Page 27 - BiTS_05_MAY_2021

TEENY TUCKER – SHE’S NO SMALL TALENT

By Lawrence Lebo

Regina B. Higginbotham, known professionally as Teeny Tucker, is
an American blues singer and songwriter. She is also known as the
daughter of the late blues musician Tommy Tucker. Yes sure,

she’s taken her father’s famous last name, but the Ohioan (US)
entertainer is a force of talent all her own.
Teeny has received a host of awards and nominations. In 2011
she was honoured with the Carter G. Woodson Award, named
for an
American
historian often referred to as

the “father of black history”. It is a
federal award that honoured Tucker’s
work in the community. She has also been
inducted into the Department of Defense
Hall of Fame, which is a rare honour for
civilians or women. She’s been nominated
for the “Blues Blast” Artists of the Year
award in 2008, 2011 and 2013, and
currently Teeny is in the running again

(she was nominated in 2012 and in 2014)
for the 2021 Blues Foundation Traditional
Female Blues Artist (Koko Taylor) award.

Ms. Tucker’s latest release Put On Your
Red Dress Baby, is a love song to her
famous father in honour of his 2017
induction into the Blues Hall of Fame. The
album contains both original material and covers, including the title track, Teeny’s female version

of her father’s 1964 smash-hit ‘Put On Your High-Heeled Sneakers’. Teeny makes each cover her
own through great mastery of her instrument. She runs through her several octave vocal range
utilizing traditional growls, belts and shouts, to clean, clear falsetto tones. It’s a singer’s joy to
listen to her!

I asked Teeny to tell us a bit about herself and her career. This is what she told me ……..

LL: So, most folks know that you are the daughter of the famous blues
singer/songwriter/pianist Tommy Tucker. What was it like growing up in your household?

TT: I did not live with my father, however, I visited him growing up quite often and particularly
during the summer when he moved to New York in the 1960s from his hometown of Springfield,
Ohio. My parents were never married. He was a blues man who caught the eye of a lot of beautiful

women. In that era, it was the musician's Chitlin’ Circuit gigs and segregation was still very much
alive and well. My mother who was a young white girl who lived in Dayton, Ohio (a twenty-five
minutes from Springfield Ohio) with her family would sneak to the Blues clubs to hear Blues. That’s
when my mother and father met, in the midst of some good old blues singing and music. The rest is
history!