Tom Hooker is an American singer, songwriter and photographer born in Connecticut on 18 November, 1957. After moving to Europe at an early age, started playing drums at 10. He built his career in Italy as a solo artist and the voice of the Den Harrow project. Hooker moved back to the USA in 1994 and currently lives in Las Vegas.
Tom Hooker used a variant of his real name, Hooker Thomas Beecher, as alias for songwriting.
Please consider that alias plus the matching ANV for the cases, where the credit ends with 'Beecher'. Use this profile, if the credit ends with 'Hooker'.
His first single Flip Over released on Harmony in 1980 and in 1981 he participated in San Remo Festival with a song in Italian. In 1985 Hooker met the arrangers/producers Roberto Turatti and Miki Chieregato from the Den Harrow project (fronted by Stefano Zandri), for which Hooker wrote the lyrics to and sang Future Brain (and other songs the next three years). The same year Hooker was signed for Merak Music. With the success of Future Brain, Freddy Naggiar, Baby Records (2)’s owner bought his contract from Merak and released Den Harrow’s album and Hooker’s solo single Looking for Love. Hooker co-wrote and sang all the songs on Den Harrow’s second LP, as well as doing the demos for the third album (English singer Anthony James recorded the final versions). After the success of “Looking for Love”, Franco Donato released an unauthorized album under Hooker’s name, containing his three year old demos. These were recorded while Hooker was signed to Donato’s label Full Time Records.
Other works include:
- starring in Jocks in 1983, a movie with Russell Russell - co-wroting U.S.S.R. for Eddy Huntington and Boom Boom, Let's Go Back To My Room for Paul Lekakis, both international hits
- co-writing and singing for Elastic Band, a group made up of Hooker and the Visnadi brothers
After moving back to the US in 1994, Hooker married and legally changed his name to Thomas Barbey in 1995, taking his mother’s maiden name. About 15 years later, after getting involved in a personal conflict with Stefano Zandri, Hooker announced in a 2010 video, with Den Harrow producer Chieregato sitting next to him, that he was the real singer of the Den Harrow project. Hooker and Chieregato have since worked together on several releases and projects, including the Den Harrow parody Tam Harrow.
