July 21

Today's the birthday of international singing sensation Taco. It's not a nickname; seriously, his momma named him Taco Ockrese. He was born to Dutch parents in Jakarta, Indonesia, but I can't find the word 'taco' in either Dutch or Indonesian dictionaries. Was she rushed and did she just put two sounds together for the birth certificate? Was she really hungry when he was born? For now, the origins of his name remains a mystery to me (although I find myself saying 'Taco Ockrese' and thinking of big bad masterminds in Van Damme movies...)

Taco is, and will always be, known for one global hit:

But you know this blog's mission, and we wouldn't be talking about the man if he wasn't so much more, and he is so much more...
Before his pop music career blast, he had a well-stocked stage resume, culminating with a lead role in a Hamburg production of "West Side Story." "Puttin' On the Ritz" may be The Song that the world remembers, but he had several other showtunes sprinkled in his "After 8" album, including "Cheek to Cheek", "La Vie En Rose", and "Singing in the Rain":


Two years later, the world was ready to move on, and Taco tried as well. Here, he performs "Superphysical Resurrection", a single from his 1984 follow-up album. Notice the increase in hair volume...

The song wouldn't sound out of place alongside Go West or ABC, but it didn't click; the next year, he had another album of swing standards. By now, the song's begun to follow him around like Poe's Raven:

Here's a performance from the late 80's, where he's covering a 50's tune. Two items of note: the show host's intro riff, and Taco's developing mullet:

By this point, he was concentrating his efforts in Germany, finding success on stage and on German TV screens throughout the 90's. He was releasing new songs in the 90's, too, in the Stock/Aiken/Waterman vein.
In the millenium, he began releasing his renditions of rock and soul classics, likely emboldened by his two-year run in Berlin's hit stage show "Shakespeare Rock n Roll." Currently, he still performs the all-time classics on the casino circuit- including, of course, the standard that he made his own...

If you're going to have a one-hite wonder, you might as well have one that defines 'class'...