Back when Fats Domino passed away, I went on record with my opinion that his recording of Blueberry Hill was one of the most perfect pop music recordings in history. I stand by that opinion; it’s kind of the ne plus ultra of everything that made him who he was and as great as he was. His simple, unadorned singing style; his affable charisma; an inspired song choice; a pitch perfect piano part; and memorable support from the band. All that is just to say that this album opens with Blueberry Hill and that’s really unfair to the rest of the album, which just doesn’t really have a chance at living up to that opening song. But still it takes a good shot at it and it’s impossible to dislike most of the rest of this album, just because it falls a bit short of, you know, actual perfection. Stand-outs from the rest of the album include Blue Monday, La-La, The Fat Man’s Hop & Poor, Poor Me. The rest of the tracks all deliver exactly what you expect, which is a darn good time. Reelin’ & Rockin’ is the rare exception to the rule created by Domino’s first three albums; it’s a song that just doesn’t work at all, mainly because it’s played at a painfully slow tempo. Speeding it up probably would have sold it; it’s a fairly typical rock’n’roll number, but imagine Rock Around the Clock played half as fast. Right? Still, it’s a super-fun album, often downright inspired. And, as usual, it’s twelve songs clocking in at under thirty minutes. It’s going to be hard to transition back to modern albums with their sixty to seventy minute lengths after this is over, I’ll tell you that. Brevity is the soul of a lot of things and it’s just kind of hard to dislike anything that goes by as quickly and joyfully as a Fats Domino record. Am I going to rate any of these less than four stars? Not today, I’m not. 4 stars.
tl;dr – opening with perhaps Domino’s most famous song sets the stage for a great time and the album delivers. 4 stars.