Various Artists: Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino

You couldn't ask for a better tribute to Fats Domino's musical legacy than this... the ratio of hits to misses is surprisingly good for this type of endeavor, everyone involved understands the greatness of the Fat Man's catalog, and the roster of local (New Orleans) and national acts is absolutely first-rate. The result is slightly uneven, but what large gathering of performances from across the pop and rock spectrum isn't?

Major releases don't get any more obvious than this: a tribute to the world's least controversial rock icon, done up by a roster of established, pedigreed artists, both national and from Fats' native New Orleans, and with the proceeds all headed towards Hurricane Katrina victims (and if you think you have "Katrina fatigue," try living here).

And yet, it works beautifully, in part because Domino's legacy is so far-reaching and his appeal so elemental that it's easy for these musicians to translate him. In fact, his blend of Creole phrasing, swamp-pop stroll, and boogie-woogie jump is so fun, several of the more famous contributors here set aside their own personas entirely: the Paul McCartney / Allen Toussaint "I Want To Walk You Home," Neil Young's "Walking To New Orleans," and especially Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "I'm Walkin'" are painstakingly exact replicas of the originals. A few artists manage to imprint their own brand on Domino's legacy: Norah Jones brings "My Blue Heaven" back to the jazz club, Robert Plant goes ethnocentric with the Soweto Gospel Choir and local swamp-pop curators Lil' Band O' Gold on "Valley Of Tears" and "It Keeps Rainin'," respectively, and Ben Harper joins with the Skatalites to (shakily) point out the connection between Fats and ska on "Be My Guest."

Oddly enough, it's the city's new breed, ably represented on about half the tracks, who take the most liberties with the classic Fats sound, like the funk of Galactic and all those second-gen Neville and/or Meters scions. Isolating the national superstars on one disc and the local heroes on another might have been really instructive, but it's stylistic integrity and not quality that's the issue here. For a project of this scope, that's a minor quibble; this is that rare tribute that really does appeal to everyone. Which makes it a fitting love letter, indeed.