Rhythm & Blues musician Robert Parker, Jr. was born on October 14, 1930, in Mobile, Alabama, to Robert Parker, Sr., and Leana Parker. However, he was reared on Melpomene (now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) in New Orleans, Louisiana. He played in the Booker T. Washington High School band and graduated in 1948. Parker played saxophone with Professor Longhair on his hit โMardi Gras In New Orleansโ and Al Johnsonโs โCarnival Timeโ both in 1949.
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Parker was a regular performer at the Tijuana Club in New Orleans when he was encouraged by an agent Percy Stovall to start a session recording band Robert Parker and the Royals.
In 1958, Parker began recording as a solo with the instrumental โAll Nite Longโ that reached no. 113 on Billboard Hot 100 in 1959. In 1965 Parker was working as a Charity Hospital orderly when he penned, โBarefootin.โโ He signed with Nola Records, with the hit with โBarefootin.โ It was on the campus of Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama that the song would become inspirational to the point that girls took their shoes off and piled them in front of the bandstand before they danced to the songโs syncopated sound. The same occurred when the song was performed in Tuscaloosa for a University of Alabama fraternity party. Eventually โBarefootinโ sold more than a million copies, peaking at no.2 on Billboardโs Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and remained charted for 17 weeks. It rose to no. 24 UK in 1966. โBarefootinโ proved to be Parkerโs only major hit as a solo artist.
Parker performed at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York, and toured throughout the United States and the United Kingdom in shows headlined by Stevie Wonder, Joe Tex, and the Temptations. That same year, Parker released the single โThe Scratchโ that made it to no. 128 US. In 1967, Parker released the single โTip Toe,โ which reached no.48, R&B.
In 2007, Parker was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. In 2012 Parker received OffBeatโs โBest of the Beat Lifetime Achievement in Music.โ The following year, in 2013, Parker was a principal performer at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Music Festival.
From 1968 to 1973, Parker released 10 compositions, including the singles โGive Me the Country Side of Lifeโ and โA Little Bit of Something (Is Better Than a Whole Lot of Nothingโ0 but none of them charted. โBarefootinโโ however, was re-released in 1987 and peaked at no. 90 UK.
Robert Parker, Jr., an integral part of the New Orleans music scene, died in Roseland, Louisiana, on January 19, 2020. He was 89.
