Sunday Reads: A Couple of Obits of Note

Pioneer of rock 'n' roll Dave Bartholomew, noted for his collaboration with the legendary Fats Domino, died at the premature age of 100.  He should have lived much longer.

He co-wrote "Ain't That a Shame," and "The Fat Man," hits for Fats Domino, who shared in the songwriting duties.

David Louis Bartholomew was born on Christmas Eve 1918 in Edgard, La., the seat of St. John the Baptist Parish, located about forty miles northwest of New Orleans proper. Some of the first live music Bartholomew heard came from the bands aboard showboats that docked at Caire's Landing in Edgard, as they steamed up and down the Mississippi River. But there was plenty of music at home, too: His father, Louis, was a bass and tuba player who performed with jazz clarinetist Willie Humphrey. In the 2016 documentary The Big Beat: Fats Domino and the Birth of Rock n'Roll, Bartholomew recalled gathering with friends and relatives around his neighborhood's single radio to listen to Louis Armstrong, with whom he'd soon share a formative city, after his father moved the family to New Orleans while Dave was still a child, opening a barbershop in the uptown part of the city.

According to John Broven's 1974 history Rhythm & Blues in New Orleans, local jazz bands would advertise upcoming gigs by playing on the backs of flatbed trucks that cruised through the streets; young Dave was among the gaggle of neighborhood kids who would trail along after, listening to songs like "Tiger Rag" and "Milneburg Joys." It was hearing Armstrong's recordings that made him choose the trumpet as his instrument — and in fact, one of his first music teachers was Peter Davis, the band instructor who changed Armstrong's life by introducing him to the cornet when the young star was incarcerated at the Colored Waif's Home in 1913. It was a perfect synchronicity: Bartholomew would become as important to the evolution of rock and roll as Armstrong was to jazz.

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Writer Judith Krantz, a mere 91, known for her romance novels like Scruples, has also died.

According to her son, she died of natural causes.

The eldest of three children, Krantz was born Judith Bluma Tarcher in 1928 in New York City. Her father owned an advertising agency, and her mother worked as an attorney. Her brother, publisher Jeremy Tarcher, married the late ventriloquist Shari Lewis.

Growing up, Krantz was a precocious student at New York's exclusive Birch Wathen school, once describing herself as the youngest, smartest and shortest girl in her class. After skipping two grades, she enrolled at Wellesley College at age 16.

She also wrote for so-called women's magazines early in her career.
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Possible obituaries:  The 11 Oregon Republicans who fled the state because their panties got into a wad over some climate change legislation they didn't like.
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