Lock Up Your Teenagers! Fats is Coming
Authorities in Bridgeport, Connecticut, cancelled a Fats Domino concert because of the dangers of “Rock and Roll.”
This was one of many controversies and censorship efforts involving rock and roll in the early years. Similar rock and roll concert cancellations due to local officials’ fear of possible violence occurred in Boston, Atlanta, Newark and Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Burbank, California.
See also Elvis Presley’s first appearance on the Ed Sullivan television show (September 9, 1956) and controversies over the film Blackboard Jungle, which opened with Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock on the soundtrack (August 26, 1955).
Fats Domino died in 2017.
See the appendix to Parental Advisory, cited below, for a chronology of censorship efforts against rock and roll.
Fats’ Replies, Ain’t That a Shame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8CFeNxLXCo
Learn more: Eric Nuzum, Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America (2001) [see especially the chronology of censorship efforts in the Appendix]
Read the Fats Domino biography: Rick Coleman, Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock and Roll (2007)
Visit the official Fats Domino web site
See Rolling Stone Magazine’s list of the 12 Essential Fats Domino songs
Find links to book, articles and more on censorship of rack and roll at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame here