High Water Friends CD - Track Five: High Heeled Sneakers

            Welcome to the fifth installment of our series covering the songs on the 6^th Annual DGA Family and Friends Crawfish Boil. Today’s entry will cover the second song by Warren Prejean and the Zydeco Rhythm and Blues Band titled High Heel Sneakers. 

Warren Prejean and the Zydeco Rhythm and Blues Band in concert. 

          High Heel Sneakers, like Thrill is Gone, is another legendary blues song. Tommy Tucker composed and first performed High Heel Sneakers in 1963. The song reached number eleven on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963. The success of High Heel Sneakers spurred over one thousand other artists to cover it. These have included: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Sting, Chuck Berry, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Janis Joplin, Tom Jones, the Grateful Dead, Phish, and George Thurgood. The song has also appeared in ad campaigns and on soundtracks like The Who’s Quadrophenia.

Tommy Tucker, 1933-1982. 

          High Heeled Sneakers was the biggest hit of Tucker’s career. Tucker was born Robert Higginbotham on March 5, 1933 in Springfield, Ohio. Tucker’s follow up, Long Tall Shorty, failed to replicate his earlier success. The late 1960s Tucker had grown disenchanted with the music industry. He moved to New Jersey and took a job as a real estate agent. As a side job, Tucker wrote about the plight of African Americans in the late 60s and early 70s for a local newspaper. His cousin, Joan Higginbotham, worked as an astronaut and flew on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 2006. Tucker died at the age of 48 in 1982 under unusual circumstances. Reportedly he died at a Newark, New Jersey hospital after inhaling tetrachloride while refinishing the hardwood floors in his home. He may also have died of food poisoning.

          When compared to the more mournful Thrill is Gone, Heeled Sneakers is relatively upbeat. The lyrics are relatively straightforward and tell the story of a couple going out for the evening. The man tells his woman to “Put on your red dress, baby /Ya know we're goin' out tonight. Later in the song, he expresses his pleasure at her appearance: “Ya know you're looking mighty fine, baby/ I'm pretty sure you're gonna knock 'em dead.” 

High Heel Sneakers

Put on your red dress, baby

Ya know we're goin' out tonight

Put on your red dress, baby

Lord, we're goin' out tonight

And-a bring along some boxin' gloves

In case some fool might wanna fight

Put on your high-heel sneakers, Lordy

Wear your wig-hat on your head

Put on your high-heel sneakers, child

Wear your wig-hat on your head

Ya know you're looking mighty fine, baby

I'm pretty sure you're gonna knock 'em dead

Put on your red dress, baby

Lord, we're goin' out tonight

Put on your red dress, baby

Well, we're goin' out tonight

And bring along some boxin' gloves

Case some fool might wanna fight

Put on your high-heel sneakers, child

Wear your wig-hat on your head now

Put on your high-heel sneakers, baby

Wear your wig-hat on your head

Ya know you're looking mighty good, really

I'm pretty sure you're gonna knock 'em dead