Released 1964 (1964) Recorded Chicago, 1963 Length 2:45 | Format 7" 45 rpm record Genre Blues | |
B-side "I Dont Want 'Cha (Watcha Gonna Do)" | ||
"Hi-Heel Sneakers" (often also spelled "High Heel Sneakers") is a blues song written and recorded by Tommy Tucker in 1963. The song, an uptempo twelve-bar blues, "has a spare, lilting musical framework" with a strong vocal. Tommy Tucker's original recording hit number one on the Cash Box R&B Locations chart and number eleven on the Billboard Hot 100. Musicians on the recording included Brenda Jones on bass, Johnny Williams on drums, Weldon Young on guitar, and Tucker (a.k.a. Robert Higginbotham) on piano and organ.
Over 1000 artists have recorded "Hi-Heel Sneakers". These include Bill Haley & His Comets, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Ronnie Milsap, the Faces, Sting, Led Zeppelin, Carl Perkins (featured on Johnny Cash's 35th Anniversary album), Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, the Searchers (It's the Searchers album), the McCoys (Hang on Sloopy album), Sammy Davis Jr., Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jose Feliciano, Buddy Guy & Junior Wells, Tom Jones, John Lee Hooker, the American Breed, Cleo Laine, Pharoah Sanders, Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, Phish, Ramsey Lewis, Laura Nyro and George Thorogood. Tucker's version also features on the John Lennon's Jukebox LP.
The song, which Tucker penned, has appeared in several soundtracks, for example the Who's Quadrophenia (1979); the HBO special The Promiseland; motion pictures, e.g. Lion of Africa, Lackawanna Blues, Frankie's House; commercial jingles and television shows such as Late Night with David Letterman, sitcoms Rags to Riches, Redd Foxx Show; plus at sporting events such as the women's 1997 NCAA Basketball Championship. In England there is a racehorse named High Heel Sneakers, plus in the Netherlands a musical group uses the name.
The opening line "Put on your red dress, mama—'cause you're going out tonight" was used in a TV commercial for Fresh Start laundry detergent in the mid-1980s. The commercial's message was that a woman could be told in the afternoon that she's going out that night and by using the detergent, her dress would be clean well in time for her night out.
The Oasis song "Get Off Your High Horse Lady", from the album Dig Out Your Soul, uses the vocal melody and layout of this song.