Dot Records Founder Randy Wood Dies At 94

The founder of Dot Records who helped introduce black rhythm-and-blues to white audiences in the early rock era has died in California. Randy Wood was 94.

His son, John, tells the Los Angeles Times that Wood died on Saturday at his La Jolla home from injuries he suffered in a fall downstairs.

Dot Records grew out of a record shop that Wood owned in Tennessee. In the 1950s, Wood made white covers of songs by Fats Domino and other musicians whose so-called “race records” were hits in the black community but largely unknown to whites.

Singer Pat Boone says Wood picked out all of his early hits.

Dot eventually included artists in a range of styles, from Louis Armstrong to Lawrence Welk. It went out of business in the 1970s.