Funny how things do work out. When Jerry Lee Lewis passed a couple months ago I went looking for a video that I had seen many years ago of him playing with a broken hand and never missing a beat. However, after a couple Youtube forays looking for that performance, I got side tracked, gave up and ended up instead re-watching the Dennis Quaid movie Great Balls of Fire. (Available on Prime if you haven’t seen it.)
So today, being a Monday before Christmas, I had thought to do something here on Fats Domino and his song Blue Monday. But as I bopped around looking for a video of Fats doing that song, guess what I found instead? Yep, the Killer himself with a broken hand playing on a special show titled Fats and Friends. And thanks to Youtube that show is available to watch right here. Take an hour and just enjoy this and your Monday won’t be blue anymore. Great performances from Fats, Jerry Lee and Ray Charles.
Note that there is also an hour long companion video of director Paul Shaffer discussing the show and interviewing Fats and Jerry Lee (click here.) In that video at the 38:40 mark Jerry Lee discusses how he broke his hand hitting his Cadillac. If you watch it and are wondering who the blonde at the bar is, that is Ronnie Wood’s ex-wife Josephine. Catch how when Fats is introduced to her (35:00) he immediately breaks into singing “Hello Josephine.”
OK, just to land where I started out, here then is Fats doing Blue Monday.
My sister Donna Jean told me a funny story the other day where she had imagined a conversation with Buzzy. In that exchange, she asked him what he had thought about the changes made to the Store since his leaving. His response was “J. Scott closing on Mondays. I should have been doing that all along too!”