THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Graham Parker should need no introduction. But on the lead track to his new album Last Chance To Learn The Twist, he provides one anyway.
“They tried to eliminate it / Good luck with that! / They pushed it underground but it just grew back,” Parker sings with inimitably soulful grit. “It just grew stronger with every iteration… the music of the Devil was our salvation.” He’s singing, of course, of the artform of which he’s an widely recognized as a master: Rock ’n’ roll. But it serves equally well as a summation of his career: For over 40 years, Parker has been slinging his signature sound, earning a spot in the pantheon of infuential rock originals. Always a critic’s darling, uniquely and equally beloved by anglophiles and connoisseurs of Americana alike, Parker remains a true original and a vital artist — no small achievement from an artist whose discography includes the undisputed classic Squeezing Out Sparks and his essential run of early albums backed by The Rumour.
Parker burst onto the British music scene in the mid-’70s at a pivotal moment. The prior wave of bands had become bogged down in various forms of excess, and punk rock had yet to emerge with its unrefined rage. As a young songwriter, Parker had something diferent from either extreme in mind, and in early 1975, having no idea how to break into the music business, Parker put an ad in the Melody Maker looking for musicians to support him on the tunes he was developing. This led to a connection with Dave Robinson, a man with some experience in managing bands, who was suitably impressed and brought some musicians into his demo studio in Islington to back him on a few songs.
Before the nascent group had played so much as a note together, Parker had, with Robinson’s aid, secured a major record deal with Phonogram Records. Rehearsals continued with the band that would become The Rumour: Parker had seen the name Brinsley Schwarz in the Melody Maker gig guide and imagined that with a name like that, they must surely be a German heavy metal band. During those frst rehearsals, Robinson brought a “tall, bird-nosed fellow,” as Parker described him, to the sessions and said that he would produce their frst LP. His name was Nick Lowe, the bass player in the aforementioned “German heavy metal band.” Two other members, eponymous guitarist Brinsley Schwarz and keyboardist Bob Andrews, would become core members of The Rumour. That first Lowe-produced LP, Howlin’ Wind, was recorded in London in late 1975 and released in April 1976 to widespread critical acclaim.
Things moved quickly after that. The debut was followed in the same year by Heat Treatment and a hit EP, The Pink Parker, released on pink vinyl. By the dawn of the punk era, Parker was roundly celebrated for coupling literate intelligence and a deep understanding of rock’s roots with the roaring energy of the new sound, and The Rumour had evolved into a legendarily explosive and empathetic vehicle for Graham’s sophisticated, emotive material. Working with legendary producer Jack Nitzsche, Parker cemented his reputation with Squeezing Out Sparks, which has remained enshrined in lists of the all-time greatest albums of the rock era ever since. But for all the accolades, Parker was still just getting started.
Throughout the following decade, Parker would garner critical and chart success in the U.S. and U.K. with albums including 1980’s Jimmy Iovine-produced The Up Escalator, 1982’s Another Grey Area, and 1988’s praised The Mona Lisa’s Sister, on which he was backed by veterans of The Rumour and Elvis Costello’s Attractions. Graham’s ’80s records stood apart from the slick and synthetic output of his New Wave contemporaries, imbued with his deeply rooted love of R&B, country, and soul music and trademark wit. By the ’90s, Parker could be counted as a rare Brit among the upper echelons of singer-songwriters revitalizing the Americana idiom: think Tom Waits, John Hiatt and Bruce Springsteen (who’d guested on The Up Escalator).
In the 21st century, Parker has turned polymath. Long admired for his lyrical sophistication, the songwriter has made the leap to literature with the short story collection Carp Fishing On Valium and the novel The Other Life of Brian (recently republished under its original title The Tylacine’s Lair). Likewise unsurprising given the man’s onstage charm and facility with character sketches, he’s shown up onscreen as an actor, often in collaboration with writer/director/producer Judd Apatow. Far from distracting from Parker’s musical work, these multidisciplinary excursions have, if anything, reignited his drive as a songwriter and performer. His turn as himself in Apatow’s 2012 flm This Is Forty dovetailed with the miraculous reformation of The Rumour, which yielded two albums — Three Chords Good and Mystery Glue.
The reformed band would again dissipate, but Parker’s ambitions and creative drive remained undimmed. Amid celebrations for the 40th anniversary of Squeezing Out Sparks, Graham has been crafting new material and pursuing a new direction. It was frst heard on his 2018 album Cloud Symbols, introducing the new backing band The Goldtops and highlighted by the return of the horn-sweetened arrangements present on much of his classic work. On the other side of an uncharacteristic break from the road in deference to the global pandemic, Parker has delivered an eclectic, refective stew of soul, rock and blues bursting with tasty, rootsy grooves and shot through with (as one song title has it) Wicked Wit in his classic style.”
