Taco scored his one and only pop hit in 1982 with a faithful rendition of the Irving Berlin chestnut "Puttin' on the Ritz." Born Taco Ockerse in Jakarta, Indonesia on July 21, 1955, he recorded "Ritz" in Germany in 1981; a year later, the song (originally popularized by Fred Astaire) hit the upper reaches of the U.S. pop charts, accompanied by a video depicting the singer decked out in a bow-tie-and-tails ensemble emblematic of the Depression-era movie musicals his image strived to emulate.