Graham Parker discovered America in 1976, though it took us Yanks considerably longer to return the favor. His first two albums, Howlin’ Wind and Heat Treatment, were fiery meldings of Van Morrison’s Celtic soul and the Rolling Stones’ loose-limbed white boy blues. Released when disco was a major force and punk was poised to explode, Howlin’ Wind and Heat Treatment were timeless, if not especially timely.
Unjustly pigeonholed with contemporaries Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson, Parker was dubbed an “angry young man.” In reality, he possessed a sensitive side that he didn’t always keep hidden—“You Can’t Be Too Strong,” for example, from his 1979 masterpiece Squeezing Out Sparks, remains to this day the single most emotionally wrenching account of abortion from the male perspective.
Through a series of missteps, misunderstandings and miscalculations, however, Parker never achieved the same level of commercial success as did Costello. Following Sparks, he had a hard time consistently achieving the greatness that was clearly within his grasp.
Now, more than three decades into his career, Parker has released Don’t Tell Columbus, his third consecutive home run for Bloodshot Records, following on the heels of 2004’s Your Country and 2005’s Songs of No Consequence.
Columbus is breathtaking in its brilliance, and worthy of comparison to his aforementioned first two LPs. The songs are solid, the performances sublime, and the overall sound perfectly suited to both the singer and the material.
To what does Parker ascribe this burst of late career creativity? “I don’t know how it’s happened,” he confesses. “I’m just writing really, really strong songs now, as strong as I ever will, I think.”
Though certainly no one accuses Parker of being a young man anymore, there’s still a substantial fire burning in his middle-aged belly. On Columbus, he addresses such issues as celebrity (“England’s Latest Clown”), political correctness (“Ambiguous”), overdevelopment (“The Other Side of the Reservoir”) and the tragically inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina (“Stick to the Plan.”) The current administration in particular draws his ire.
“I love this country and its people so much,” he says. “But what baffles me is not that the [2000] election was stolen like in a third-world country. I’m surprised that anybody would vote for George Bush in the first place. With the first words that come out of his mouth you know he’s not quite there. This is all wrong—it’s like The Twilight Zone.”
Yet he remains optimistic for the country’s future. “As I sing in ‘Hard Side of the Rain’ ‘Nothing lasts forever/It might seem that way/But there’s a brand new day.’ This can’t go on—you gotta win some.”
“But it’s going to be hard digging out of this hole—the rest of the world’s attention span is a little longer. They’re not gonna forget this period as easily as Americans are.”
He has seen significant changes in the music industry in his three decades plus in the business. Though his conflicts with record companies throughout his career are legendary (“The company is crippling me/The worst trying to ruin the best” he sang in 1979’s “Mercury Poisoning”), Parker is surprisingly nostalgic for the past. “There’s much less money now. When you had a record deal, that was great, quite frankly. I miss the old days when I would sign with a major label and know that I was on for four albums. That’s just out of the question now.”
If the music business has taken a turn for the worse, Parker’s considerable skills most certainly have not. “People hear me live and say ‘You sound just like you always did.’ No, I don’t. If you want to think that, fine. But I don’t go out and scream now. I sing with nuance and subtlety, and all kinds of things are going on in my voice that were never there before.”
If he could, what advice would the latter-day Parker offer the 25 year-old recording Howlin’ Wind back in 1975? “I would give no advice,” he chuckles, “because I never took any. People would offer me advice and I’d think none of this is relevant, none of this should effect what I do. I’m a lone wolf, and I’ll do it my way.”
Parker is currently touring the country, full band in tow, in support of Don’t Tell Columbus. “It’s such a pain in the ass putting together a band tour,” he concedes. “I always think ‘this is the last time, I’ve had it with this!’ So come out and support me, and I’ll want to come do it again.”
~ Rick Schadelbauer
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GRAHAM PARKER's Don't Tell Columbus album is out now on Bloodshot Records
http://www.grahamparker.net
http://www.bloodshotrecords.com
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