ELVIS PRESLEY & FATS DOMINO: WHEN THE “KING” STOOD BESIDE THE MAN HE HAD ALWAYS ADMIRED
There was no rivalry in the way history sometimes remembers the birth of rock ’n’ roll when Elvis Presley and Fats Domino were together. There was admiration. Fats was already one of the defining figures of the new sound when Elvis was beginning his own recording career, and Elvis never forgot how much he had learned simply by listening to him. In fact, in a 1957 interview, Elvis openly acknowledged Fats as an influence, saying, “I can’t sing it like Fats Domino. I know that.” Years later, that admiration would become a genuine friendship.
Their paths did not actually cross during the explosive early years of rock ’n’ roll. According to PBS’s American Masters, they met in 1969 in Las Vegas, when Fats was performing at the Flamingo Hotel. Fats later recalled one of their conversations with a warmth that makes the story especially human. Elvis told him that he was opening the next day, but remembered that when he had first come there, “I flopped.” Fats recalled that after Elvis returned, however, the shows were sold out. He also remembered Elvis’s talent with genuine affection: “Boy, he could sing.”
Fats also revealed one of the sweetest details of their relationship. Elvis called him “Mr. Blueberry Hill,” borrowing the nickname from Fats’s signature 1956 recording. “Blueberry Hill” had become Fats Domino’s biggest pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart, while also crossing into the country market. The song became inseparable from Fats’s public identity, so Elvis’s nickname was more than a joke. It was a little salute from one great singer to another. And Elvis himself had recorded “Blueberry Hill” in January 1957, releasing his version on Loving You later that year.
The most revealing moment came during Elvis’s 1969 Las Vegas press conference, when a reporter referred to him as the “King of Rock ’n’ Roll.” Elvis did not simply accept the title. Instead, he drew attention to Fats Domino, who was present, and identified him as “one of my influences from way back.” It was a remarkably generous gesture from an artist who was himself one of the most famous entertainers in the world. Elvis was essentially reminding everyone in the room that the story of rock ’n’ roll did not begin with him. Fats Domino had already been making history.
And the historical context makes their mutual respect even more meaningful. Fats had built his career in the segregated America of the 1950s, when Black musicians faced barriers that white performers did not. His 1956 “Blueberry Hill” became a massive crossover success, while Fats and his band increasingly performed in integrated venues and faced the racial tensions surrounding early rock ’n’ roll. PBS notes that Fats’s shows were sometimes disrupted by racial violence and that his band could be forced to travel long distances simply to find accommodation. At the same time, Elvis was drawing heavily from Black musical traditions and openly acknowledging musicians such as Fats as influences. Their friendship therefore existed within a complicated American musical landscape, but the respect between the two men was remarkably direct.
There is something beautiful about the image that remains: Elvis Presley, already a worldwide superstar, standing beside Fats Domino and making sure everyone understood that this was a man he admired. Fats, for his part, remembered Elvis not merely as a competitor from another side of the musical world, but as someone who could sing everything from gospel to country and whose talent he genuinely appreciated. Their story is not really about who was greater or who deserved the crown. It is about two pioneers recognizing something in each other. And perhaps the most fitting soundtrack to that friendship was the song Elvis himself had once recorded: “Blueberry Hill.”