TOMMY TUCKER ( II )

 

Tommy Tucker (born Robert Higginbotham; March 5, 1933 – January 22, 1982) was an American blues singer-songwriter and pianist. He is best known for the 1964 hit song, "Hi-Heel Sneakers", that went to No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and peaked at No. 23 in the UK Singles Chart.

Tucker was born Robert Higginbotham, to Leroy and Mary Higginbotham, the fifth of eleven children, in Springfield, Ohio, United States.

Career

Tucker released "Hi-Heel Sneakers" in 1964, which was a hit both in the US and the UK. He released an album, also entitled Hi-Heel Sneakers, on Checker Records that same year. His follow-up single, "Long Tall Shorty", was less successful. Musicians that played on his albums and singles included Louisiana Red, Willie Dixon and Donny Hathaway. In the 1970s, he began releasing previously unissued material on the English label Red Lightnin'. This was combined with his work for Big Bear Records, featuring on their American Blues Legends '75 album and tour.

Tucker co-wrote a song with Atlantic Records founder executive Ahmet Ertegun, called "My Girl (I Really Love Her So)". Tucker left the music industry in the late 1960s, taking a position as a real estate agent in New Jersey. He also did freelance writing for a local newspaper in East Orange, New Jersey, writing of the plight and ignorance of black males in America, and the gullibility and exploitation of African Americans in general by the white-dominated media.

Death

Tucker died in 1982 at the age of 48 at College Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, from inhaling carbon tetrachloride while refinishing the hardwood floors of his home, though his death has been alternatively attributed to food poisoning.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Tommy Tucker among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.