NEW ORLEANS -- Dave Bartholomew, a giant of New Orleans music and a rock n' roll pioneer who with Fats Domino co-wrote and produced such classics as "Ain't That a Shame," "I'm Walkin'" and "Let the Four Winds Blow," has died. He was 100.
Bartholomew, a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, died Sunday in a suburban New Orleans hospital, his eldest son Dave Bartholomew Jr. said.
"His body simply broke down. Daddy was 100 years and six months old. It was just that time," his son said.
A trumpet player since childhood and a bandleader and arranger before World War II, Bartholomew befriended Domino in the late 1940s and collaborated with the singer-piano player on dozens of hits. Throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, virtually anyone recording in New Orleans ended up performing Bartholomew songs or working with him in the studio.
"Ain't That A Shame" (originally titled "Ain't It a Shame") and "I'm Walkin'" were among Domino's many top 10 hits, with worldwide sales for Domino eventually surpassing 60 million records.
Bartholomew's credits extended well beyond his work with Domino, who died in 2017.
He produced the Lloyd Price hit "Lawdy Miss Clawdy." He wrote (and originally performed) the novelty song "My Ding-a-Ling" that became Chuck Berry's first No. 1 single in the U.S. The Bartholomew-Earl King ballad "One Night" was a hit for Smiley Lewis and (in a censored version) for Elvis Presley in the 1950s. British rocker Dave Edmunds had success in the early 1970s with Bartholomew-King's "I Hear You Knocking," while John Lennon, the Four Seasons, and Cheap Trick were among those who recorded "Ain't That a Shame."
Bartholomew had his own hit in 1949 with the brassy "Country Boy," and became New Orleans' top producer and arranger through his years at Imperial Records, where artists included Domino, Frankie Ford, Chris Kenner, Huey "Piano" Smith and the duo Shirley & Lee.
The Bartholomew family's legacy spans a century, from son Don Bartholomew's work with Lil Wayne and other hip-hop artists back to Dave Bartholomew's ties to Louis Armstrong and the birth of jazz.
Born in Edgard, La., in 1918 and a resident of New Orleans since the 1930s, Bartholomew learned the trumpet from Peter Davis, who had mentored Armstrong.
A Section on 06/25/2019