When Elvis came along? Was there anything you did to over that musically?

There was no way I could overcome that. That was actually a segregation move. It was actually the whites covering the black music. Ah, quite natural, me sitting back it wasn't too bad because I was, was the one actually wrote the material, the things that I'm talking about. Number one, he started on Fats Domino, the guy's name was Randy Woods in Nashville, Tennessee. He started in a big old segregation town, at that time it was a segregation station, and what he actually did was kill the black artists. The first one he tried it on, Fats Domino. But Fats was so powerful, it wouldn't happen. But when the late Smiley Lewis came out with his record, he came out with Gale Storm, a beautiful white girl, she had a TV show and all that. So that, quite natural, Smiley's record stopped selling. The next thing was "One Night" by the late Elvis Presley. Well, ah, let, let's say it this way, ah, "One Night" had been out by Smiley a year and a half or two years before Elvis did it so we couldn't call it a cover because actually at the time his record had stopped selling but as soon as Elvis made it, there it goes again. You understand? It was millions and millions of seller but like I mentioned before, by me being a writer, it wasn't too hard but it was killing all my artists because I would have made more if Smiley would have recorded the thing and, but it would have been more recognizably because I would have made another artist that I could always go to.

Did you think that rock and roll was basically a sort of commercial movement on the part of the established white record business sort of coopting rhythm and blues sound or is there a musical difference?

I don't think there's a musical difference. What they're actually doing is, they got a rhythm and blues sound and you get, ah, a country and western guy who's singing a half of them, you know, ah, singing out of tune, to say anything. I don't knock the music because I mean after all it's, say, our music wasn't, no., nothing to do in our early years too because we're actually getting, I, I think everyone is out to commercial sound. You're going to get something that's going to sell to the public. And quite natural, you might have a great musician and he have to cut down on what he's, - for instance, if he plays a horn, he's playing a million notes. We tell him, don't do that b because just play something that the people can sing. We tell the singer the same thing, make it more soulful. And I think this has more, it has the rock and the rhythm feel, feeling, so you can sell the material.

Tell us what your first impression of Little Richard was.

Well in 1953 I remember …

Start again please.

Okay, in 1953 I remember the date, I went to Houston, Texas at the Club Matinee to hear Little Richard. It was a town, ah, there was some talent that was going on at the place and I was told to be in Houston, Texas on that day. So, ah, I went over and I knew Richard from New Orleans, Louisiana hanging around the Dew Drop and things like that. And, ah, I sat up there and I heard Little Richard. And he was bringing the house down, when I said, when, I ain't that stuff, it will never sell, - to myself. That shows you who knows what's going on. When you he come to New Orleans, almost put me out of business. So what actually happened, Bump Blackwell who was also the NR man for Vam at the time, was a friend of mine out of Los Angeles, California. So what happened, Bumps came in so he spoke to Al Palmer, Lee Isle and the rest of the band. I said, well, you're fine, you guys record because I couldn't do anything because I was on exclusive contract to MPL Record Company. These guys went in there with, playing "Tootie Fruitie Old Rudy" and almost killed me dead, you know. I mean he sold some records. But nevertheless, who knows, what is going to sell. I show you how wrong I was, I told Lou the boss, I said, Lou, you know, I turned him down. He said, well, you can't get him all. So we were doing very well, so. That's why you have erasers on pencils. I made a big, big mistake. But our appointment was actually the, the leader, Lee Allen, Red Tyler, they were actually the leaders, just to name a few on, on, on Little Richard records. And they were very, very successful and I was glad for them.

Did you say something at some point about comparing Fats Domino to be like a country western singer at some point?

I say if Fats has a lot of country and western in his voice. I think that was one reason, he's between rhythm and blues and country and western because when he accents something, you know like, Walking, hmm, that type of thing, you understand? That comes from country and western. And he has that feeling. I think he could make a great country and western singer if he wanted to but he's so successful in what's he doing, I don't think he need to do that.

Do you think that had something to do with why he got over to that much bigger audience?

Ah, Fats got a distinctive sound. And the reason, ah, I think about it is, I don't think it was done on purpose. I, I just thing that's him being natural. He wasn't trying to be like anyone else. He just was singing and that was it. I think his greatest influence was Ray, Charles Brown, ah, and Charles Brown is a very fine singer, a hell of a musician. And I think he was influenced some by Charles. But with the country and western in the mus., music coming from rhythm and blues in him, I think that was one reason why he got that original sound. And I think that when he opens his mouth everybody in the world know that Fats Domino.

My impression about what actually made the New Orleans sound great was because that people hear the music, they can dance with it. One example, I mean, many, many, many years ago I was working the Dixieland band in New York City on a jazz festival and we went to one of the projects in Harlem playing traditional Dixieland music. And I said to myself, we are going to get killed. I was playing with a band by the name of Papa French. And at that time we went to the project and I said, - oh Lordy, we're not going to play in the rhythm and blues, we're going to get killed here. We started playing Dixieland music like "Bourbon Street Parade" and they came out there and started dancing, not really like we do in New Orleans, Louisiana, but they felt the beat and anyway you played that type of beat on that bass drum and that rhythm section, you make them dance. And I think that is one reason why New Orleans music will touch everyone because you can hit, well, when you get on the parade somewhere you hear the bass drum coming, first thing you want to do, want to get out there and dance with it. That's why the funerals were all so great in New Orleans, Louisiana. They all go for the funeral itself, they want to have some fun when the guy is buried and they want to come back and do it a second line and that's one, one reason I think that the music is so great because they dance by the bass drum by the beat.

Do you think the fact that the music is so much out in the neighborhoods of the streets of New Orleans has a lot to do with why the rhythm thing here is so strong?

I think, that, ah, the rhythm thing is so strong is because that is the tradition. I think it's handed down from one generation to the other because they take their babies to the parade and quite naturally grow up with it. So when they're getting their teeth, they're right with it. And here come another baby and they're, so from one generation to the other. Ah, we got a parade town and we have more holidays here than anywhere in the world.

That's why I moved back.

Glad to have you back.

Getting back to Fats Domino original sound. I think he has the sound that no one actually can get because he was born with it. For instance like when he makes – [humming] - that is actually like the 6th of the chord. And he's saying, you know, like, for my, most people might say, well look, - ... walking through New Orleans. He, he will not do that. He'll just say, - I'm walking through New Orleans, walking through New Orleans, this type of thing, do you understand, with that twine with it and that's what get the people and what they start doing is digging down in their pocket to pay for that record, thank you.

Say that, that's perfect. Where do you think rock and roll came from?

I think rock and roll actually came from us the black people. We had the rhythm and blues for many, many year and here come in a couple of white people and they call it rock and roll and it was rhythm and blues all the time. That's where it come from, us.