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. told The Associated Press.
“His body simply broke down. Daddy was 100 years and six months old. It was just that time,” his son said. Funeral arrangements have not yet been made.
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 that captured Domino’s good-natured appeal, making him one of rock’s first stars and New Orleans a center for popular music. 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.