‘The Big Beat – The Story of Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew’ is the story of how Fats and Dave’s music became rock & roll and how it effectively broke down the colour barriers that paved the way for racial integration through music. The film will use recent interviews with Dave, Fats and with surviving band members and rare previously unseen full length vintage performances of the Fats Domino Band (with Dave Bartholomew on trumpet) performing their early hits to illustrate the story of these two men and the other musicians who made their band among the greatest in rock & roll history.
Joe Lauro, the films director says: “Several years ago, while doing preliminary research for a possible Fats Domino documentary, I discovered in (of all places!) the French National Archive, a 45 minute live concert film , shot in 1962, of the original Fats Domino band – the same band that recorded with Fats from 1949 to 1962 as well as appearing , with Dave Bartholomew as band leader and director, on over 200 nationally charted singles and 21 gold records – all of which recorded in Cosimo Matasa’s tiny J&M studio on Rampart Street in the city of New Orleans.
To find a 45 minute concert of any any black rock & roll band filmed in 1962 is almost completely unheard of. Generally the early pioneers both black and white, were only allowed short appearances on TV ‘Dance Party’ or variety shows or appeared lip syncing one of their current hits in a Hollywood teen movie. It is just unheard of that a 45 minute 1962 live concert should exist – and one featuring with one of the most important and influential bands of all times.
So, with this amazingly exciting footage as the corner stone, we will tell their story. The film will be a performance/documentary as we intend to show the performances in their entirety – no cutting for narrative – just the band performing as it was on that Summer day in 1962. This will be the true story of the early years of Fats Domino; a story that would not exist without Fats’  longtime collaboration with New Orleans trumpeter, song writer, arranger and band leader Dave Bartholomew”.
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