Features
CNN: Fats Domino Rescued
Update:
However, as Pollstar was going to press, CNN reported the legendary artist had been found OK and his identity was confirmed by daughter Karen Domino White of New Jersey late September 1st.
A photographer from the New Orleans Times-Picayune took photos of Domino being helped from a rescue boat earlier in the week, but his whereabouts after being plucked from his Ninth Ward home were not immediately known.
The whereabouts of his wife, Rosemary, were also not known.
Tracy Embry, the wife of Domino’s agent Al Embry, confirmed to Pollstar earlier September 1st that Domino was missing.
The legendary singer/pianist is best known for hits including “Ain’t That A Shame,” “Blueberry Hill,” “Walking to New Orleans” and a cover of Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya (On the Bayou).” He remained in his hometown and was living in the family home in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, reportedly the hardest-hit and lowest-lying section of the city.
“At this point, we do not know his location. He was last seen … on the balcony of his house,” Tracy Embry told Pollstar.
“He and his wife, a couple of the kids and a couple of the grandkids were going to just ride the storm out. We’ve been trying to get search and rescue over there … and they were spotted, but we just don’t have confirmation whether they were rescued or not, and if they were, where they took them.”
Refugees and others who have been rescued from rooftops and balconies have been taken by search and rescue teams to numerous locations throughout the region, and as far away as Houston.
Communication remains spotty at best with extremely limited telephone and cell phone capability for survivors to notify relatives and friends of their safety.
“He was in the worst spot he could have been,” Embry emphasized.
Domino has received the Lifetime Achievement and Hall of Fame Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
— Deborah Speer