Del Courtney, 95; Former Music Director for the Oakland Raiders

Del Courtney, 95, a Bay Area big-band leader in the 1930s, died Saturday at Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu after a weeklong bout with pneumonia.

His band performed at four presidential inaugural balls -- for Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Among the songs associated with Courtney, known for a sweeter big-band sound, were “Three Shades of Blue” and “Good Evening.”

As music director of the Oakland Raiders, Courtney led the band that performed during halftime shows from 1975 to 1978 and formed the Raiderettes. When Courtney was struck with the paralysis-inducing Guillain-Barre syndrome in 1971, Raiders owner Al Davis visited him frequently and told him, “You’re a Raider. And Raiders don’t die,” Courtney told The Times in 2003.

An Oakland native, Courtney took his first piano lesson at 9 and graduated from UC Berkeley in 1933 with a teaching degree and a master’s degree in music. In the Bay Area, he had a live variety show on local television in the 1950s and a radio show in the 1960s.