Tucker Zimmerman, the American musician who recruited his folk successors Big Thief to collaborate on his 2024 album Dance Of Love, died in a house fire at his home in Belgium on Saturday morning (January 17). He was 85. Local news reports that his wife of over 50 years, Marie-Claire Lambert, also died in the fire.
Zimmerman and Lambert's neighbor reportedly alerted emergency services about a fire at their house in Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse, Belgium, shortly after 8:00 a.m. Saturday. By the time services arrived, the building was already engulfed in flames; a medical examiner and forensic scientist later determined that Zimmerman and Lambert died of asphyxiation, and the fire is being treated as accidental.
Brian Tucker Zimmerman was born on February 14, 1941, and was raised in rural Northern California. As a young child, he learned the violin, and by his early 20s, he'd moved to Rome to study composition. Outside of his studies, he began playing in a number of rock and jazz groups. In 1968 Zimmerman recorded and released Ten Songs, his first album in what would become an extensive discography. Ten Songs was produced by frequent David Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti, and Bowie himself would declare Ten Songs one of his all-time favorite albums. Around the same time, he moved to Belgium, and became well-known around Europe for his frequent live performances.
Zimmerman stepped away from solo music and performing around the mid-'80s, spending the following decade pursuing traditional musical composition, fiction writing, and poetry. He returned to songwriting with 2003's Walking On The Edge Of The Blues by his band the Nightshift Trio, which included bassist Jeff Van Gool and Zimmerman's son Quanah on guitar. 2024 would be a particularly prolific year for Zimmerman, releasing three studio albums with his Tucker Zimmerman Trio, the solo I Wonder If I'll Ever Come True, and the 4AD-released Dance Of Love, the latter of which included Zimmerman superfans Big Thief as his backing band and producers. (Dance Of Love also featured guest vocals from Zimmerman's wife.) Zimmerman's final release was last July's Music By River Words By Ear.
Revisit some of Zimmerman's catalog below.
