Bertie Higgins

Bertie Higgins earned lasting recognition through his solitary Top Ten hit, "Key Largo," a soft-rock reverie evoking life inside a Humphrey Bogart movie. A seasoned professional musician, he transitioned into solo work during the first years of the 1980s. His debut album, Just Another Day in Paradise, surfaced in 1982 as a return to recording after a long hiatus that began in 1968, when he stepped away from music upon the dissolution of his band the Roemans and settled back in his native Tarpon Springs, Florida. From 1964 through 1968, Higgins had played drums for the Roemans, whose numerous singles on ABC-Paramount failed to register commercially; the group instead earned its keep by backing vocalist Tommy Roe on the road. Once the Roemans disbanded, Higgins spent the 1970s gradually assembling an original repertoire that would become the core of his 1982 release. Issued by the independent Kat Family label, the album gained traction when "Key Largo" ascended into the Top Ten, though the title track itself only managed a Top 50 showing and no further singles followed. Twelve years of relative silence ensued before Epic issued Then and Now in 1994, an effort that attracted minimal notice. In 2003 Collectables presented Key Largo, a collection drawn mostly from re-recorded material in Higgins's catalog, while Brazilia emerged the same year on Key Largo Records. Six years afterward, Captiva appeared via Toucan Cove/Universal in 2009.