From The Los Angeles Times:
Dot Records founder Randy Wood was looking for a song for a young Pat Boone to record in 1955 and found it in the Fats Domino hit “Ain’t That a Shame?” Except Boone, then an English major, wanted to sing “Isn’t That a Shame?” After a few run-throughs, Wood insisted, “It’s got to be ‘ain’t’,” and Boone soon had his first No. 1 single.
Wood’s practice of having white singers such as Boone cover rhythm and blues hits by black artists is credited by some with helping black musicians — and early rock music — break into the commercial mainstream. Pop stations that had limited airplay mainly to white artists found room for the remakes, which helped introduce the black R&B sound to a white audience.
Wood died Saturday at his La Jolla home of complications from injuries suffered in a fall down stairs in his house, said his son John Wood. He was 94.
• Dot Records: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_Records