Bertie Higgins

Elbert Joseph "Bertie" Higgins (born December 8, 1944) is an American singer-songwriter. In 1982, Higgins had a top 40 album with Just Another Day in Paradise. It spawned the hit song "Key Largo", which referenced the Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall film of the same name and reached No. 8 on the US Billboard Hot 100, No. 1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart and No. 50 on the Billboard Country chart.

Higgins was born in Tarpon Springs, Florida, United States, and is of Portuguese, Irish and German descent. He once supported himself as a sponge diver, and began his career in show business at the age of twelve as a ventriloquist. He won prizes in local talent contests and became a favorite at school assemblies around Tampa Bay, Florida. Higgins has stated that he is related to German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Higgins' first band played proms, homecoming dances, and sock hops. After graduating from Tarpon Springs High School, Higgins enrolled in St. Petersburg College to study journalism and fine art. He eventually left college and became a drummer for Tommy Roe in his sometime backup band The Roemans, and played alongside such groups as The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys.

Tiring of the rigors of the road and yearning to make his own musical statement, Higgins left The Roemans and returned home to Florida. He put down his drumsticks, picked up a guitar and began crafting music and lyrics. Music producers such as Bob Crewe, Phil Gernhard, and Felton Jarvis took an interest in him and contributed to the growth of the young songwriter. Higgins' talent flourished and he was in demand to play venues throughout the state. During this period, he also met and became a protégé of actor/director Burt Reynolds, who saw Higgins' writing potential and tutored him in screenwriting.

In 1980, Higgins moved to Atlanta and met record producer Sonny Limbo. He arranged a meeting between Higgins and music publisher Bill Lowery, whom Higgins had known through Tommy Roe. Higgins had been working on a song about a failed romance and presented the rough cut to Lowery and Limbo. They helped him perfect the lyrics of the song that became "Key Largo" Higgins recorded the master and presented it to Kat Family Records, a newly formed CBS/Sony distributing company. After an initial rejection, Kat Family agreed to release the single. The song eventually landed in the Billboard pop charts at number eight, in the Billboard adult contemporary charts it reached number one, and hit the top ten in Canada, Australia and other countries internationally. It also charted in the Billboard country chart. On the strength of the song's success, an album was released titled Just Another Day in Paradise. Other singles followed, such as "Just Another Day in Paradise", "Casablanca", and "Pirates and Poets", but none matched the success domestically of his breakout hit, though "Casablanca" went on to become a major hit in some Pacific Rim countries.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.