Career
He is most famous for being Billie Holiday"s accompanist from 1946 to 1949. Billie Holiday
On November 12, 1946, during Billie Holiday"s stay at the Down Beat Club, Bobby Tucker was drafted to accompany Holiday because Eddie Heywood refused his opportunity. Billie"s stay at the Down Beat was so successful due to Tucker"s playing that she decided to keep him as her accompanist.
(Not to be confused with the bass player)
Billy Eckstine
After leaving Holiday in 1949, Bobby Tucker began playing for Billy Eckstine.
On the 1959 album Basie/Eckstine Incorporated, on which Eckstine sang with the Count Basie Orchestra, Tucker is credited with the arrangements for eight of the eleven tracks, and he replaced Basie at the piano on most of the cuts as well. In 1960 Tucker also released his own album under his own name, Too Tough.
In 1973 Tucker played for Billy Eckstine at the Hobart (Tasmania, Australia) Wrest Point Casino. From the time Tuck as Mr.
"B" called him, met, they became very good friends till the death of Mr.
"B" in 1993, Mr. "B" called Tuck a brother he never had, as Mr. "B" would say, Tuck was his right tonsil.
Bobby was more like part of the Eckstine family.
Tucker died of a heart attack at the age of 84, on April 12, 2007.