The 25 best musicians of the Rock & Roll era

Who took the top slots for the best artists in the Rock-and-Roll era? Check out the full list.

12. Fats Domino

Fats Domino, born Antoine Dominique Domino Jr., is known for his R&B and his influence on early rock 'n' roll music.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him this way: "In Domino’s nickname became the basis of his first single, "The Fat Man," a huge R&B hit – it went to Number Two nationally – and reported million-seller. Some music historians consider “The Fat Man” to be the first rock and roll record; at the very least, it is a milestone rhythm and blues performance heralding a new age in popular music.

The secret behind the appeal of Domino’s music’s was, unsurprisingly, rhythm. "You got to keep a good beat," Domino said in a 1956 interview in Downbeat magazine. "The rhythm we play is from Dixieland — New Orleans." He elaborated on that point in the liner notes for his 1991 box set, They Call Me the Fat Man...: The Legendary Imperial Recordings: “Everybody started callin' my music rock and roll,” noted Domino, “but it wasn't anything but the same rhythm and blues I'd been playin' down in New Orleans."

Domino rose to fame in the late 1940s, but it was mostly confined to the R&B charts until 1952. He sold more records (65 million) than any other 1950s-era rocker except Elvis Presley, according to the R&R Hall of Fame. Some of his biggest hits included "The Fat Man" and "Ain't That A Shame" and "Blueberry Hill."

14 of 25

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.