Tommy Tutone still has rock music's number, and he's happy to use it

While Tommy Tutone is best known for his 1980s pop hit "867-5309/Jenny," his heart lies with rockabilly, soul and country.

He's written new music that incorporates all three genres and he's eager to play it at the Sierra View Music Fest in Oakdale on Saturday.

"I always wrote those kind of songs and they always threw them all away," he said in a phone interview. "Now I'm pushing all kinds of songs out of me, now that I'm in control."

Of course, he's still planning to play his big hit, too. "I'm going to play the hell out of it," he said

Born Tommy Heath, the 63-year-old singer was an Air Force "brat" who grew up in Philadelphia, Texas and Montana before heading to San Francisco during the Summer of Love to be a hippie.

He soaked up the music scene and put together a band with Jim Keller in the late 1970s, naming it Tommy Tutone after his longtime nickname. Their first single, "Angel Say No," made a splash on the radio in the summer of 1980, but it was "867-5309/Jenny" that the band is remembered for.

The novelty song is about a man finding a woman's number on the bathroom wall and trying unsuccessfully to meet her. The number soon became a popular one to try for prank calls all over North America.

In a report last year, NPR found that the practice persists to this day. Some women also use the number to get rid of men. One man who had the number in the Midwest said he got calls from jilted men who thought they were calling a woman they had just met.

The original Tommy Tutone band folded not long after the success of "Jenny," and Heath ended up in Portland, Ore., working as a computer programmer. Music was relegated to a weekend and summer affair as he concentrated on raising his children.

"If you've never done anything normal, normal becomes exotic," he said. "To me, settling down for a while was something I needed to do, but I'm over it."

He quit the computer job in 2005, delved back into music and now lives in Nashville. He loves recording music and exploring his creative potential.

"There's a real roots side to me even though I'm a pop singer," he said.

He feels vibrant and has a lot of projects left in him. He is expecting to live a long life, as his father is still doing well at age 93 and his mother just died at age 92.

"I'm getting better looking every day," he said.

This story was originally published August 12, 2010 at 8:29 PM with the headline "Tommy Tutone still has rock music's number, and he's happy to use it."