Graham Parker playing at Brit's Pub in Minneapolis, Minnesota . Photo: July 13, 2003.

Graham Parker (born November 18, 1950 in London) is an English rock singer and songwriter. Image File history File links Graham_parker_by_Steve_Bachman. ... Nickname: City of Lakes Motto: En Avant Location in Hennepin County and the state of Minnesota. ... November 18 is the 322nd day of the year (323rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ... Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... Ercole de Roberti: Concert, c. ... A songwriter is someone who writes the lyrics to songs, the musical composition or melody to songs, or both. ...

Life and career

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Graham Parker sang in small-time English bands such as the Black Rockers and Deep Cut Three while working in dead-end jobs like a glove factory and a petrol station. In 1975, he recorded a few demo tracks in London with Dave Robinson, who would shortly found Stiff Records and who connected Parker with his first backing band of note. Modern filling station, Preem in Karlskrona, Sweden An Ampol station in Australia in the late 1940s. ... A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. ... The Stiff Records record label was created in London in 1976, at the outset of the punk boom by entrepreneurs Dave Robinson and Andrew Jakeman (aka Jake Riviera). ...

Graham Parker and the Rumour (Brinsley Schwarz and Martin Belmont on guitar, Bob Andrews on keyboards, Andrew Bodnar on bass and Steve Goulding on drums) formed in the summer of 1975 and began doing the rounds of the British pub rock scene. Their first album, Howlin' Wind, was released to acclaim in 1976 and rapidly followed by the stylistically similar Heat Treatment. A mixture of rock, ballads, and reggae-influenced numbers, these albums reflected Parker's early influences (Motown, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan,Van Morrison) and contained the songs which formed the core of Parker's live shows -- "White Honey", "Soul Shoes", "Lady Doctor", "Fool's Gold", and his early signature tune "Don't Ask Me Questions", which hit the top 40 in the UK. Parker and the Rumour built a reputation as incendiary live performers: the promotional album Live at Marble Arch was recorded at this time and shows off their raw onstage style. Like the pub rock scene he was loosely tied to, the singer's class-conscious lyrics and passionate vocals signaled a renewal of rock music as punk rock began to flower in Britain. Brinsley Schwarz English guitarist and rock musician. ... An album is a collection of related audio tracks distributed to the public. ... Debut album by Graham Parker, released in 1976 to critical acclaim. ... Heat Treatment is a technique used to alter the physical (and sometimes chemical) properties of a material. ... Motown Records, Inc. ... Rolling Stones redirects here. ... Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, author, musician, and poet who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. ... who this nigga ... Pub rock was a mid- to late-1970s musical movement, largely centred around North London and South East Essex, particularly Canvey Island and Southend on Sea. ... Class consciousness is a category of Marxist theory, referring to the self-awareness of a social class, its capacity to act in its own rational interests, or measuring the extent to which an individual is conscious of the historical tasks their class (or class allegiance) sets for them. ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ...

Graham Parker & the Rumour, probably 1976.

Parker preceded the other "new wave" English singer-songwriters, Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson. Early in his career his work was often compared favorably to theirs, and for decades journalists would continue to categorize them together, long after the artists' work had diverged. Characteristically, Parker would not hesitate to criticize this habit with caustic wit. Image File history File links Graham_parker_and_the_rumour. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Declan Patrick MacManus (born August 25, 1954, in London), better known by his stage name, Elvis Costello, is an English musician, singer, and songwriter of Irish ancestry. ... Joe Jackson (born August 11, 1954 in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, as David Ian Jackson) is an English musician and singer/songwriter probably best-known for the 1979 hit song Is She Really Going Out With Him?, which still gets extensive FM radio airplay, and for his 1982 hit, Steppin...

The first 2 albums' critical acclaim was generally not matched with LP sales. Graham Parker and the Rumour appeared on BBC television's Top of the Pops in 1976, performing their top 30 hit version of The Trammps' "Hold Back the Night". The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour as a 33 ⅓ LP vinyl record A gramophone record (also phonograph record, or simply record) is an analogue sound recording medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed modulated spiral groove starting near the periphery and ending near the center of the disc. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is one of the largest broadcasting corporations in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of more than £4 billion. ... Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a long-running British music chart television programme, made and broadcast by the BBC. It was originally shown each week, mostly on BBC One, from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. ... The Trammps, based in Philadelphia, were one of the first disco bands. ...

At this point, Parker began to change his songwriting style, reflecting his desire to break into the American market. The first fruits of this new direction appeared on Stick To Me (1977). The album broke the top 20 on the UK charts but divided critical opinions, particularly with numbers like "The Heat in Harlem" -- the band's longest song at the time. Nick Lowe's production also came under fire: some critics complained that the band sounded thin and Parker's voice was mixed down, when in fact a studio mishap had compromised the original recordings and forced the group to remake the album on short notice. An official live album The Parkerilla, issued in 1978, showed that the Rumour's vibrant live style remained strong, though some critics saw Parker in a holding pattern 2 years after Heat Treatment. It was a crucial juncture for the young musician. Stick to Me is the title of the third album by rock and roll singer-songwriter Graham Parker and his first group, the Rumour. ... Bowi EP sleeve (1977). ...

Parker had long been dissatisfied with the performance of his US record company, Mercury Records, finally issuing in the 1979 single "Mercury Poisoning", a public kiss-off reminiscent of the Sex Pistols' "EMI". Mercury Records was a record label founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1945 by Irving Green, Berle Adams and Arthur Talmadge. ... The Sex Pistols were an iconic and highly influential English punk rock band, formed in London in 1975. ...

Energized by his new label, Arista, and the presence of legendary producer Jack Nitzsche, Parker followed with Squeezing Out Sparks, widely held to be the best album of his career. For this album, The Rumour's brass section, prominent on all previous albums, was jettisoned, resulting in a spare, intense rock backing for some of Parker's most brilliant songs. Of particular note was "You Can't Be Too Strong", one of rock music's rare songs to confront the topic of abortion, however ambivalently. Bernard Alfred (Jack) Nitzsche (Chicago, April 22, 1937 – Hollywood, August 25, 2000) was an integral presence in the history of popular music in the 20th century. ... Squeezing Out Sparks is a 1979 album by Graham Parker. ...

Squeezing Out Sparks (1979) is Graham Parker's most acclaimed album.

Squeezing out Sparks is still ranked by fans and critics alike as one of the finest rock albums ever made. Rolling Stone named it #335 [1] on their 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In an early 1987 Rolling Stone list of their top 100 albums from 1967-1987, Squeezing Out Sparks was ranked at #45, while Howlin' Wind came in at #54 [2]. The companion live album Live Sparks, sent to US radio stations as part of a concerted promotional campaign for Parker, showed how well the songs worked on stage, and included another snapping r&b cover, the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back". Image File history File links Squeezing_out_sparks_cover. ... This article is about the magazine. ... In 2003, Rolling Stone published an article describing what it considered to be the top 500 music albums of all time. ... The cover to the Jackson 5s first LP, Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5, released on Motown Records in 1969. ... I Want You Back is a 1969 #1 hit single recorded by The Jackson 5 for the Motown label. ...

Although marginally less intense than its predecessor, 1980's The Up Escalator was Parker's highest-charting album in the UK and featured glossy production by Jimmy Iovine and guest vocals from Bruce Springsteen. Nevertheless it was Parker's last album with the Rumour, although guitarist Brinsley Schwarz would join most of the singer's albums through the decade's end. Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. ...

The 1980s were Parker's most commercially successful years, with well-financed recordings and radio and video play. Over the decade, the British press turned unkind to him, but he continued to tour the world with top backing bands, and his 1985 release Steady Nerves included his only US Top 40 hit, "Wake Up (Next to You)". The singer began living mostly in the United States during this time.

An uncompromising attitude toward his music ensured that Parker would clash with the changing priorities of the major label music business, and the label changes came quickly after the mid-1980s. This situation partly accounts for the remarkable number of compilation albums in Graham Parker's discography. Particularly unproductive was Parker's tenure at Atlantic Records, where he has said he was told to collaborate with other songwriters and to focus on "a big drum sound." Instead, Parker ended the deal and signed to RCA Records. He began producing his own recordings and stripping down his sound with The Mona Lisa's Sister, a success in the new "modern rock" format. The groundbreaking work gained the singer renewed critical attention for his followup albums. The following is a partial list of record labels, both past and present. ... A compilation album is a musical album featuring songs or tunes with some common characteristics. ... Atlantic Records (Atlantic Recording Corporation) is an American record label, and operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Warner Music Group. ... RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony BMG Music Entertainment. ... The Mona Lisas Sister is a 1988 album by Graham Parker. ... Modern rock or Nu-breed is term commonly used to describe a rock music format found on American commercial radio. ...

After the movingly personal 12 Haunted Episodes, his first release on an independent record label, Parker grew quiet in the late 1990s, but began an extraordinarily active period in 2001, with the UK rerelease of his early Rumour work, and with Deepcut to Nowhere, a penetrating collection of new songs that seemed intended to reflect comprehensively on the singer's life and aims. An independent record label is variously described as a record label operating without the funding (or outside the organizations) of the major record labels, and/or a label that subscribes to indie philosophies such as DIY and anti-corporate art. ...

The new work continued with 2004's Your Country, which was released on Chicago-based indie Bloodshot Records and, while presented as a flirtation with country music, had only marginally rootsier sound than Parker's norm. Following in 2005 was Songs Of No Consequence, an uptempo rock and roll collection quickly recorded with sometime backing band, the Figgs. A show from the ensuing tour with the Figgs broadcasted on FM radio became a live album in 2006. In March of 2007, a new full-length, Don't Tell Columbus is due, marking Parker's fourth album in three years. Bloodshot Records, 3039 W. Irving Park Rd. ... This article includes a list of works cited but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ... The Figgs are a rock band out of Saratoga Springs, New York. ... FM radio is a broadcast technology invented by Edwin Howard Armstrong that uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. ...

In addition to his records, Parker published an illustrated science fiction novella, The Great Trouser Mystery in 1980. He published a set of short stories, Carp Fishing on Valium, in June 2000. His third book, a novel, The Other Life of Brian, appeared in September 2003. Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...

Discography

Graham Parker & The Rumour

• Howlin' Wind (1976)
• Heat Treatment (1976)
• The Pink Parker EP (1977)
• Stick To Me (1977)
• The Parkerilla (1978)
• Squeezing Out Sparks (1979)
• The Up Escalator (1980)

Graham Parker Debut album by Graham Parker, released in 1976 to critical acclaim. ... Heat Treatment is a technique used to alter the physical (and sometimes chemical) properties of a material. ... Stick to Me is the title of the third album by rock and roll singer-songwriter Graham Parker and his first group, the Rumour. ... Squeezing Out Sparks is a 1979 album by Graham Parker. ...

• Another Grey Area, 1982
• The Real Macaw, 1983

Graham Parker & The Shot

• Steady Nerves, 1985

Graham Parker

• The Mona Lisa's Sister, 1988
• Human Soul, 1989
• Struck by Lightning, 1991
• Burning Questions, 1992
• Graham Parker's Christmas Cracker EP, 1994
• 12 Haunted Episodes, 1995
• Acid Bubblegum, 1996
• Loose Monkeys (outtakes), 1999
• That's When You Know (1976 demos + Live at Marble Arch), 2001
• Deepcut To Nowhere, 2001
• Your Country, 2004
• Songs of No Consequence, 2005
• Don't Tell Columbus, 2007

The Mona Lisas Sister is a 1988 album by Graham Parker. ...

Live

Graham Parker & The Rumour

• Live at Marble Arch, 1976
• The Parkerilla, 1978
• Live Sparks, 1979

Graham Parker

• Live! Alone in America, 1989
• Live Alone! Discovering Japan, 1993
• Live from New York, 1996
• BBC Live in Concert (compilation 1977-91), 1996
• The Last Rock and Roll Tour, 1997 (with the Figgs as his backup band)
• Not If It Pleases Me (BBC sessions 1976-77), 1998
• King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents Graham Parker (live 1983), 2003
• Live Cuts From Somewhere, 2003 (with the Figgs as his backup band)
• !Live Alone: The Bastard of Belgium, 2005
• Yer Cowboy Boot, 2005
• 103 Degrees in June, 2006 (with the Figgs as his backup band)

The Figgs are a rock band out of Saratoga Springs, New York. ... The Figgs are a rock band out of Saratoga Springs, New York. ... The Figgs are a rock band out of Saratoga Springs, New York. ...

Compilations

• The Best of Graham Parker and the Rumour 1980
• Look Back in Anger: Classic Performances, 1982
• It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing, 1984
• Pourin' It All Out: The Mercury Years, 1986
• The Best of Graham Parker 1988-1991, 1992
• Passion Is No Ordinary Word: The Graham Parker Anthology 1993
• No Holding Back, 1996
• Vertigo Compilation
• Temporary Beauty, 1997
• Stiffs & Demons
• Master Hits, 1999
• The Ultimate Collection
• You Can't Be Too Strong: An Introduction to Graham Parker and the Rumour, 2001
• The Official Art Vandelay Tapes, 2003
• A Fair Forgery of Pink Floyd, 2003 (Graham Parker performs Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb)
• The Official Art Vandelay Tapes Vol 2, 2005

Pink Floyd are an English rock band that earned recognition for its psychedelic rock music, and, as they evolved, for their avant-garde progressive rock music. ... Music sample: Pink Floyd Comfortably Numb (1979) ( file info) — 30 second sample of Comfortably Numb from the album The Wall (1979). ...

Singles

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. ... The Modern Rock Tracks chart is a music chart that has appeared in Billboard magazine since the early 1980s. ... The Mainstream Rock Tracks chart is a ranking in Billboard magazine of the most-played songs on mainstream rock radio stations, a category that includes stations that play primarily rock music but are not modern rock stations, which are counted in the Modern Rock Tracks chart. ... See also: other events of 1985 Musical groups established in 1985 Record labels established in 1985 list of years in music 1980s in music // January 28 - Various artists, including Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Cyndi Lauper, Steve Perry, Kenny Loggins, Willie Nelson, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson, Kenny... See also: 1987 in music, other events of 1988, 1989 in music, 1980s in music and the list of years in music // Events Peter Ruzicka becomes director of the Hamburg State Opera and State Philharmonic Orchestra. ... See also: 1989 in music (UK) Musical groups established in 1989 Record labels established in 1989 other events of 1989 list of years in music 1980s in music // January 5 - Madonna files for divorce from Sean Penn after three-and-a-half years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences. ...

References

• Guinness Book of British Hit Singles - 16th Edition - ISBN 0-85112-190-X
• Guinness Book of British Hit Albums - 7th Edition - ISBN 0-85112-619-7
• Guinness Rockopedia - ISBN 0-85112-072-5
• The Great Rock Discography - 5th Edition - ISBN 1-84195-017-3

The cover of the 1989 7th edition of the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles Guinness World Records - British Hit Singles & Albums is a music reference book, published in the United Kingdom, by Hit Entertainment, the company that owns such childrens entertainment brands as Bob the Builder and Thomas...

External links

• Official website
• Graham Parker
• Struck By Lightning: discography, gigography, bibliography, and more
• The Parkertorium
• Biography at AMG website