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, 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".[1]

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 forty 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.[2]

Biography
Early life
He was born Davis Bartholomew on December 24, 1918,[3] in Edgard, Louisiana, to Mary and Louis Bartholomew.[4] He learned to play his father's preferred instrument, the tuba,[5]: 18 [failed verification] 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,[3] as well as Fats Pichon's band on a Mississippi riverboat.[1] He took charge of Pichon's band in 1941,[5]: 19  and after a stay in Jimmie Lunceford's band joined the US Army during World War II. He developed writing and arranging skills as a member of the 196th Army Ground Forces Band.[2][5]: 19 [6]: 39–42 [7]

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 now-defunct local hotel and nightclub, the Dew Drop Inn.[8] The band became locally popular, described as "the bedrock of R&B in the city",[7] and, according to the music historian Robert Palmer, was a "model for early rock 'n' roll bands the world over".[1] A local journalist wrote of the band, in June 1946: "Putting it mildly, they make the house 'rock'."[6] In 1947, they were invited by club owner Don Robey to perform in Houston, Texas, where Bartholomew met Lew Chudd, the founder of Imperial Records.[6]

Bartholomew and his band made their first recordings, including "She's Got Great Big Eyes", at Cosimo Matassa's New Orleans studio for De Luxe Records in September 1947.[9] Their first hit was "Country Boy", credited to Dave Bartholomew and His Orchestra, which reached No. 14 in the national Billboard R&B chart in early 1950.[10] Prominent members of the band, besides Bartholomew on trumpet and occasional vocals, were the saxophonists Alvin Tyler, Herb Hardesty, and Clarence Hall, the bass player Frank Fields, the guitarist Ernest McLean, the pianist Salvador Doucette, and the drummer Earl Palmer. They were later joined by the saxophonist Lee Allen.[5][page needed]

Imperial Records and Fats Domino

Bartholomew in Amsterdam, 1962.
Two years after they had first met in Houston, Lew Chudd asked Bartholomew to become Imperial's A&R man in New Orleans.[6][11] Bartholomew produced Imperial's first national hits, "3 x 7 = 21", written by him and recorded by the female 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[3][6]: 51  — reached No. 2 on the R&B chart and eventually sold over one million copies, kicking off Domino's career.[1]

Both records featured Bartholomew's band, as did a succession of further hits through the 1950s.[6] Bartholomew's "genial, steady-rolling arrangements" contributed to the music's success.[3] Cosimo Matassa said, 'Many times I think Fats' very salvation was Dave being able to be stern enough and rigid enough to insist on things getting done... He was adamant as he could be about the discipline of the players.'[1]