KING PERRY

Oliver King Perry entered the world in 1920 in Gary, Indiana. His earliest musical steps involved the violin, yet his youth brought proficiency on bass, trumpet, drums, piano and clarinet before he gravitated to alto saxophone upon witnessing Johnny Hodges within Duke Ellington’s Orchestra. A tour with his compact group deposited him in Los Angeles in 1945, where he elected to settle and promptly cut his first sides for Melodisc Records that July. Further releases followed on Excelsior/United Artists—not the better-known imprint of later decades—delivering R&B chart traction via the single ‘Keep A Dollar In Your Pocket’, which Roy Milton subsequently covered. Additional sessions occurred for DeLuxe, for Specialty Records (source of his only other notable success, ‘Blue And Lonesome’), and for Dot Records, RPM, Lucky, Hollywood, Trilyte, Look and Unique, continuing through the late 1950s. Scarce gigs prompted a shift into real-estate sales, though he reentered music in 1967 and returned to recording with Accent in 1975. He still performs regularly in the Bakersfield region while operating his own Octive label and the publishing firm Royal Attractions.