Rocker Graham Parker To Pour It All Out At Upcoming Gigs

By John Roos

Veteran British rocker Graham Parker has carved out a decades-spanning career with songs, such as “Mercury Poisoning,” “Soul Corruption,” “Snake Oil Capital of the World,” and “Empty Lives,” that hit their targets hard. In fact, the aptly-titled 1996 tribute album “Piss & Vinegar, the Songs of Graham Parker,” paid homage to the influence Parker has had over the years on scores of indie rock bands.

On his latest, pre-COVID release, 2018’s “Cloud Symbols,” the now Woodstock, New York-based Parker has created a masterpiece. This soulful collection features more complex, personal themes and is driven musically by the rhythm-and-horn Rumour Brass that dares you not to dance, or at least tap your toes. Ending the album is the tender “Love Comes,” which was featured in a Judd Apatow-directed episode of the Pete Holmes created HBO show, “Crashing.”

Has our snarling, barb-slinging singer-songwriter gone soft on us?

Hardly.

During a recent phone interview from a tour stop in Chicago, Parker sneered at that very thought.

“Have you heard my new song, “Nixon’s Rules,” asked Parker? “I still get angry. It’s my only protest song on a specific subject, and that is Nixon’s failed war on drugs speech. My aim now is at England, (Parker maintains a second residence in London) where we still are abiding by the Nixon rules so we’re the cocaine capital of the world. We are stuck in Nixon’s rules. Go to https://youtu.be/THDumXOWP_o for a look and listen to “Nixon’s Rules,” which includes Parker’s daughter Natalie Parker on bass, her boyfriend Zack Kerr on drums, and guitarist Wreckless Eric, who wrote and recorded the classic 1977 hit “Whole Wide World.”

Parker is more versatile and nuanced than ever before as “Cloud Symbols” takes several listens before pulling you in for the ride. Self-described by Parker as soul-swing music for intelligent people, he is backed by the Goldtops (Martin Belmont, Geraint Watkins, Simon Edwards and Roy Dodds, plus the Rumour Brass on six of the tracks.) The songs flow with the playful ease of a river with highlights ranging from the lamenting “What Happens When Her Beauty Fades?” and the playful “Dreamin’” to the wistful, nostalgic “Maida Hill” and the New Orleans R&B-sounding “Bathtub Gin.”

“I’ve been doing live vocal takes since really “The Mona Lisa’s Sister” album (1988) because recordings can get overproduced so I like to keep it as natural as it comes without a bunch of post-production work,” explained Parker, who turns 71 next month. “With this band, it felt so right to capture pretty much everything as we went. I think the best music needs really three things: a singer, acoustic guitar and the song.”

Parker first gained widespread critical recognition and modest commercial success here in the U.S. with the 1979 release of “Squeezing Out Sparks,” a seminal collection of heartfelt, sometimes blistering rock that fit neatly under New Wave with the likes of Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, Talking Heads and the Police. Sparks has gem after gem with some of Parker’s most incisive lyrics, including these from the brilliant “Passion is No Ordinary Word:”

It worked much better in a fantasy

Imagination's one thing that comes easy to me

'Cause this is nothing else if not unreal

When I pretend to touch you, you pretend to feel

Passion is no ordinary word

Parker’s music draws from a plethora of diverse influences, including soul, reggae, the early, blues-based records of the Rolling Stones, and the folk-rock storytelling of Bob Dylan, John Prine, and Van Morrison, among others. To date, Parker has released 24 studio albums on numerous labels without achieving nor seeking stardom and fame. To do so would be to miss the point.

“The idea is to be a creative musician, not a hit-maker,” he insists. “After the Sparks album, the Rumour and I did “Up the Escalator” with all the big production, touring, press and so on to the point where I felt like a hamster on a wheel. Commercially, that album did surprisingly better than Sparks but it never felt right and was exhausting.”

Parker continues to record on his own terms and did reunite with the Rumour briefly back in 2012 for the “Three Chords Good” album and tour. He also toured several years ago as a duo with ex-Rumour guitarist Brinsley Schwarz. More often, though, Parker plays solo shows like the ones he’s doing now. Not beholden to any single recording or plugging a product, Parker instead respects the breadth of his catalog because, he says, it’s never let him down.

“I am comfortable now, and I do consider myself to be very fortunate to have this kind of life,” Parker mused. “I’m priced out of going on the road with a band so I play solo a lot these days. I’ve always felt myself to be a bit of a lone wolf. Will this make me a bigger act or sell more? I don’t really care. I do have an extremely loyal fan base that gets what I do. It’s a slower pace now for me but they know I’m not standing still.”

“My songs aren’t literally the truth but they can give people truths.”

*Graham Parker performs Friday at HopMonk Tavern, 224 Vintage Way, Novato; (415) 892-6299. 8 p.m. Sold-out. www.hopmonk.com/livemusic. Parker also plays Thursday at Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland; (510) 238-9200. 8 p.m. $36-$79. www.yoshis.com. COVID-19 restrictions apply at both venues.