Fats Domino / New Orleans

Received the following via e-mail this morning thru a friend...thought it was interesting:

To EVERYONE CONCERNED,

I am Rick Coleman, the author of Fats Domino's forthcoming biography BLUE MONDAY: FATS DOMINO AND THE LOST DAWN OF ROCK 'N' ROLL, tentatively scheduled to be released by Jazz Fest time 2006 by DaCapo Press. I just read in the New Orleans Times Picayune, which can be viewed at www.nola.com that Fats Domino's birth home, at 1939/1937 Jourdan Avenue is in the list of homes scheduled to be demolished by the city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Here is the link for the homes to be demolished -- scroll down to 1939 Jourdan Avenue:
http://www.nola.com/katrina/t-p/index.ssf?/katrina/pdf/redlist010506.html

The city previously demolished the birthplace of Louis Armstrong and NO ONE was very happy about that afterwards. Please spread the word so this does not happen. The house should instead be a city landmark with a plaque on it.

Domino, who Quint Davis of Jazz Fest fame called in an interview with me, the "1-A" music legend out of New Orleans after only Armstrong, told me in my first interview with him over 20 years ago that he was born there on February 26, 1928, delivered by his grandmother Carmelite Domino, a midwife who had been born into slavery in 1857. He was the only one of the eight Domino children born in New Orleans, as the family had recently moved from Vacherie in St. James Parish.

As Fats' older cousin Freddy Domino revealed to me in a videotaped tour of the Ninth Ward a few years ago, the house was actually a duplex -- 1939/1937 Jourdan Avenue -- and, indeed I possess a photograph of the wood frame house (then painted pink with white trim and black wrought iron on the doors and porch) with both addresses clearly visible on the front of the house.

According to Freddy, Antoine "Fats" Domino was actually born in 1937 Jourdan, as 1939 Jourdan was then a small store serving the tiny, isolated, and then very rural community immediately facing the levee of the Industrial Canal.

Fats Domino remembers that there were few houses and no street lights or even electricity in the area when he was growing up. And he would walk over a mile on the dark street down to the lighted "civilization" of St. Claude Street at night to meet his sister Philomena, who returned on the streetcar from her job as a domestic with bags of food for the family.

If you need further proof Please note this email excerpt from Domino's good friend Haydee Ellis:

Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 21:15:50 -0500 Hi, Rick - I took Fats to the doctor yesterday. I mentioned something about house where he was born, and he blurted out, without hesitation, "1939 Jourdan Ave."

The small good news is that Domino's best known homes, the adjacent properties at 5525 Marais Street and 1208 Caffin Avenue are not on the list, as the city knows better about those landmarks. We MUST make them aware of the birthplace of city's greatest living legend.

Sincerely,

Rick Coleman