcwL51prgo