Botkin, Perry

Perry Botkin (1907-1973) was a music composer, arranger, pianist, band leader, orchestra conductor, and string instrument musician. His musical career began at age fourteen when he started playing with Harry Frankel, “Singing Sam the Barbasol Man,” in Richmond, Indiana, Botkin’s home town. At the time, Botkin played the bass for the high school band, but Frankel needed a banjo player. Botkin learned to play the banjo, the guitar, ukulele, lute, and several other plectrum (string) instruments. Botkin moved to Hollywood in the 1920s and worked with radio orchestras such as Victor Young, Johnny Green (The Jack Benny Show), Red Nichols, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Paul Whitman, John Scott Trotter, Roy Rogers, and the Sons of the Pioneers. He was part of the original Fibber McGee and Molly radio show and stayed there for fourteen years. He worked for Al Jolson for fourteen years and Eddie Cantor for twenty-five. In 1937, Botkin began working with Bing Crosby and continued that association for eighteen years. He was Crosby’s guitar accompanist and musical supervisor for radio, film, stage, and early television and appeared with Crosby in the 1941 “Birth of the Blues” motion picture.

Botkin went on to arrange music for television programs such as “Wyatt Earp,” “The Rifleman,” “Wells Fargo,” and the motion picture “Murder by Contract.” In 1962 Botkin became the music arranger and composer for “The Beverly Hillbillies” television series through 1964. Botkin hosted one or more of the Bohemian Grove Club’s political gatherings on the Russian River in upstate California. Botkin also spent time in Hawaii learning more about the native sounds of the ukulele, and he traveled to Japan to learn about Japanese string instruments and record music with Japanese musicians. He provided background music for a number of other radio, film, and television shows and commercials. In 1961 Jack Kramer, the tennis star, contracted Botkin to produce a musical score for a tennis tournament. They worked together for the song, “It’s Tennis,” and went on to produce an album of humorous music for tennis playing. Throughout his career, Botkin was recognized as the foremost guitar musician in Hollywood and the first musician to perform ukulele solos. Botkin primarily composed jazz, bluegrass, western, popular, and folk arrangements. He was also a business partner and president of Longridge Music in Hollywood.