From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Mon Jun 3, 2002  1:07 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Boots Randolph

BOOTS RANDOLPH

Born Homer Louis Randolph III, 3 June 1927, Paducah, Kentucky

Saxophonist. Brought to Nashville by Chet Atkins, Randolph became a
major component of the Nashville Sound era, playing on hundreds of
country and rock 'n' roll recordings and building a reputation as a stellar
instrumentalist.
His father bought him his first saxophone when Randolph was sixteen.
Steeped in jazz, he played in local combos until 1958. In that year he
was introduced to Chet Atkins by James "Spider" Rich and soon found
himself recording for RCA with the likes of Floyd Cramer, Buddy Harman,
Bob Moore and Hank Garland. The earliest RCA recordings were issued
under the name "Randy Randolph", as RCA already had a sax player
called Boots Brown. These include the first version of "Yakety Sax", the
song most associated with him. It went unnoticed, as did an album with
the same title in 1960. By 1961 Boots's booming session schedule led
him to move to Nashville permanently and plunge into fulltime studio work.
That year Boots also found a renewed solo career with Fred Foster at
Monument, a smaller company able to give him the support he needed.
A 1963 remake of "Yakety Sax" peaked at # 35 on the Billboard charts
and his debut Monument LP, also titled "Yakety Sax" was far more
successful than the RCA LP. It was as an LP artist that Boots had his
greatest success : 13 Monument albums made the LP Top 200 during
1963-1972. He would stay with Monument until the label folded in 1983.
As a session man he can be heard on many records by Elvis Presley
(from 1960 onwards), Brenda Lee, Roy Orbison, Conway Twitty, Floyd
Cramer and many others.

CD recommendation: Yakety Sax (Bear Family 15459). The 1958-60
RCA recordings.
Official website: http://www.bootsrandolph.com