When writing the bio a few years back for Fats on this site the total Domino record sales as reported to the RIAA had been updated to 110 million.

The problem I have with figuring lasting popularity remains its inaccuracies. Someone like Domino, who came of age in the singles era, is naturally going to not sell as much longterm as an album era artist of fairly equal stature for the simple reason that the singles artist will invariably have his best songs leased to countless multi-artist anthologies, for which he gets absolutely no official credit. How many millions of people own Blueberry Hill, Ain't That A Shame, I'm Walkin, etc., and paid money for those songs, yet none of them count towards his popularity because other artists were packaged with them? Secondly, you can buy 25 Domino singles on a Greatest Hits package, getting the cream of the crop over his entire career, and that accounts for just one sale. By comparison in order to hear Hendrix as he was originally appreciated - with full length albums - you need to buy three or four of them, giving him multiple sales.

It's neither one's fault, just a reflection on the era in which they came of age, but again it will favor one era or style over another and that taints the results.

Another question is, why does "lasting popularity" mean after their career has ground to a halt? Domino's success as a CURRENT artist lasted fourteen solid years, whereas Hendrix lasted four. That's a huge difference. Granted Jimi died, but I think it is far harder to sustain the level of interest with consistently new audiences over time such as Fats did than it is to have a brief flurry of acclaim such as Hendrix and just have that endlessly recycled. He never faced the inevitable artistic decline, changing tastes and loss of interest that would ultimately cost someone in longterm popularity. He's always viewed at his peak because that peak was so short. This is actually true of almost all tragic rock figures, but while again it's not their fault per say, it taints the way we see longterm popularity. That said, it is impressive what Hendrix has done after his death, the way he's remained a fixture in rock histories, so that should get some credit, but I'm not a fan of removing all context from the circumstances, which seems to happen all too often.

Check out your 'Greatest Lyrical Performances' list.

Bob Dylan is probably third all-time in musical impact, and there's an argument to be made that he's #2 all-time.

Dylan's influence? Massive. He made the music grow up. Not The Beatles. They followed Dylan.

I'm not sure. Elvis released a lot of cheesy material that's derided.

And then there's the whole "Elvis stole our music" thing.

The story is that The Beatles' subject matter changed after Bob Dylan told them that they had "Nothing to say."

when it comes to overall praise and acclaim (stretching beyond rock music), nobody has, or ever will, top the king.
The Beatles are dangerously close though.

I think the Beatles kill Elvis here, and it's NOT close at all. Guys like Henry Mancini and Arthur Fiedler were recording Beatles songs, not Elvis songs.