Robert performs "Barefooting" at Legends of Louisiana 4-14-2007

Robert Parker and Mike Shepherd

Though he had only one major hit as a solo artist, Robert Parker was an integral part of the New Orleans music scene

for many years.  He figured prominently in the nurturing of the Crescent City’s rhythm & blues tradition, beginning with

the legendary Professor Longhair who gave him his first break while he was still a teenager.  While praising Parker’s musical

skills, one internet web page had the audacity to proclaim that there were few soul, funk, and R&B records to come out of

New Orleans which made “a serious dent” on national charts.  Homage to Parker notwithstanding, that uninformed

Born on October 14, 1930, Parker grew up on Melpomene (now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard).  His boyhood idol

was Louis Jordan and he decided early on that he wanted to play saxophone even though his mother played piano. 

He played in the Booker T. Washington High School band.  Music was a passion shared by all his friends – people like

Whenever professional musicians like Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, or Dave Bartholomew needed musicians

Parker was a regular patron at Professor Longhair’s Sunday evening sessions at the Caldonia Inn.  When Longhair

needed a sax player for a Tuesday night show across the Mississippi in Gretna, he hired Parker.  That led to a 1949

Parker’s next job was a five-year stint as leader of the Tijuana Club’s house band.  He would walk out into the audience,

playing, and would even lie on his back under the tables, playing all the while.  Though the Tijuana was a small club, it

still attracted some top talent like Little Richard, Gatemouth Brown, Guitar Slim, and Bobby Marchan.  Marchan

at the time was the club’s young emcee and was performing in drag, a common practice of the time.  Talent scouts

were also regulars at the club, including Johnny Vincent of Specialty Records and Ace, a label he later founded in Jackson,

Mississippi.  It was Vincent who discovered Guitar Slim at the club.  Dave Bartholomew of Imperial Records and Eddie

It was while working at the Tijuana that Parker signed with booking agent Percy Stovall and put together his own band,

Robert Parker and the Royals.  They were hired to back Roy Brown, Big Joe Turner, Wynonie Harris, Solomon

Burke, Charles Brown, and Amos Milburn.  Playing cities from Texas to Florida, band members made twenty-five dollars

a night on the road and ten dollars a night when performing in New Orleans.  At the same time, he began getting calls for

One of his first recording sessions was backing Huey “Piano” Smith on Don’t You Know Yoekamo and he joined Smith’s

band, the Clowns for an extended tour.  He also played on Al Johnson’s recording of Carnival Time and Irma Thomas’s

Don’t Mess with My Man, and for records by Johnny Adams, Chris Kenner, Ernie K-Doe, Fats Domino, Frankie Ford,

Joe Tex, and Eddie Bo.  His first solo recording, courtesy of Ron Records A&R man Eddie Bo, was an upbeat song,

Two things happened then that gave his career as a soloist a major boost.  Stovall booked Parker and his band for a

show at Tuskegee University in Alabama.  When he started singing, the girls all took off their shoes and piled them in

front of the bandstand, an otherwise inconsequential gesture that nevertheless stayed in the back of Parker’s mind. 

The other event was a show he played in Miami.  A comedian opened the show with his two daughters.  When he came

When Parker started writing Barefootin’ that was his opening line.  When the song was completed he took it to Wardell

Quezergue, the A&R man for NOLA Records but Quezergue’s partners didn’t like the song, so it remained unreleased

for almost a year.  It probably would have remained unreleased had local deejay Hank Sample not heard the record in

1966.  Sample owned a record store and liked what he heard.  He prevailed on NOLA executives to press some

NOLA cut a deal with Cosimo Matassa who arranged for distribution through Dover Records and Barefootin’ began a

steady climb up both the pop and R&B charts.  It peaked at number two on the R&B charts and number seven on the

pop charts, remaining on the charts for seventeen weeks.  Parker, who had been supplementing his income as an orderly at

Charity Hospital, quit his job and signed with the Queen’s Booking Agency which booked him into the Apollo Theater. 

His first performance was less than inspiring but when he removed his shoes during the second show’s performance

of his new hit song, the crowd went wild and after that, he would only perform the song shoeless while touring with the

The deal between NOLA and Dover would eventually sour.  NOLA owed Matassa $70,000 in studio costs when the

IRS shut NOLA’s doors, leaving both Dover and Matassa holding the bag.  It also left Parker with a bitter taste in his

mouth in the belief that some of the NOLA executives got greedy.  “I’m sure Barefootin’ sold over a million copies

Parker soon found himself back in New Orleans playing in Clarence “Frogman” Henry’s band on Bourbon Street and

doing oldies shows.  In 1983, Spic ‘n’ Span used Barefootin’ in a TV commercial and the song was re-released

in England.  In 1994, he and his wife moved upriver to Sunshine in St. James Parish, where he began driving a school bus

and in 1999, Harrah’s, the land based casino in New Orleans, used Where the Action Is, the flip side of Barefootin’,

in its radio and television commercials.  Parker’s version of the song was not used, however, because the casino opted for a

recording by Denham Spring’s Luther Kent.  Still, Parker garnered songwriting royalties from the song’s use.  He also

performed several times at the New Orleans Jazz Fest.

On April 14, 2007 at the LMHOF "Legends Of Louisiana Celebration & Inductions" in Mandeville, Louisiana,

Robert Parker was inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame.

To learn and experience more, please visit Robert Parker's Inductees (Photo & Memorabalia) Gallery and his Inductees Video Gallery under "GALLERIES MUSIQUE" on this site. 

*Bio courtesy of Tom Aswell - Author of "Louisiana Rocks - The True Genesis Of Rock And Roll"

Be sure to visit Robert Parker's Video Gallery and Inductee's Photo & memorabalia Gallery under "GALLERIES MUSIQUE" on this site.