NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Boots Randolph, whose spirited saxophone playing on "Yakety Sax" endeared him to fans for years on Benny Hill's TV show, died Tuesday. He was 80.

Randolph suffered a cerebral hemorrhage June 25 and had been hospitalized in a coma. He was taken off a respirator at Skyline Medical Center earlier Tuesday, said Betty Hofer, a publicist and spokeswoman for the family.

Randolph played regularly in Nashville nightclubs for 30 years, becoming a tourist draw for the city much like Wayne Newton in Las Vegas and Pete Fountain in New Orleans.

He recorded more than 40 albums and spent 15 years touring with the Festival of Music, teaming with instrumentalists Chet Atkins and Floyd Cramer.

As a session musician, he played on Elvis Presley's "Return to Sender," Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman," Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Round the Christmas Tree" and "I'm Sorry," REO Speedwagon's "Little Queenie," Al Hirt's "Java" and other songs including ones by Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash.

In 1963 he had his biggest solo hit, "Yakety Sax," which he co-wrote with guitarist James Rich.

"'Yakety Sax' will be my trademark," Randolph said in a 1990 interview with The Associated Press. "I'll hang my hat on it. It's kept me alive. Every sax player in the world has tried to play it. Some are good, some are awful."

"Yakety Sax" was the name of one of his gold albums and became the theme song for "The Benny Hill Show."

"It rejuvenated the song," Randolph said in 1990. "So many people know it from the show."

He also was part of the Million Dollar Band on the TV show "Hee Haw."

ORLANDO, Fla. — Bill Pinkney, the only surviving member of the beach music group The Drifters, died Wednesday in a Daytona Beach hotel room.Pinkney, 81, was in Daytona to perform at the city's Fourth of July Red, White & Boom event with The Original Drifters, a group he formed in the late 1950s after leaving The Drifters.Hilton Hotel security personnel found Pinkey inside his room, said Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood. Someone alerted hotel security after seeing a prone Pinkney through a window."The drapes to his window were open and when you looked ... you could see a person laying there," Chitwood said. It was unclear Wednesday how Pinkney died."My medic said that family members said he had a history of heart problems," said Lt. John King, a Daytona Beach Fire Department spokesman.Born in 1925 in Dalzell, S.C., Pinkney would later become part of The Drifters, a group known for such hits at "Under the Boardwalk" and "Save the Last Dance for Me," according to a report by the Columbia, S.C., television station WLTX. After he left the band in 1958 over a dispute about money, Pinkney formed The Original Drifters."You know how they call James Brown the hardest working man in show business? I believe that was Bill Pinkney," said J.R. Berry, a news anchor at WLTX, who had known Pinkney for years.