Let Me Entertain You

From the Reading (UK) Evening Post:

WHEN Derek Watkins was just a boy, he would take his trumpet on to the pitch at Elm Park stadium to play with a brass band at half time.

Now, when the fans hear Robbie Williams’ Let Me Entertain You blasting out over the speakers in the interval at Madejski Stadium, they are still hearing Derek playing – in the trumpet solo at the end of the song.

For Reading FC fan Mr Watkins, there couldn’t be a better place to hear it.

“Even though it’s not live music any more, when they play that record at half-time, I’m still there in spirit,” he said.

The song is not the only famous recording on which people can hear Mr Watkins.

His trumpet solo also opens the soundtrack for the movie Chicago, while his playing features on every James Bond film soundtrack and other blockbusters including Mission Impossible, The Mummy, Bridget Jones’s Diary, the Harry Potter films and Troy.

He has also worked with Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Tom Jones, Count Basie and John Dankworth, among others, and it is for all this work that he will find himself at the Royal Academy of Music tomorrow to receive an honorary degree in recognition of his outstanding contribution to music.

Outstanding! I love stories like this. Congrats Derek!