PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — If you ask Bertie Higgins what it was like to have a hit single in the Nineteen Eighties, he’ll reply with one phrase: “Amazing.”
Higgins lived that “amazing” second virtually 45 years in the past. In 1981, he launched the music “Key Largo,” impressed by the 1948 film starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Higgins wrote it as a romantic ode, a tribute to a girl named Beverly who is still his spouse right this moment.
“Bev and I were in the rushes of young love,” Higgins said.
Higgins said the lyric from the music that made him think of Bev was, “We had it all — like Bogey and Bacall,” one of the most well-known strains from the music.
That music peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1982, while also briefly topping the Adult Contemporary chart.
It was a success story for a musician born in the Bay space. Higgins had grown up in Tarpon Springs, attending Tarpon Springs High School and St. Petersburg College. He also briefly labored as a sponge diver in Tarpon Springs.
But after his teenage years, Higgins said it grew to become clear that his future and his ardour lay in music.
“You’re in the music business,” he recollects saying to himself. “And that’s when I jumped — and I haven’t quit since.”
After the success of “Key Largo,” Higgins continued placing out music and touring around the world, even growing a devoted following in Asia.
But he failed to attain the Billboard charts for more than 40 years, until this 12 months.
In 2026, Higgins launched “A River,” another romantic music with hyperlinks to a basic film. Higgins was impressed by a line from “Lawrence of Arabia,” when the character Auda Abu Tayi (performed by Anthony Quinn) says, “I am poor because I am a river to my people.”
“I have nothing — I’m a river to my people,” Higgins said, explaining the line in the film. “And that’s when I said her love flows into my heart like a river, and that’s when I wrote the song.”
The music debuted at No. 29 on the Adult Contemporary charts in August, marking a return to the charts for the 81-year-old Higgins.
“Every now and then, I’ll go, ‘Can I still write? Can I still write a decent song?’ And I’ll panic for at least an hour or so, and then ‘bump bump bump’,” Higgins said, describing his writing course of in his early ’80s.
And while “A River” is getting radio airplay, Higgins is promising more songs to come. At 81, he said he is hoping his return to the charts this 12 months is only the starting.
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