Fats Domino

“Teens always heard my music with their hearts. The beat was just happy. It didn't have color or hidden meaning.”

“I was 17 when I made my first record in 1949. I never thought about being professional.”

“I guess my favorite is 'Blue Monday,' but that wasn't my biggest seller. The biggest was 'Blueberry Hill' and that's the one I get the most requests for. I can't get through a show without doing it once, and sometimes twice.”

“I play the same for 60 people as I do for 6,000. I used to play in front of 60,000 people. No difference. Just play and sing.”

“Really, I don't feel I'm a great piano player, but other people think so.”

“When I was just starting out, I had $3,700 saved up. I went to Nashville on a job and saw this diamond ring in a window that cost $3,650. I took the money out of my savings account and bought it, 'cause I just had to have it.”

“I used to work in a lumberyard and that's where I first heard a number on a jukebox and I liked it. It was a piano number. It was called 'Swanee River Boogie' by Albert Ammonds.”

“I write tunes about what people say, whatever they say.”

“As long as I'm in New Orleans, I'm not away from home.”

“I have a hard time pleasing myself with my songs. I have to do them over and over until I think I got them right. I'm always finding fault, but the people seem to like them. I always figure I can do something different that I wouldn't have already. I may not be right, but I don't want to be too far wrong.”

“I play my music the same way because people expect it to sound exactly the way it does on the radio.”

“I love being on stage. I just wish all the musicians would like it like I do. I could stay out there three hours if the sound was good and the people were liking it.”

“Some 'people' think I'm a great singer. They don't know nothin'. I ain't no singer; I just talk in time with the beat and on pitch. That ain't singin'; that's talkin'.”

“I sing like I talk - soft, with all the words clear.”

“My music is a very simple type, and that's why the kids have no trouble understanding it. They don't want to figure out what a musician does; they want to feel it.”

“My music doesn't cause teen-age riot. There have been fights ever since there have been dances. They just publicize the trouble when rock 'n' roll is playing.”

“As a boy in New Orleans, I had all sorts of jobs - an iceman, made bed-springs, lumber yard.”

“I used to make $27 a week.”

“I cook a lot.”

“If I have any kind of problem, it goes away when I hit the stage.”