- Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1998.
- Inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
- Founded Broadmoor Records in New Orleans, LA.
- He grew up in New Orleans, LA, where his father had a barber shop. He studied trumpet with Peter Davis, who had taught Louis Armstrong. In his teens he played in Dixieland bands and performed on Mississippi riverboats. He was drafted into the Army during WWII; he played trumpet in a military band. He returned to New Orleans afterwards and formed his own orchestra.
- He was a New Orleans (LA) trumpeter, songwriter, arranger and producer who was a mentor for Fats Domino. His arrangements utilized big-band jazz, Dixieland, New Orleans parade bands and country music.
- 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" (Chuck Berry), and "One Night"(Elvis Presley).
- Around 1933, Bartholomew moved with his parents to New Orleans, where he played in local jazz and brass bands, including Papa Celestin's, as well as Fats Pichon's band on a Mississippi riverboat. He took charge of Pichon's band in 1941, 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.
- Not content to rest on the laurels of his illustrious past, in 2011 Dave appeared in his first rap video for a song called ""Born in the Country,"" collaborating with his son and grandson, hip-hop producers Don B and Supa Dezzy.
- While he produced, wrote and arranged for recordings by numerous other artists, Bartholomew's partnership with Domino proved the most prolific and productive. The pair would eventually generate sales in excess of several hundred million dollars, receiving recognition from the Guinness Book of World Records for a world record in recording.
- 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. 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.
- 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.
- 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. The band became locally popular, described as "the bedrock of R&B in the city", and, according to the music historian Robert Palmer, was a "model for early rock 'n' roll bands the world over".
- 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.
- Few know that Dave also discovered comedian Flip Wilson working in a lounge in Atlanta and brought him back to New Orleans where he recorded his first comedy album for Imperial Records.
- 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".
- Two years after they had first met in Houston, Lew Chudd asked Bartholomew to become Imperial's A&R man in New Orleans. 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 song based on the drug-themed "Junker's Blues", with lyrics rewritten by Bartholomew and Domino reached No. 2 on the R&B chart and eventually sold over one million copies, kicking off Domino's career.
- On several of his songs, a co-writing credit was given to his wife, Pearl King (sometimes confused with the musician Earl King).
- 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"). Several of Bartholomew's songs were later covered by other musicians. "Ain't That A Shame" was recorded successfully by Pat Boone; "I Hear You Knocking" was a hit for Gale Storm in the 1950s and Dave Edmunds in the 1970s; "One Night" and "Witchcraft" were hits for Elvis Presley; and "I'm Walkin'" was a hit for Ricky Nelson.
- He remained a resident of New Orleans, and celebrated his 100th birthday on Christmas Eve 2018, but plans for a celebration concert were suspended after he was hospitalized.
- While at Specialty, Bartholomew produced Lloyd Price's recording of "Lawdy Miss Clawdy", which featured Domino (uncredited) on piano. The single reached No. 1 on the R&B chart in mid-1952.
- He was a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
- Bartholomew left Imperial after a disagreement with Chudd at the end of 1950, and for two years he recorded for other labels, including Decca, King and Specialty. Among his recordings at King was "My Ding-a-Ling", which Bartholomew wrote and first recorded in January 1952; the song was later recorded by Chuck Berry, who had an international hit with it in 1972, although Berry substantially changed the song's arrangement and verses and claimed credit for writing it.
- He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer 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 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.
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