Welcome to New Orleans
Fats Domino’s development and career did not happen in isolation, but in a city that had a number of prosperous R&B musicians rising on the charts just before and after Domino saw success. New Orleans is often thought of as a home to jazz musicians primarily, but the R&B music that came out of New Orleans in the 1950s and 1960s was abundant, popular, and varied.
New Orleans R&B musicians worked in very close proximity to one another. They performed shows together, recorded on each other’s albums, offered advice with songwriting, and shared studio musicians, creating a close-knit community at the core of New Orleans R&B. There were some stylistic features that unified this group of musicians, and the New Orleans sound: larger, more prominent horn sections and triplet repeated chords played on piano became synonymous with the R&B coming out of 1950s New Orleans.