Released in 1959 -- four years into
Fats Domino's run as one of the most popular recording artists in America --
Let's Play Fats Domino is a typical
Fats Domino album from the late '50s, meaning that it's a terrifically entertaining listen. Like most of his '50s albums, this was assembled from a variety of sessions and contains a couple of hit singles. In this case, the hits are the cheerful minor hit "Margie," a rollicking "When the Saints Go Marching In," the jubilant yet defiant "I'm Gonna Be a Wheel Someday," and the sweet "I Want to Walk You Home" -- only "Margie" is not one of his widely considered classics, but it holds its own nicely to three of his very finest sides, and the rest of the album also reaches similarly high standards. There's the slow blues "You Left Me," the rip-roaring "Ain't It Good," good versions of both "Ida Jane" and "Lil' Liza Jane," and a variation of "Stagger Lee" with "Stack and Billy." It all adds up to nothing but a good time -- maybe it's not the best
Fats Domino album ever, but as it's playing it's hard to imagine listening to anything better than this.