Review: Fats Domino - Twistin' The Stomp (1962)

Tracks: 1) Twistin’ The Spots; 2) The Twist Set Me Free; 3) I Know; 4) Every Night; 5) Town Talk; 6) Wait And See; 7) Twistin’ The Stomp; 8) Don't Deceive Me; 9) A Long Way From Home; 10) The Girl I Love; 11) Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans; 12) South Of The Border.

REVIEW

From Amazon’s «product description» (sorry for such a strange source, but I think it’s pretty much the only approximation of a «critical review» for this LP that can be found on the Internet): «Twistin’ The Stomp was Fats’ entry into the twist market. As one of the artists most responsible for popularising Rock & Roll, it was no surprise that Fats would get around to recording an album of twist numbers, but whereas other artists inevitably copied existing material, Fats came up with an album worth of new material». Note to whoever wrote this: it usually helps to taste the product before describing it. Note to self: in cases such as this, who the heck would ever really care?

For one thing, it is dubious if there ever was such a thing as a «twist market» in the first place. There was the brand of «twist», for sure, which was merely an umbrella term for whatever you wanted your music to be. But did people really flock to their local music stores specifically to look for the latest «twist» record? Or was that more of an artificial manipulation, triggered by the momentary successes of Hank Ballard and Chubby Checker? In any case, going inside the store and telling the clerk «I want to buy a new record of twist tunes» was somewhat akin to walking into a butcher’s shop and saying «I want to buy a pound of meat». New artists that would exclusively specialize on «twist» were pretty rare, and older artists merely kept doing their thing and slapping the «twist» moniker on it. At best, «twist music» was simply the equivalent of «dance music» — anything from old-fashioned R&B and jump blues up to rockabilly, boogie-woogie, and the Bo Diddley beat could be «twist» in the absence of a strict federal standard.

For another thing, this opposition between «other artists» and «Fats» is ridiculous. Plenty of artists, including the afore­mentioned Bo Diddley, came up with their own «twist» compositions, provided they were already known for writing their own songs — and Fats was no exception. Nor was he an exception to the rule that most of these «twist» compositions usually ended up as inferior re-writes / re-recordings of older successes — again, not due to any federal regulation, but simply because the twist craze coincided with the period during which Fifties’ veterans were running out of new steamy ideas, and it gave them a nice pretext to pretend that they were reinventing themselves when, in most cases, it was merely a matter of re-branding.

And finally — and most hilariously — Twistin’ The Stomp had nothing whatsoever to do with «Fats Domino recording an album of twist numbers», or, for that matter, with Fats Domino recording an «album» of any numbers at all. It is true that upon release, 10 out of 12 songs on Twistin’ The Stomp were — formally — brand new Domino/Bartholomew originals. But each and every one of them was taken from the immense Fats Domino bag of archived outtakes, some dating to as far back as 1953–1954, which is why the sound quality suffers from unpleasant fluctuations, running from raw to polished and from crystal-clear to dirty-muffled all the time. The track listing is somewhat telling: even if you are somewhat familiar with Fats’ career in the early 1960s and enjoy your ‘Josephine’ or ‘Walking To New Orleans’ as much as anyone, you will probably not recognize any of these titles. But, of course, put the record on and you will immediately recognize not just the overall style, but the actual melodies as well: pretty much all of these tunes are just alternate variations on Fats’ classic hits, with different lyrics and, occasionally, perhaps transposed to an adjacent key or something. It’s no wonder they were all left in the bin — but now Imperial Records had a pretext for pulling them out and presenting them as some sort of «Fats’ take on the twist revolution». Just one of the many scam affairs from an innocent time that, apparently, was nowhere near as innocent as some might think — but somehow, even draped its lack of innocence in a relatively innocent way. Do you believe in magic? Just say T-W-I-S-T, and all your worries and prejudices disappear in smoke.

There is one song, for instance, which is basically just a slightly amended version of ‘I’m In Love Again’, with good old Fats complaining, in his usual cheery manner, how he can’t sleep at night and everything, "but if it’s love that’s worrying me, I hope you’ll set me free", he concludes. It’s a formally enjoyable performance, but, of course, it adds absolutely nothing to the man’s legacy. But what did they do? They named the song ‘The Twist Set Me Free’ — what a brilliant decision! Now there’s a whole extra dimension to this glorious work of art, because you is no longer the generic proverbial girl of the protagonist’s unfulfilled dreams, but you is a new, promising style of music, and this whole song is Fats’ heartfelt anthemic prayer to the God of the Twist, a brand new deity who is the only supernatural force in the world with the power to chase away Cupid. Let’s just twist again and forget all about that nonsense of losing sleep over unrequited love.

It is very, very strange, though, that they did not implement the same idea all over the place. ‘Wait And See’ should have been ‘Twist And See’. ‘Don’t Deceive Me’ should have been ‘Don’t Twist Around With Me’. ‘The Girl I Love’ should I have been ‘The Twist I Love’. And even the covers should have been renamed — ‘Do You Know What It Means To Twist In New Orleans’ has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Leave a great idea in a half-assed state and you miss the chance to at least remain in history as a record-setter for a ridiculous gimmick. Speaking of New Orleans, it is amusing and ironic that the only couple of actual new numbers here — recorded at the end of 1961 — are ‘Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans’ and ‘South Of The Border’, both of them covers of pre-war oldies that are about as far removed from the notion of «twist» as a selection of Renaissance church music.

But let us try to stay on the positive side, because, after all, it’s still Fats, and talking about Fats without any traces of a positive vibe would be terribly insulting to the man’s memory. The unquestionable highlight of the LP is ‘The Domino Stomp’, predictably retitled ‘Twistin’ The Stomp’ for this release — a breakneck speed boogie instrumental (recorded in 1956, of course, back when the concept of «twist» could not even be predicted) that one definitely needs to hear in order to fully appreciate Fats’ technical abilities: here, he shows himself to be a totally worthy disciple of all the piano greats from Amos Milburn to Count Basie himself, pulling every known trick on the keyboard over the course of two minutes and all of it in the name of rock’n’roll, not just ego-stroking. Why this perfect blend of energy and virtuosity had to gather dust in the archives for five years is anybody’s guess (as far as I can tell, it was not even an obscure B-side) — maybe it was just a random mini-jam struck out in the heat of the moment and then forgotten — but I do believe it properly belongs on any representative compilation of the man’s legacy. (Not to be confused with the album-opening ‘Twistin’ The Spots’ from 1957, a repetitive sax-based instrumental that does not even seem to feature Fats at all).

Other nice tunes with their own individual hooks include ‘Wait And See’ (April ’57), on which a sharp-cuttin’ sax riff forms an uncanny duet with the bass pulse, giving Fats an unusually vigorous bedrock for laying down his message of optimism for the future; ‘Don’t Deceive Me’, which feels like a little brother to ‘I’m Gonna Be A Wheel Someday’ with its insane tempo, but also shows a more plaintive and vulnerable Fats than its much better known over-confident counterpart; and... uh... well, that’s about it, I don’t really have anything specific to say about the other songs.

Generally speaking, there are two good things about Twistin’ The Stomp. First, it is not a «sellout» — it’s the same classic Fats as usual, not very high quality Fats, but precisely the kind of Fats you’d expect Fats to be. In fact, the entire LP could be regarded as an act of mockery: where other artists would be expected to break their backs over transitioning to a new «twist» idiom, Imperial Records just fish out a bunch of previously unheard recordings and declare them to be «the twist», debunking the contemporary myth once and for all. (Well, it probably wasn’t debunked at the time, but now that we have access to all the session details, we can).

And second, it’s difficult to get angry or even bored when listening to even second-rate classic Fats. It’s more of the same, only less distinctive and more predictable, but it’s still imbued with his charisma, right? Each of these songs, fast or slow, completely rehashed or with a single spark of originality, contains a tiny bit of his soul, and while this may be a clichéd statement, there is, I dunno, a sort of warm feeling when I say it about the likes of Fats Domino. He did have the magic touch in his peak decade — he could make your troubles melt away for a while — and even an album of poorly disguised outtakes like this one still does the trick, at least while the music is still playing.

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