Fats Domino - Ain't It A Shame

I just picked up an early Rock N Roll collection at the local store and noticed the song titled as I put it in the subject line.

As far as I can tell it's the original commercial release that we all know so well.

I'm just a little surprised that I never noticed this before, as I've always thought the song's true title was, "Ain't That A Shame."

After a short read on Wikipedia, it appears that Pat Boone also recorded this song a month after Fats Domino, and titled his version,
"Ain't That A Shame." I'm guessing that if you have a 1955 recording from Fats, it should be titled, "Ain't It A Shame."

I looked for any earlier discussions about this song, but had no luck on this forum.

Rick Coleman states in the biography, Blue Monday: Fats Domino And The Lost Dawn Of Rock 'N' Roll, that the US single (Imperial 5348) was titled "Ain't It A Shame" in error. If it indeed was simply an error, then it would appear that when Imperial realized the error, they decided to just go with it and not correct it on subsequent pressings. They kept Imperial 5348 in print for a long time (I believe well into the 1960s) and all copies, both 45 and 78, show the title as "Ain't It A Shame". Even on the album Rock And Rollin' With Fats Domino, which was not issued until the following year, the title is "Ain't It A Shame".

The Pat Boone single is titled "Ain't That A Shame".

The Billboard charts initially showed the title of both versions (Fats and Pat) as "Ain't It A Shame". Starting with the issue dated August 20, 1955 (Pat's seventh week on the Best Sellers chart and Fats's sixth), and for the balance of their chart runs, the title of both versions was shown as "Ain't That A Shame"

The UK release of the Domino version was on the London American label with the corrected title, "Ain't That A Shame". (The Pat Boone version was also on London.)

In Canada, the It/That issue had an odd twist. In 1955, Imperial's Canadian licensing arrangement was with Quality Records which issued the single on its Reo subsidiary with the corrected title, "Ain't That A Shame". (Pat's version was also on Reo. Fats was Reo 8026, Pat was Reo 8027.) By 1957, Imperial had changed its Canadian affiliation to London Records of Canada, which during that affiliation issued Imperial releases on the Imperial imprint (not its own). London then issued the single on the Imperial imprint with the same label number as the US release (Imperial 5348) and with the same erroneous title as the US release, "Ain't It A Shame". So in Canada, singles that were in print during the time the song was a hit showed the corrected title of "Ain't That A Shame", but later issues had the erroneous title "Ain't It A Shame".

I don't know when the Fats Domino recording was first issued in the US in any form with the corrected "Ain't That A Shame" title, but I don't believe it was before Imperial was purchased by Liberty (in 1963?), and perhaps not until quite some time after that.

(Aside: When I was reading the Fats Domino biography in a hospital bed after minor surgery in 2018, a nurse (aged around 30) asked me what I was reading. When I told her it was a biography of Fats Domino, she did not know who that was.)

Edited by Paul C - 5 hours 25 minutes ago at 9:46am