Sammy Watkins was the leader of the Sammy Watkins Orchestra, popular during the late 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. He continued to lead a band, based primarily in Cleveland, into the 1960s. The band's longest engagement was at Hollenden Hotel's Vogue Room in Cleveland, Ohio. Musicians included Norbert Kuenzel, drummer Fred Borgerhoff and trumpeters "Scat" Davis and Robert H. Shelley.