Dave Bartholomew

David Louis Bartholomew (December 24, 1918 – June 23, 2019) was an American musician, bandleader, composer, arranger, and record producer. He was prominent in the music of New Orleans throughout the second half of the 20th century. Originally a trumpeter, he was active in many musical genres, including rhythm and blues (R&B), big band, swing music, rock and roll, New Orleans jazz, and Dixieland. In his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he was cited as a key figure in the transition from jump blues and swing to R&B and as "one of the Crescent City's greatest musicians and a true pioneer in the rock and roll revolution".

Many musicians have recorded Bartholomew's songs, but his partnership with Fats Domino produced some of his greatest successes. In the mid-1950s, they wrote more than 40 hits for Imperial Records, including the Billboard number-one pop chart hit "Ain't That a Shame". Bartholomew's other hit songs as a composer include "I Hear You Knocking", "Blue Monday", "I'm Walkin'", "My Ding-a-Ling", and "One Night". He was a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

Biography

Early life

He was born Davis Bartholomew on December 24, 1918, in Edgard, Louisiana, to Mary and Louis Bartholomew. He learned to play his father's preferred instrument, the tuba, then took up the trumpet, taught to him by Peter Davis, who had also tutored Louis Armstrong. Around 1933, Bartholomew moved with his parents to New Orleans, where he played in local jazz and brass bands, including Papa Celestin's,

Early music career

At the end of the war, Bartholomew returned to New Orleans, and by November 1945, had started leading his own dance band, Dave Bartholomew and the Dew Droppers, named after a local hotel and nightclub, the Dew Drop Inn. The band became locally popular, described as "the bedrock of R&B in the city", Their first hit was "Country Boy", credited to Dave Bartholomew and His Orchestra, which reached number 14 in the national Billboard R&B chart in early 1950. Prominent members of the band, besides Bartholomew on trumpet and occasional vocals, were saxophonists Alvin Tyler, Herb Hardesty, and Clarence Hall, bass player Frank Fields, guitarist Ernest McLean, pianist Salvador Doucette, and drummer Earl Palmer. They were later joined by saxophonist Lee Allen. Bartholomew produced Imperial's first national hits, "3 x 7 = 21", written by him and recorded by singer Jewel King, and "The Fat Man", recorded in December 1949 by a young pianist, Fats Domino. "The Fat Man" — based on the drug-themed "Junker's Blues", with lyrics rewritten by Bartholomew and Domino to attract a wider audience,

After that success, Bartholomew returned to Imperial to work again on Domino's recordings, co-writing and producing a series of R&B hits for him. Domino's crossover to the pop chart came in 1955 with "Ain't That a Shame" (initially titled "Ain't It a Shame"), on which Bartholomew deliberately sought to make Domino's style more appealing to white record buyers.

Over the same period, Bartholomew wrote, arranged, and produced recordings by many other Imperial artists, including Smiley Lewis (for whom Bartholomew wrote "I Hear You Knocking" and "One Night", both of which were hits and were later recorded by other musicians), the Spiders, Chris Kenner, Earl King, Tommy Ridgley, Robert Parker, T-Bone Walker, Roy Brown, Frankie Ford, and Shirley and Lee (who recorded for Aladdin Records and for whom Bartholomew produced "Let the Good Times Roll"). On various of his songs, a co-writing credit was given to his wife, Pearl King (sometimes confused with the musician Earl King).

In the 1970s and 1980s, Bartholomew led a traditional Dixieland jazz band in New Orleans, releasing an album, Dave Bartholomew's New Orleans Jazz Band, in 1981. He also took part in Fats Domino's international tours during that period. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a nonperformer in 1991, and released two further albums in that decade, Dave Bartholomew and the Maryland Jazz Band (1995) and New Orleans Big Beat (1998), while continuing to make occasional appearances with his band at festivals. he married Rhea (née Douse), with whom he had four sons and one daughter.

Bartholomew died of heart failure at East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana on June 23, 2019. He was Catholic and was buried at St Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church in Gentilly.

Chart hits and other notable songs

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!Year

! style="width:210px;"|Song

! style="width:210px;"|Original artist

! style="width:210px;"|Co-writer(s) with Bartholomew</sup>

!width="40"|^{U.S. R&B}

! style="width:40px;" data-sort- type="number"|^{UK Singles Chart}

!Other charting versions,