Boots Randolph Rip

[John Al]

Best known to us for "Take A Letter Maria" on Monument, well known session /backing saxophonist Boots Randolph has passed away. Obituary below from today's Times:

Boots Randolph's saxophone can be heard on hits by Elvis Presley, Brenda Lee and Roy Orbison among countless others, but he will always be best remembered for his rollicking instrumental solo hit Yakety Sax, a version of which served for many years as the closing theme tune for Benny Hill's BBC television show.

Born Homer Louis Randolph in Paducah, Kentucky in 1927, he was nicknamed "Boots" by his brother to avoid confusion with his identically named father (and grandfather). The entire Randolph clan was musically talented and performed as a family band at dances around rural Kentucky. With his father on fiddle, mother on guitar and sister on bass, he joined the lineup when he was 5. He played ukulele initially but taught himself to play a variety of instruments before deciding in his mid-teens that the saxophone was his speciality.

Called up during the war he played sax, trombone and vibraphone in the US Army Band. On his discharge in 1946 he became a full-time musician, joining Dink Welch's Kopy Kats in Decatur, Illinois, and later starting his own band. His career did not really take off, however, until he moved to Nashville in 1960.

This came after he had recorded a demo of an instrumental he called Yakety Sax, based upon the sax break in the Coasters' 1958 hit Yakety Yak. Randolph sent the tape to the RCA producer Chet Atkins in Nashville and the label released the record under the name "Randy Randolph".

It was not a hit, but Atkins invited him to Nashville to work as an RCA session man. At the time the hillbilly roots of country and western were giving way to a more urbane and sophisticated hybrid pop sound, dubbed "country politian". With it came the demand for a wider instrumentation, and Randolph swiftly became Nashville's "Mr Sax", a key member of the city's famous session crew and the first name on the list whenever a horn part was needed.

He also became a solo star when a rerecorded version of Yakety Sax, this time attributed to Boots Randolph, stormed the charts in 1963. He followed it with further novelty sax versions of songs such as Tequila! and Willie and the Hand Jive and had another hit in 1966 with The Shadow of Your Smile.

Yet nothing else he did in a solo capacity ever matched the success of Yakety Sax, which was given a new lease of life in the late 1960s when a version of the tune was adapted as the theme for the comic chases which closed the Benny Hill show.

Among those to exploit his talents as a session man was Elvis Presley. Randolph played sax on eight of Presley's film soundtrack albums and can be heard on such hits as Return to Sender, while his playing on Reconsider Baby was described by the American critic Greil Marcus as "the finest sax solo in rock history".

Roy Orbison called Randolph his "good luck charm" and featured him on hits such as Oh Pretty Woman, Only the Lonely, Blue Bayou and In Dreams. Others who used his services included Brenda Lee, Johnny Cash and Connie Francis, but the number of Nashville sessions on which he played in more than 40 years ran into the thousands.

Away from the studio, he spent 15 years touring with "The Master's Festival of Music" alongside fellow Nashville instrumentalists Chet Atkins on guitar and Floyd Cramer on piano. In 1977 he opened a club named after him in Nashville's historic Printer's Alley, which became a tourist attraction. When it closed in 1994 Randolph announced he was "goin' fishin' ", but in reality he never stopped touring and recording. In 1996 he opened a second Nashville venue called the Stardust Theatre.

He is survived by his wife, Dee Baker, and one son and one daughter.

Boots Randolph, saxophonist, was born on June 3, 1927. He died on July 3, 2007, aged 80

[45cellar]

Best known to us for "Take A Letter Maria" on Monument, well known session /backing saxophonist Boots Randolph has passed away. Obituary below from today's Times:

Boots Randolph's saxophone can be heard on hits by Elvis Presley, Brenda Lee and Roy Orbison among countless others, but he will always be best remembered for his rollicking instrumental solo hit Yakety Sax, a version of which served for many years as the closing theme tune for Benny Hill's BBC television show.

Born Homer Louis Randolph in Paducah, Kentucky in 1927, he was nicknamed "Boots" by his brother to avoid confusion with his identically named father (and grandfather). The entire Randolph clan was musically talented and performed as a family band at dances around rural Kentucky. With his father on fiddle, mother on guitar and sister on bass, he joined the lineup when he was 5. He played ukulele initially but taught himself to play a variety of instruments before deciding in his mid-teens that the saxophone was his speciality.

Called up during the war he played sax, trombone and vibraphone in the US Army Band. On his discharge in 1946 he became a full-time musician, joining Dink Welch's Kopy Kats in Decatur, Illinois, and later starting his own band. His career did not really take off, however, until he moved to Nashville in 1960.

This came after he had recorded a demo of an instrumental he called Yakety Sax, based upon the sax break in the Coasters' 1958 hit Yakety Yak. Randolph sent the tape to the RCA producer Chet Atkins in Nashville and the label released the record under the name "Randy Randolph".

It was not a hit, but Atkins invited him to Nashville to work as an RCA session man. At the time the hillbilly roots of country and western were giving way to a more urbane and sophisticated hybrid pop sound, dubbed "country politian". With it came the demand for a wider instrumentation, and Randolph swiftly became Nashville's "Mr Sax", a key member of the city's famous session crew and the first name on the list whenever a horn part was needed.

He also became a solo star when a rerecorded version of Yakety Sax, this time attributed to Boots Randolph, stormed the charts in 1963. He followed it with further novelty sax versions of songs such as Tequila! and Willie and the Hand Jive and had another hit in 1966 with The Shadow of Your Smile.

Yet nothing else he did in a solo capacity ever matched the success of Yakety Sax, which was given a new lease of life in the late 1960s when a version of the tune was adapted as the theme for the comic chases which closed the Benny Hill show.

Among those to exploit his talents as a session man was Elvis Presley. Randolph played sax on eight of Presley's film soundtrack albums and can be heard on such hits as Return to Sender, while his playing on Reconsider Baby was described by the American critic Greil Marcus as "the finest sax solo in rock history".

Roy Orbison called Randolph his "good luck charm" and featured him on hits such as Oh Pretty Woman, Only the Lonely, Blue Bayou and In Dreams. Others who used his services included Brenda Lee, Johnny Cash and Connie Francis, but the number of Nashville sessions on which he played in more than 40 years ran into the thousands.

Away from the studio, he spent 15 years touring with "The Master's Festival of Music" alongside fellow Nashville instrumentalists Chet Atkins on guitar and Floyd Cramer on piano. In 1977 he opened a club named after him in Nashville's historic Printer's Alley, which became a tourist attraction. When it closed in 1994 Randolph announced he was "goin' fishin' ", but in reality he never stopped touring and recording. In 1996 he opened a second Nashville venue called the Stardust Theatre.

He is survived by his wife, Dee Baker, and one son and one daughter.

Boots Randolph, saxophonist, was born on June 3, 1927. He died on July 3, 2007, aged 80

More Sad News.

R.I.P.

[soulfulsaint]

More Sad News.

R.I.P.

Respect to him for all he did with his music. He had a style that made you smile. But I can't lie, I think

'Take A Letter Maria' was one of the worst records ever played on the scene, and it showed a level

of desperation among one or two top DJs that was staggering. So many undiscovered, unplayed and truly great rare soul

and R&B records, and they had to resort to that. It was Benny Hill on amphet. Boots deserves a respectful obituary as a musician and a human being but I still can't pretend he was relevant to soul music. Sorry.